Laura Bush unveils George W. Bush state china
By LISA TOLIN
WASHINGTON (AP) — First lady Laura Bush showed off a new gold-rimmed set of official George W. Bush state china on Wednesday, with less than two weeks to use it before the family packs up for Texas.
OKAY, so we waited seven years, eleven months, and eight days, but the Bush Administration finally makes a smart move, namely, waiting until they were almost out of town before unveiling their new finery.
Laura Bush said the china has been in the works for several years and the family had hoped to be able to use it, but the process took longer than expected.
Sure it did.
Look, no problem on general principles here; it is the People's House, and thus must be decorated and furnished for the second coming of The Sun King. The objection to Nancy Reagan and her Marie Antoinette instincts wasn't custodial, but, well, one, just that Nancy Reagan was so fucking objectionable; two, that the whole thing was part of an orchestrated Style Offensive for the return of the Imperial Presidency and the Great Stratified Society program; and, finally, that the woman had no fucking taste whatsoever, or none that could not be subsumed as "Tinseltown Regency Revival".
Laura Bush said she commissioned the dinnerware because of breakage and a need for more settings for larger events, and added a second Magnolia-patterned set for $74,000 for use at private family dinners and smaller events.
She said she was aware of criticism her predecessors received for buying expensive china, but said it was paid for with private money and that when the process started, "the economy was a lot better than it is today."
No, the problem is getting the "paid for by private donations" routine. Of course it was paid for by private donations, you twit; even if we had wanted to give you your own 320-piece porcelain Medal of Freedom, which we didn't, we couldn't have, because your husband spent the entire public treasury he inherited, plus everything that can be collected for the next twenty-five years assuming all goes well, in some perpetual-adolescent--albeit, in the main, successful--attempt to prove he could be a worse choice than his Daddy, even. For that matter, private fucking donations got us his Presidency in the first place, and we didn't really need that, either.
And why did we need enough of your china to completely cover the largest White House events? Mix and match has been the order of the day since Benjamin Harrison, and there's been a China Room since Wilson. It's history, not the fuggin' Wealth Network. Oh, and thanks for choosing magnolias. I don't think faux-Southern gentility gets nearly enough play. (What? Oh, there are magnolias on the White House lawn? Well, never mind, then; I guess we should just be thankful you didn't go with the gopher motif.)
Just leave, okay? Nobody's demanding that you slink. Nobody's even bothering to ask how the economy got so fucking bad in the interim between grandiose privately-funded scheme and delivery. Just go, bearing in mind the backhanding your husband gave the previous administration when they left, and hold your tongue when Michelle Obama announces she's turning Dick Nixon's bowling alley into a combination Frisbee golf and skeet-shooting bunker for the girls.
Pardon me, but what's wrong with a golfer motif? Kinda sporty if you ask me.
ReplyDeleteKill every gopher on the course? They'd lock you up and throw away the key.
ReplyDeleteI will happily make a private donation toward the purchase of china with a gopher motif. Michelle? Call me.
ReplyDelete"Several years" to buy dinner plates? Did they have to wait for the clay to be eroded from some primeval rock?
ReplyDeleteI'd like to hear more about this significant breakage. How often does the Greek prime minister come to town and get blackout drunk with the Bushes?
ReplyDeleteThe breakage thing is a shuck. The WH facilities guy says they get replaced when they break. She just didn't like Nancy's or Hillary's (although she says they used Nancy's more often, which I can sort of understand, because Hillary's was sort of, um. Very Heavily Gilded Indeed.
ReplyDeleteThat said, the new service for 320 is actually not bad. She at least had the sense to rip off a pattern I very seriously considered registering for until I realized that it was ridiculously expensive and wouldn't go in the microwave. The family service, however, which was her own little inspiration - there's no tradition of an "official" casual pattern for the residence - not only has some of the finest magnolias outside of the decorative accent section of KMart, it has _bugs. Bugs that appear on the White House lawn. Cute bugs, she says.
And, you know, leaving aside that she's stuck whoever came in after them with plates that are covered with insects, she apparently couldn't find anyone in the US who was capable of painting vermin on china and had them done in Hungary by a china artist whose work has been "featured in Sex in the City"
She will not, the papers gravely inform us, be taking the china (or the rugs she's apparently also stuck the Obamas with) to Texas with her.
I bet they'll still give her an occasional giggle, though.
It's not the destruction of china that worries me, it's the downfall of turkey and the overthrow of grease.
ReplyDeleteMan, it's many Thanksgivings since I heard that one. The kids must have grown up and moved away.
Might have been better off with "Yeah, we know it's late in the game, but we just realized there was this tradition which we hadn't bothered with because we were awfully busy with various issues of actual national interest." It'd be a lie, sure, but do the media even glance up from their steno pads for that sort of thing anymore?
ReplyDelete(My verification word, weirdly enough, is "catwind". Which, it's almost worth noting, is something I'm still trying to find a decent kitten food to solve.)
A strange coincidence the china would be ready *just* before the Obamas move in. Like Israel attacked Gaza *just before*, the stock marked crashed *just before*, oh, and no room at the guest house. the Bush's are tasteless, classless
ReplyDeleteWill the Obama girls be shooting at Frisbees with their shotguns?
ReplyDeleteBreakage, huh? I knew as soon as I saw George dodging those shoes that he'd probably already had much practice in another arena.
ReplyDelete