{"id":9315,"date":"2006-12-12T12:29:21","date_gmt":"2006-12-12T17:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/9315.html"},"modified":"2006-12-12T12:29:21","modified_gmt":"2006-12-12T17:29:21","slug":"the-medias-interest-in-democrats-attire-continues-unabated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-medias-interest-in-democrats-attire-continues-unabated\/","title":{"rendered":"The media’s interest in Democrats’ attire continues unabated"},"content":{"rendered":"

A month ago, the AP took an odd interest<\/a> in Nancy Pelosi’s attire. Yesterday, CNN’s [tag]Jeff Greenfield[\/tag] continued in this vein by critiquing Barack Obama’s clothing<\/a> in New Hampshire on Sunday, and comparing it to the style choices of Bush, Kerry, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.<\/p>\n

“The senator was in New Hampshire over the weekend, sporting what’s getting to be the classic Obama look. Call it business casual, a jacket, a collared shirt, but no tie.<\/p>\n

“It is a look the senator seems to favor. And why not? It is dressy enough to suggest seriousness of purpose, but without the stuffiness of a tie, much less a suit. There is a comfort level here that reflects one of Obama’s strongest political assets, a sense that he is comfortable in his own skin, that he knows who he is.<\/p>\n

“But, in the case of [tag]Obama[\/tag], he may be walking around with a sartorial time bomb. Ask yourself, is there any other major public figure who dresses the way he does? Why, yes. It is Iranian President Mahmoud [tag]Ahmadinejad[\/tag], who, unlike most of his predecessors, seems to have skipped through enough copies of “GQ” to find the jacket-and-no-tie look agreeable.<\/p>\n

“And maybe that’s not the comparison a possible presidential contender really wants to evoke…. [I]t’s one thing to have a last name that sounds like Osama and a middle name, Hussein, that is probably less than helpful. But an outfit that reminds people of a charter member of the axis of evil, why, this could leave his presidential hopes hanging by a thread. Or is that threads?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I vaguely recall a time when Jeff Greenfield was a serious, credible political analyst. He’s been an award-winning news media professional for three decades, was the chief speechwriter for New York Mayor John Lindsay (R), and was a top aide to Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D).<\/p>\n

And now he’s on [tag]CNN[\/tag] doing an entire segment on Barack Obama’s decision to wear a sports jacket without a necktie — and arguing that it’s reminiscent of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.<\/p>\n

Oh my.
\n
\nJosh Marshall<\/a>, who brought this to the world’s attention and apparently had to suffer through watching<\/i> Greenfield’s segment, was floored.<\/p>\n

Eric Kleefeld noticed a couple weeks ago that your cheesier run of GOP chat-hound was starting to make a big deal out of the fact that Barack Obama’s middle name is “Hussein”. Pretty lame. But given what’s been going on in this country for the last few years and the GOP’s track record I really can’t say it surprises me.<\/p>\n

But if Barack Obama goes around wearing a jacket, collared shirt and no tie, do I figure he’s trying to look like a happening dude from a GQ spread (maybe, ok, check), trying to appeal to the youth vote (sure, check), looks like your average tech executive (sure), just likes to dress that way (sounds right)?<\/p>\n

Do I think he reminds me Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Wow. I’ve got to say I really didn’t see that coming.<\/p>\n

I’m not saying I’m outraged exactly. It’s more like curiosity. Kind of like I want to sit down with Jeff and a few Rorschach cards. Bizarre. No tie is the Ahmadinejad look?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed, does everyone who wears a sports jacket with a collared shirt and no tie remind Greenfield of Ahmadinejad? Donald Rumsfeld wore<\/a> just such an outfit on Fox News last night. As far as Greenfield is concerned, we’re supposed to see this and be reminded of “a charter member of the axis of evil.”<\/p>\n

One, this is exactly why I no longer watch television news.<\/p>\n

Two, if this is any indication of the political coverage we can expect from the national media of the 2008 presidential election, news outlets shouldn’t be at all surprised when they drive millions more Americans to the blogs — where our occasionally off-beat and quirky analysis is far more engaging.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A month ago, the AP took an odd interest in Nancy Pelosi’s attire. Yesterday, CNN’s [tag]Jeff Greenfield[\/tag] continued in this vein by critiquing Barack Obama’s clothing in New Hampshire on Sunday, and comparing it to the style choices of Bush, Kerry, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “The senator was in New Hampshire over the weekend, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}