I guess this really doesn't matter but times are tough, people are running out of unemployment and the ranks of homeless is growing. Our current Vietnam, and that is what Afghanistan is, is eating up every dollar we can borrow and some congressmen are thinking of sacrificing social security. This shouldn't bother me but while our president is having yet another vacation:

Wanna bet?



Figure that one out. I repeat it really doesn't matter but are these folks out of touch or what? Anyone there ever hear of appearances or about the straw that broke the camels back? How about that this is an election year?
link

Nice looking digs though.

Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Can you imagine the uproar from the Wrong Wing if this usurper... this cause for a "restoration of honor" had allowed the White House to go into a state of disrepair? This President, or more likely, the First Lady, took the bull by the horns and kept up appearances to all visitors, foreign and domestic to The White House... AND she did it with no tax dollars. I'm not sure why it was done with "no tax dollars", but fine. Allowing The White House to have dingy carpet to satisify "appearances"... especially to those who will criticize any move made anyway... is just plain silly.

You're right it doesn't. I am amazed and dismayed that in these "tough" times our political discourse consists largely of whining about such irrelevancies.

From Maureen Dowd this morning:



“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.”

It is so very, very bad out there and threatens to get so much worse. No one in this administration, especially the President, seems to realize that these little things count. link

I have always believed that the quote "Well, let them eat cake." was just a joke and that the French poor people over-reacted with the guillotine and all.

I think the country needs some signs that these folks in power get it. My personal fear is that these people, stupid as they may be in PR, are going to be thrown out and we are going to be thrown to the wolves.

The answer, which should be obvious to any poor home owner, is also in this article:

As the former White House curator Rex Scouten once told me, in the era from Taft to Truman, the green rug in the president’s office was changed only once, when it wore out, to a new green rug.

And think of all the televised Oval Office addresses between Taft and Truman.

A link to a slide show on Presidential Offices. I'm amazed at how spartan some of them were. Whether good appearances or not, I actually like Obama's re-do.

I love this articles punnishing title: The Audacity of Taupe

I wouldn't know if something is stylish or not. I just know if I like what I see or not. In this case I like what they did with the Oval Office.

Hmm. I actually liked GW's decorating better.

Obama: that coffee table stinks. I'm also not a fan of cushy couches in an office. If you're in the oval office, I want you sitting up and paying attention, not curled up with a comfy pillow.

I really don't understand why people get so upset when improvements are made to the White House, or to a City Hall or Courthouse for that matter. Those buildings belong to us. The White House does not belong to Barak and Michelle Obama. It belongs to us. They are merely tenants. Why would we want the White House and its furnishings to fall apart? What would that say to the rest of the world?

I really like Obama's rug. Reagan's, too. Not so much the dark ones with just a big, ugly seal in the middle.

I was disturbed to read that Eisenhower wore golf cleats in the office marring the floors. How rude is that?

Those who are unemployed and have lost all hope of ever being employed again want our president and all those Democrats that control this country to get back to work to get us back to work.

There is nothing wrong with fixing up the Oval Office. There is nothing wrong with Obama having his sixth vacation IF we are all working. From a PR view, both the above stink. Concentrate on getting us to work and forget all that other stuff.

My points are that the Democrats are enabling the Republicans to take back the House and perhaps Senate and in two more years the presidency. That is not good for this country and I am disappointed in this blown chance.

Fixing the Oval office is just a PR mistake, not a financial mistake.

I want the Dems to win in November. I want them to do the things necessary to win in November. Some of those things involve perceptions. But, even more require simply showing some balls and standing up to the stupidity of the low information voter drool that comes out of the Becks, Limbaughs, Hannitys, etc. One of them is "Obama takes too many vacations". It is simply not true.

From that bastion of liberalism and the lame stream media, Fact Check.org

According to one count, Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush spent more time on "vacation" during their first year than President Obama did. Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton spent less time on "vacation."

And, the money quote:

But no matter how much time a president actually spends away from the official residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Knoller says that the commander in chief is never really off the clock. "I have long held the view that a US president is never really on vacation," Knoller told FactCheck.org in an e-mail. "The job - and its awesome powers and responsibilities - is his wherever he is and whatever he’s doing."

On a political note, I could easily agree with you in that Obama should stop doing things the nutbars could use against him. But,they will always find something to use against him.

I could agree the Dems should do more of this or more of that. I'm not happy with everything that has been done and even more unhappy with some stuff not done. But, I sure as hell could not accept the alternative: John McCain? America barely survived the Bush/Cheney regime. She would have had trouble going backwards to McCain. AND, one hell of a lot has been done. The Dems are lousy PR folk.

I'm glad he is able to be the Commander-in-Chief... the Leader of the Free World... and still take some time every once in a while to run on the beach with his little girls or take his wife on a date. I think it's a good thing.

People are not working. These are exceptional times and we need to feel Obama is as anxios about it as we are. Exotic vacations are bad press to the unemployed. A year and a half later, what really has been done.

No matter who is in office during a hard recession, all effort has to be to get people to work. I personally did not get that impression nor, I am guessing here, do very many voters.

Health care is another tax, voters perceive. This occupied the full attention of the Democrats instead of jobs, voters perceive.

This administartion has blown it. The vacations and the redecoration do not set well with unemployed starving people.

And Democrats want the Republicans to stop gumming up the works with a record number of filibusters and private holds. Republicans are now talking about pulling a government shutdown, like they did in 15 years ago, during the Clinton administration.

The only people Republicans want to see back at work are the has-been hacks surviving on handouts from the Heritage Foundation and similar charities.

They never have. They never will. But, "no vacations or no redecoration" will not sit any better. Midterms and 2012 will be difficult unless the economy turns around. He could stay on vacation forever, and with a good economy and no 9/11 type attack and he's golden. Never leave the White House and work 23 hour days and a bad economy and/or a "9/11 type attack" and he and the Dems still in trouble.

In the big picture, I guess I agree with you. Peceptions matter because the Wrong Wing will throw it out to the low-info Beckopallooza voters. And, even though it's bull pucky, it sells.

We all do. That is why it seems so helpless right now and why incumbents are going to get thrown out in both camps. If these kids can't play well together, we will put some new ones in.

That is PR in a nutshell. You shape perceptions and right now the Republicans are winning and we are going to lose.

Well, I guess you could call it PR. I think it's propaganda. And, yeah, Republicans are better at it. Negative, scare tactics, unfortunately, appeal to the masses, even when there are no facts behind them.

I'm pretty disgusted at how lavish the latter ones were getting. An office is a place to conduct business. Lately everyone, even the RNC, is conducting business in strip joints or "coffee house" style areas. As some have stated, this is NOT their office, nor their property. They are tenants. Servants, even. Since when are public servant quarters supposed to be better then the lowest of the public they serve.

Balance a budget, pay the bills, then go home.

The Oval Office? The most powerful, most intimidating room in the world? You think it might be too lavish? Hmmm.



For one, I expect the President of the United States to have a better office than I do. And, to not think that is really weird.

Secondly, the Oval Office is not where the President does most of his work. There is also a "President's Office". The Oval Office is more ceremonial.

If they did the above I wouldn't care if the Oval Office was gold plated.

The most powerful, the most intimidating rooms in the world are the rooms where 'We The People' sit when we choose who occupies that oval room. To think otherwise, imho, is 'weird'.

The lavishings of the room where two equal people meet matter not as much as the decisions or agreements those people make.

Two rooms! How many rooms does a servant need?

The last President to do that got impeached for what he did in the Oval Office.

In his private study, adjacent to the Oval Office. Much to 5th chagrin, a third Presidential work area.

Unfortunately untrue. He was impeached for LYING about what he did.

He should have been impeached for who he did.

Monica Lewinsky is a high crime and misdemeanor?

Interesting. I think David Gergen said it best:

"I believe it belongs in the category of ‘Give the guy a break!’ Barack Obama has followed the precedent of several recent presidents by refurnishing the office to fit his own style, and he’s done it without using any taxpayer money. Personally, I prefer a more regal office to the muted earth tones of the family den. But so what? I think this is something the president deserves. He deserves to have the surroundings that make him feel comfortable and in which he works best. I don’t care so much how he lives; I care how he leads."

Bad PR, perhaps, but he's trying to R with a P with jerky knees. It's a no-win, so... what the hell, might as well get a new rug.