Andy Card is deeply offended that Barack Obama works in shirt sleeves, and not a coat and tie.
"There should be a dress code of respect," Card tells INSIDE EDITION. "I wish that he would wear a suit coat and tie."
[snip]
"The Oval Office symbolizes…the Constitution, the hopes and dreams, and I’m going to say democracy. And when you have a dress code in the Supreme Court and a dress code on the floor of the Senate, floor of the House, I think it’s appropriate to have an expectation that there will be a dress code that respects the office of the President."
I agree with dakine that it is preferable to have a President, in shirt sleeves, working to protect the Constitution, rather than thugs in suit and tie, shredding it.
For myself, if I have a choice of an administration where everyone wears suits and ties and are all buttoned up while they destroy the country and the Constitution (but they look professional while doing so!) or an administration that takes off their coats and gets to work and actually does something to benefit most of the country, I will choose the latter hands down every time.
But I’m also wondering about Card’s misplaced focus on etiquette. Here he is, beating up Obama for his dress code, and ignoring a gross breach of etiquette–one that probably puts our country at some risk, in that it fosters gross insuburdination. As Lawrence O’Donnell explains to David Shuster, former Administration officials simply do not criticize the capabilities of their successors. It is not done.
No former Vice President has ever questioned the ability of the current Administration to protect the United States. This is something for which unprecedented is a mild word.
Yet somehow, Andy Card is able to overlook Cheney’s gross breach of etiquette even while bitching about Obama’s shirt sleeves.