07 25 05

(late, no time to edit, so this is probably more spectacularly incoherent than usual)

I’m probably reading too much into this, but the author seems to suggest that Lynne Cheney would be disposed to enjoy the Sapphic delights if the situation arose. Either that or Valerie Plame packs a strap-on. It’s sly satire, so you never know. But if that is the insinuation, it wouldn’t be unusual; for a few of the more heated voices on the left, there’s this assumption that playing the gay card has some special zing! that makes the faithful reel back in horror and shield the children’s eyes. As if there’s anything about wanting a lower marginal tax rate or a 500-ship Navy that says thou must also castigate the sodomites. And for the purposes of our conversation that does not include, you know, that. Supposedly the right’s opposition to gay marriage gives their game away, and proves they’re all raving homophobes. I mean, what else can you make of this sort of stuff:

I am (opposed to gay marriage), you know, for many reasons. I think that the vast majority of Americans find that to be something they can't agree with. But I think most Americans are fair. And if they believe that people in committed relationships want to share their lives and, not only that, have the same rights that I do in my marriage, to decide who I want to inherit my property or visit me in a hospital, I think that most Americans would think that that's--that's fair and that should be done.

Stone me if you wish, but I don’t think that’s an indefensible position, and I don’t think it’s based in hate and intolerance. You might be surprised who said it; you might not.

The merry little swipe at Lynne Cheney pleases some for the same reason they loved to hammer Nancy Reagan in the 80s. (I still remember a line – Mark Crispin Miller, I think – that I found apt at the time: she looked as if she had been struck by lightning while sitting in limousine.) There was something unreal about her to the eyes of young liberals; too poised, too put-together, too mannered, too – well, you know. I never shook that impression, and it wasn’t until Reagan’s funeral that I relented and saw her as something other than the scary shellaced step-mom she seemed like when I was 22. At the time I never considered that decorum, as defined by a previous generation, had any inherent virtue. But like I said, I was 22, and when you’re 22 you place great emphasis on more important standards of dress, like Pat Benatar in legwarmers. But there was something off-putting about Nancy to the youts and the perennial youts who never outgrow the opinions they had when they first woke up and said “I’m twenty. I get it.” (It would have been different if Reagan had been married to Lauren Bacall; given the popularity of “Casablanca” at the campus revival houses, you would have seen a seismic shift to the GOP among the pasty cineaste demographic.) After all, we disparaged an entire class of people by calling them “the suits,” as if coming up with a sarcastic descriptive somehow took away their power. Imagine our surprise: you can’t do that to me! I hold your clothing conventions in contempt!

I dress casually in the summer, because it’s hot. But for the last few years I’ve returned to good slacks and decent shoes and a crisp shirt and a tie. Grown-up clothes. Dad clothes. A man ought to be able to put on a shirt and tie without thinking he’s putting on a costume to deal with The Man; he should regard it as the Rainments of Masculinity, the costume we wear to project the impression of seriousness. If we’re not serious, it’ll be apparent quite soon. Likewise if we’re a peacock, a grifter, a poseur, a drone, a cog – the uniform only says that you’re part of the hard plain world, not whether or not you really belong there. I just know that I feel different in a shirt and tie. I stand up straighter. I don’t feel as though I’m owed more respect; on the contrary, I feel obliged to be more respectful. It’s hard to describe, but to paraphrase a drunken Marge Simpson after six Long Island Iced Teas – you guys in the audience, you know what I’m talking about. Which brings me to this.

It’s an article by Robin Givhan in the WaPo about the clothing worn by the Roberts clan – sorry, klan – sorry, family during the announcement that Roberts would be using his cool, serene, gay eye-beams to make everyone forget about Karl Rove. Read it all. Apparently they dressed not wisely but too well. Here’s what I love:

Dressing appropriately is a somewhat selfless act. It's not about catering to personal comfort. One can't give in fully to private aesthetic preferences. Instead, one asks what would make other people feel respected? What would mark the occasion as noteworthy? What signifies that the moment is bigger than the individual?

Good questions. Big questions! And now, the problem:

But the Roberts family went too far.

Did your neighborhood civil defense sirens go off when they appeared on TV? Mine did. Now I know why. We continue:

In announcing John Roberts as his Supreme Court nominee, the president inextricably linked the individual -- and his family -- to the sweep of tradition. In their attire, there was nothing too informal; there was nothing immodest. There was only the feeling that, in the desire to be appropriate and respectful of history, the children had been costumed in it.

Do you understand the nature of the people we’re dealing with here? The children were dressed – sorry, costumed – in clothes that inextricably linked them to the sweep of tradition, at a time when, as Givhan put it, “most children are dressed in Gap Kids and retailers of similar price-point and modernity(.)” She notes that “the parents put young master Jack in an ensemble that calls to mind John F. 'John-John' Kennedy Jr.” – and that’s just wrong, because . . . because, well – um . . . oh! It means they’re out of step with the 21st century: “Separate the child from the clothes, which do not acknowledge trends, popular culture or the passing of time. They are not classic; they are old-fashioned. These clothes are Old World, old money and a cut above the light-up/shoe-buying hoi polloi.”

Methinks thou dost project too much. Not classic, but old-fashioned. Yes, that’s a distinction starkly apparent to the rest of the nation. A cut above the light-up-shoe hoi polloi, perhaps – but only because that particular demographic may have forgotten or rejected the very notion of dressing up, and sees nothing wrong in sending the kid to Sunday School wearing a Ninja Turtles t-shirt instead of a nice shirt with a clip-on tie and itchy church pants.

Why, it’s almost as if the Roberts thought they were better than the rest of us. I’ll tell you this: when it comes to dressing the kids, it’s quite possible they look at parents who get on airplanes in flip-flops with 12-year old daughters who have the word JUICY spelled out on their behinds, and they actually do think they’re better than those parents. Because they put some stock in appearance, in public decorum. When required. Like showing up at the White House. To be nominated for the Supreme Court. That's the sort of event that makes a man spend fifteen minutes choosing his socks, even though they'll never been seen, and even though they're black.

If little Jack Roberts Jr. had been bopping around in an Spongebob T-shirt, he would have been the darling of the press. “In a White House Obsessed With Appearances, a Note of Abandon.” And you suspect that Washington commentators would have noted how Spongebob’s sexual ambiguity stands in ironic contrast to the administration’s support of a controversial amendment, and how various state cases on gay marriage may confront the Supreme Court in years to come, etcetera, etcetera.

You can’t blame the Roberts family for wishing to dress up nicely. But the Roberts went too far. Do you understand? They went too far. If that child’s nice old-money anti-hoi-polloi skirt didn’t sound your klaxons, you’re just not paying attention. People who dress like Mormons are creepy. Creepy as real Mormons. Women who do not feel a surge of resentment when they put on hosiery are traitors to the gender; men who carefully knot their ties are repressing something, probably sexual; parents who put their kids in nice dress-up clothes that are 21% more formal than a newspaper reporter would have worn on Friday are rejecting modernity and the lower four quintiles. You. Have. Been. Warned.

Sexual orientation and obsession over other people’s tighter standards of public decorum: file under Obsessions I Do Not Understand, but enjoy watching displayed, for all to see.

Like a bad tattoo you got when you were 22, and knew it all.

(Perm link.)