Exfoliating The Bushes
by digby
I was reading Christy Hardin Smith’s piece this morning about my congressman Henry Waxman and how the republicans changed the rules back in the 90’s to give the the chairman of the house Government reform Committee unilateral subpoena power. As ye sow, so shall ye reap, my friends.
In her post she points out something that I think everyone should memorize and be prepared to quote every time these Republicans start to whine a cry about the Democratic witchhunt:
The House took 140 hours of sworn testimony to get to the bottom of whether Clinton had misused the White House Christmas-card list for political purposes, but only 12 hours on prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib.
It would probably be very helpful to have at the ready a handy list comparing all the subpoenas and investigations during the Clinton administration as compared to Bush. The Republicans are going to portray the Democratic congress as an out of control lynch mob. It’s important that we remind everyone of what a bunch of slackers they have been under a Republican president and what a non-stop slavering freakshow they ran the last time government was divided.
But when I read that thing about the Christmas card list it also reminded me of something else I recently became aware of. If you’ll recall, during the Clinton administration there was a big scandal over the selling of the Lincoln Bedroom. Everyone agreed that campaign donors had been invited to spend the night in the White House since the time it was built, but what bothered everyone was how mercenary the whole thing seemed, how the hippie hicks from Arkansas were disrespectful toward the nation’s great heritage.
Here’s a pretty decent example of the tone of the complaints:
LEE CULLUM, Dallas Morning News: Yes, it is crass. It’s vulgar. It’s terrible taste. The Dallas Morning News had two editorials this week, not one but two, calling for a special prosecutor in this matter. You know, the White House has simply gone too far. I’m not naive…this has been a systematic selling of the White House in bits and pieces. It’s gone too far, and it’s way out of hand. It is crass.
When Bush ran on “restoring honor and integrity” to the White House, he wasn’t just saying he would avoid interns; the tabloid political press and the GOP congressional committees had been portraying Clinton as a cheap used car salesman, selling out the People’s House, for years. They even accused him of stealing the hand-towels on AirForce One.
So imagine my surprise when I see this on CNN the other day:
When the Secret Service phoned Lesa Glucroft, they were calling about hand lotion. Officials wanted to know if the Calabasas businesswoman was interested in sticking the U.S. presidential seal on her lotions and powders and selling them as “America’s Legacy” at the White House gift shop. At first she thought it was a hoax. “I certainly didn’t think it was a serious call,” said Glucroft, a registered Democrat. But the inquiry, from a licensing agent for the U.S. Secret Service Uniformed Division Benefit Fund, was genuine. And now a line of toiletries bearing the presidential insignia is about to hit the gift shop’s shelves. The antibacterial hand wash, glycerin soap, after-shave and other products come in bottles embossed with the distinctive presidential seal: a vigilant eagle holding an olive branch and arrows in its talons and encircled by stars and the words “The President of the United States.”
You know, I don’t deny the Secret Service a right to have a Benefit Fund. More power to them, they do a fine job. They’ve run a little gift shop in the basement of the White House for years where they sell little tchotckes and they have a little fundraising program to sell ChristmasOrnaments door to door. (Who knew?)
But where did they get the right to exclusively license the sacred People’s House for toiletry items — which they are selling to the public all over the internet? I can’t help but wonder what other intimate products are adorned with the presidential seal these days.
It seems to me that the bluenose society mavens might find all this “crass,” “vulgar” and “in terrible taste,” if not entirely inappropriate. I guess not. In fact, I’m girding myself for the soon-to-begin paeans to the “graciousness” and “class” that the Bush’s brought to the social scene in Washington. They might have been the most destructive presidency in history but at least they weren’t a bunch of no-class hick liberal elites who didn’t know their place.
Update: Dave Niewert says:
I don’t know about you, but the symbology of the Bush White House marketing official presidential hand cleaner strikes me as a flagrant bit of unintentional self-revelation.
Click here for the punchline.
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