White House Chronicle

News Analysis With a Sense of Humor

The Stripping of Man: Hats, Ties, now Socks

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By Llewellyn King

Men’s hats bit the dust in the time of Jack Kennedy. Oh, sure, there are baseball caps and various ersatz chapeaux to keep the top of a man cool or warm. But they aren’t grand symbols of taste on the head: boaters, derbies, fedoras, homburgs, panamas, trilbies and — forgotten glory — silk top hats.

More recently, the bell has tolled for the necktie — that useless but delightful fashion option for men. Who ever complimented a man on his unadorned neck?

I blame Hollywood and the whole state of California for suppressing fashion by promoting the idea that casual dressing is superior. The Golden State has upended the decent order of all things sartorial for men; reduced us to looking like bums in shapeless clothes emblazoned with the manufacturer’s name.

What became of the well-fitting — bespoke, if possible — suit or blazer, craftily cut to minimize bulge around the waist and maximize size at the shoulder? What of the fine shirt in linen, poplin, French twill, silk or even broadcloth? What has replaced the sense of social perfection of a man showing his cuffs in a double-breasted Melton blazer?

Teach us to dress: Albert J. Beveridge, literature and drama teacher, 1912

Teach us to dress: Albert J. Beveridge, literature and drama teacher, 1912

This decline in the male wardrobe I’ve borne with fortitude. But I believe that wardrobe disassembling has hit its nadir: men wearing suits without socks. Enough, enough, enough!

A senior executive of a California company, of course, showed up sans socks for a taping of my television program. I’ll give the man his due: he wore a decent suit, a passable shirt and a power tie. His feet supported quality loafers. But why no socks? Does anyone admire the male ankle? Is it a thing of beauty? Have I missed out on the charm of this lovely body part?

That horror wasn’t an isolated event: Recently, I dined at a French restaurant in Boston with a distinguished citizen — an ambassador plenipotentiary to a European country, no less — who wasn’t wearing socks. Does the State Department know? Is there a protocol for ambassadorial dress? Can down-dressers be rebuked? Is this matter addressed in Hillary Clinton’s copious emails? We should be told in the president’s Saturday broadcast whether the nation is going to be allowed to go down the sartorial drain.

I’ve been checking out Chinese dignitaries. Every last one of them, as far as I can determine, wears socks. Even Russian President Vladimir Putin transgresses international standards of statesmanship only from the waist up. Shoes and socks prevail for this improbable Tarzan.

The passion to be casual is causing actual hardship. Nobody knows what to wear at important events. Some years ago, I participated in a U.S.-Japan business forum in Hawaii. The U.S. delegation head decided that polo shirts would be appropriate attire for men. But his dress decision didn’t reach the Japanese delegates, and they all wore suits. After lunch, though, the Japanese went casual and the Americans donned suits. Mutual red faces.

Does anyone really think a partner or associate in a big law firm feels good with his tummy rolls accentuated by a knit shirt advertising a crocodile? For women, this casual thing is a refined cruelty. You work like hell: law school, junior legal slave, and finally — hosanna — partner. Time for a fabulous Chanel suit, patent leather-toed slingbacks and heaps of pearls.

Not so fast. The managers have decreed it’s time to go casual, to bring out the jeans. The law-school look for work.

We have to make America look as if it cares again. Therefore, I won’t vote for any presidential aspirant who, if male, doesn’t wear a tie or plunges his feet into loafers without socks; or who, if female, wears flats and eschews leg and foot coverage. I’m saving my vote for a sartorially principled candidate. — For InsideSources.com

Out, Damned Washington! Out, We Say.

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“Out, damned spot! Out, I say.” So says the demented Lady Macbeth.
Not demented but exercised, the tea party movement says, “Out, damned Washington! Out, we say.”

They say this even as they are trying to get into Washington themselves—indeed to take it over. And no Republican politician, no matter how aware of the naivete of this new dimension in conservatism, dare ignore them.

They are a force to be accommodated for now. In time, they will be blunted by being incorporated.

Running against Washington is not new. It worked like a dream for Ronald Reagan who preached the need to reduce the size of government but let it grow in wondrous ways. Astonishingly, he won re-election in 1984 by again campaigning against Washington, even though he had been president for the past four years.

Part of Reagan’s genius was in channeling the anger of Middle America to his purposes. He was so alluring a figure to Republicans that many were prepared to abandon businesses and careers to serve—often far down the ladder—in his administration.

In the far off days of Jack Kennedy, Washington still had its charm. Knowing people in Washington meant something—at least socially, if not financially and politically. Chicago bankers, New York consultants and Western cattlemen all came to Washington, where they would lunch with minor political appointees.

These lunches in the nation’s capital impressed their colleagues back home.
As in the Reagan years, capable businessmen (it was mostly men then) abandoned careers to serve in the administration.

Edward Stockdale, a successful Miami Beach realtor, gave up everything to serve Kennedy as ambassador to Ireland and in other ways. Bill Ruder, a brilliant New York public relations executive, quit his company just to serve as one of those assistant secretaries in the Commerce Department. His PR firm, Ruder and Finn, went into a severe decline without its top man.

There is a difference between those who came to Washington to serve in the Kennedy administration and those who came later, and with the same passion, to serve in the Reagan administration: The Kennedy recruits felt they were doing it for America, whereas Reagan’s people did it for Reagan.

This made them more political and, as a result, they were more frustrated. They wanted the world to know that their man, Reagan, deserved everybody’s adulation and respect. People like John Herrington, who worked his way from the personnel office at the White House to being secretary of energy, would explode with rage when people didn’t speak deferentially of Reagan.

There was plenty of the cult of personality around Kennedy, but it enhanced the idea of Washington rather than diminished it. Washington was cool in the time of Kennedy. Reagan was cool, but not Washington, in the time of Reagan.

For today’s tea party set, Washington is an alien bridgehead, manned by Euro socialists with U.N. numbers on their speed dials.

Anyone who has ever walked a picket line or joined a mass protest knows the joy of being at the barricades, the adrenalin rush, the thrill of righteousness. The tea party people have had enough and they’re not going to take it anymore.

So have most of us. We are the victims of insensitive government agencies, stagnant wages and large, faceless corporations with automated phone systems.
Any full-blooded citizen who doesn’t feel the rage ought to see a doctor—if he can afford that. The pull of the tea party is there.

But hating Washington is neither a remedy nor a policy, especially when there is no leader like Reagan to produce a policy.

It also is a trifle disingenuous to be trying to take over the place you have so reviled.

Without a leader, Washington will swallow the tea party activists, who will either drift to the center of Republican thought or settle for the no-man’s land of eccentric nobodies, like Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, on the left, and Rep. Louis Gohmert, R-Texas, on the right.

Weak tea, indeed. And poor Lady Macbeth died without getting the stain out.

By Their Parties, Ye Shall Know Them

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The trouble with Washington’s social scene is that it’s a horizontal city — and, try as one may, it’s hard to escape one’s assigned social stratum.

The lawyers know the lawyers; the journalists drink with the journalists; the lobbyists lobby the lobbyists (and the lobbyists-in-training, the Capitol Hill staffers).

By contrast, other cities are vertical. The most vertical city of all is New York. And Dublin is right behind it.

The test of horizontal versus vertical is in a city’s parties. If everyone at a party is either known to you or is in the same line of work — health care, information technology, law enforcement — you are living in a horizontal city; and you are trapped in a stratum that colors what you hear and ultimately think.

In a vertical city, a party is a wondrous place where you’ll learn things other than those things you think you know. A party that includes, say, an actor, a financier, a nurse, a tailor and a writer is a brew of delights.

In my experience, you’ll find such a party in New York above all other cities. However, there always seems to be an interesting mix at social gatherings in Ireland, and Dublin in particular. Generally, the Irish are so well read that they can talk to anyone about anything.

The legend goes that Washington parties are where things get done. If so, I’ve never been to those parties. I think in the days of Jack Kennedy, intimate, influential dinner parties — perhaps at the home of columnist Joe Alsop — were important.

Perle Mesta hosted parties that were as famous as they may have been influential (in Harry Truman’s day). Sally Quinn, wife of the storied Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, has established herself as a Washington hostess with clout. And NPR’s Cokie Roberts is said to put on a great party.

But these are Washington parties for the like-minded and that’s the problem.

These days, I think the best party-giver in Washington is Gloria Dittus, a public relations phenomenon who recently sold her company but is still hosting parties at her Washington home. Just this week, she gave a grand bash for legendary White House reporter Helen Thomas and her new book, “Listen Up, Mr. President,” co-written with Craig Crawford.

Dittus knows how to throw a party.

First, she has a stunning home in the fashionable Kalorama section of Washington. But that’s just the beginning. She always has valet parking and coat-checking. And her parties are full bar and groaning board.

The party swirls from room to room in a natural flow. No bottlenecks at the bars.

Dittus knows who to invite across the social spectrum. Are great political deals cut at one of her parties? Maybe. But don’t blame her, or any hostess. Since bipartisanship has been replaced with the new Washington ethic of “my party right or wrong,” the deals are done intraparty in the depressing backrooms of Congress.

The other prevailing Washington value has reduced the party attendance: If you are in elected office, you’ll never be seen to take more than one glass of wine. Hardly worth dragging yourself across town for that.

Time was when at 6 p.m. the bottles came out all over Washington, and in the Capitol itself. Some of the best parties were impromptu ones in congressional offices. Nowadays, you have to settle for water; carbonated, if you’re lucky.

Then there’s the question of drinking and driving. Most of Washington’s denizens live in the suburbs and they have to drive. By contrast, parties thrive in New York and London, where there is more public transportation. But it should be noted that London parties tend to suffer from the same rigidities as Washington. Call it capital party syndrome.

Across the Atlantic, our democratic partners are still enjoying a drink. There are bars scattered all over the British Parliament, and two very busy bars in the much smaller Irish Parliament.

The principal virtue of partying is that it’s bipartisan. Until bipartisanship comes back, there is always the sainted Gloria Dittus. –For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate