05 September 2014

When OIP Derangement Syndrome Is in Fashion

Last week President Barack Obama held a news conference to address the US economy, foreign policy challenges, and other topics. And one day later, as shown above, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) went on a right-wing political site called NewsMaxTV to complain:
There’s no way any of us can excuse what the president did yesterday. When you have the world watching…a week, two weeks of anticipation of what the United States is gonna do. For him to walk out — I’m not trying to be trivial here — in a light suit, light tan suit…
Imagine what detail King would lead with if he were trying to be trivial!

Now not everyone can match up to Rep. King in looking like a recently awoken city boss, perhaps from the old Soviet Union. Nor does everyone else have the finely calibrated fashion sense to know when one can criticize someone else for dressing too casually while not wearing a tie.

But we can note that past Presidents, including Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton wore tan business suits during official events without attracting such criticism.

Double standards like King’s are a symptom of OIP Derangement Syndrome. So is hyper-intense focus on trivial details in an attempt to deny the real reason for one’s visceral reactions to seeing Barack Obama at work as President.

3 comments:

Liz said...

I agree absolutely with everything you say. I just wanted to say, because I've wanted to say this to someone ever since I saw Obama in that suit, that someone should tell him those colors really don't work on him! Or maybe it's just that he's exhausted. What could possibly be happening that would make him exhausted?

Richard said...

Peter King? Oh right, Peter King.

In fairness, that photo was taken over a decade ago, back before he started lying about the extent of his support for the IRA. Funny how raising money for terrorist bombers suddenly became unfashionable for some reason.

J. L. Bell said...

Reminding people of that haircut seems cruel.