Althouse: Bush and Obama -- they dress alike.

December 4, 2008

Bush and Obama -- they dress alike.

Take the test. You'll fail, I bet.

31 comments:

Peter Hoh said...: Tough quiz. Neither man has a fat neck.; 12/4/08, 4:09 PM
kjbe said...: I got 2 wrong for each. I thought either the knot or the physiques would give me a clue. The knots all looked the same to me, but physiques seemed pretty obvious. Not too bad, I think.; 12/4/08, 4:11 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: they dress alike

Good thing they both dress well.

Was I the only one who often found herself yelling at the television during the Republican primary debates, "Ugh! Why are you wearing that?! Why can't you all just copy Romney's clothes!"?; 12/4/08, 4:29 PM
themightypuck said...: 15-2.; 12/4/08, 4:36 PM
Meade said...: 11-6; 12/4/08, 4:57 PM
Host with the Most said...: 11-6, just like Meade.

Hey, when it comes to Good-Looking Presidents, we've done pretty well 42 - 44.

My world leader is better looking then every other country's world leader!; 12/4/08, 5:12 PM
themightypuck said...: Bush cuts a fine figure. Still pretty well put together for a 60 year old after 8 years in a pretty stressful job.; 12/4/08, 5:18 PM
veni vidi vici said...: These guys are high as kites.

Obama's notably taller than Bush.

Bush is 6'0", according to records.

I am 6'0". I wear 40R suits. I'm wearing an exquisite blue pinstriped Gucci right now, with a Jhane Barnes white shirt and blue and silver Gucci woven tie. Walking on Tom Ford-designed YSL shoes to boot, if you must know. Fierce does not begin to describe the power of my haberdashery. But I digress...

They said Bush wears 44L!

More like, "44LOL" if he actually showed up wearing something that oversized to anything other than a Talking Heads tribute party.

They're high, or dyslexic. I think Bush is the 40, Obama the 44.

But then, all these great "writers" out there on the Internet don't have time to proofread anything anymore; that would get in the way of their commanding flow.

Sorry, no patience for errors on blogs by people who claim their writing "matters". If it matters, proofread it you moron. If it's worth reading, that is. If not, put it on "twitter" and fuck off.

Especially when your errors are that obvious.; 12/4/08, 5:30 PM
Joan said...: I can see Bush in a 44 -- he has a broader, thicker chest than Obama, who is really a skinny guy in pretty good shape. Don't know if being 6 foot even would mean you'd need Long, though, although it depends on limb length more than anything else.

I did horribly in the beginning but after a while could tell just from the underlying chest. I think I ended up with 10 or 11 correct.; 12/4/08, 5:42 PM
shake-and-bake said...: I passed easily. But I can distinguish between a suit made by Oxxford (Bush) and one made by Hart Schaffner Marx (the other dude).; 12/4/08, 6:13 PM
Patm said...: You have to really, really be deeply in the throes of Bush Derangement Syndrome to assert that Obama is the 44 and Bush the 40. Bush quite clearly has broader shoulders and a bigger chest.

It's one thing to hate a guy. It's another thing to just get actively deluded about sheer physicality.

Think about that. How much does your hate own you?; 12/4/08, 6:34 PM
birdie bob said...: For what it's worth, I'm 5'10" and wear a 44R. But I'm a registered Republican so I must be lying. BDS must affect spacial abilities and math skills!; 12/4/08, 7:07 PM
Schmessers said...: Wow that test was harder than the citizenship test!; 12/4/08, 7:24 PM
rumtumtugger said...: i got one wrong.

men are very good at making very fine distinctions in lapels / collars / tie styles etc. we don't have much choice in formal clothing, so all the distinctiveness is at the margin, all the choices are finely calibrated. my wife can't tell the difference between a $1200 brooks suit and a $4000 richard james. she likes them both though.

women love a man in uniform.; 12/4/08, 8:53 PM
Mark said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/4/08, 8:59 PM
Mark said...: I'm 5'8", and in my collegiate fencing days I wore a 44R. (Had a suit salesman once refuse to pull the correctly sized jacket for me until I nearly split the back out of a 40 he thought I would need. But then, it was college and I wasn't shopping for Hickey Freeman. So he probably wasn't the highest quality salesman either.)

Which is just to say your mileage may vary, and yes, anyone who actually paid attention to the curvature of the chest (where apparent) could see the difference.

But hey, working from first principles got us Marxism, Shakerism, Planned Obsolescence, and New Coke, so I guess we should just accept that since Bush is shorter he must have the smaller thoracic circumference.

Good thinking, VVV.; 12/4/08, 9:01 PM
Ralph L said...: I'm pretty sure Obama wears the Long, Bush a 44 reg. Before I started lifting weights, I wore a 38 long--they were damn hard to find; 40's are somewhat easier, but I can still squeeze into a couple of my old coats once or twice a year.
The quiz isn't appearing for me. I'll try rebooting.; 12/4/08, 9:07 PM
Donna B. said...: 14-3. I wasn't taking a lot of time to think about the photos one way or another since this was so, um... er... unimportant.

Definitely Bush in the 44 and definitely Obama in a long. However, I don't think an inability to perceive height or circumference correctly automatically means BDS, though it could help :-); 12/4/08, 11:01 PM
twp said...: Remember that President Bush has long been interested in fitness, and at least a few years ago, he could bench press around 150 lbs. That will give a man a 44 chest.
And Freeman Hunt (on whom I have had a crush for 2 years) is exactly correct: they do both dress well and others should follow suit, pardon the pun.
Successful public figures dress in a similar fashion because it works. The point is not to be successful just because you are dressed superbly, instead, it is more to avoid failure because are dressed poorly.; 12/5/08, 5:48 AM
Bob R said...: Bush - long, thick body; short legs (big part of the Bush=chimp insults)

Obama - short, skinny body; very long legs (big part of the Obama=pencil neck geek insults)

VVV isn't paying attention - but we knew that.; 12/5/08, 6:13 AM
JorgXMcKie said...: Geez. I'm six feet tall and wear a 46L. I have only a 29 inch inseam. I come from a family of people with very long backs and short legs. My wife, who is 5'4" laughs that we have the same inseam.

In the military I had to have my shirts and jackets tailored for me because none of the standard issue fit. The ones that were long enough were to big (I was skinny then) and the ones that fit everywhere else were too short.

Today I routinely have to buy shirts in XL length to get them to fit.; 12/5/08, 7:18 AM
JorgXMcKie said...: Geez. I'm six feet tall and wear a 46L. I have only a 29 inch inseam. I come from a family of people with very long backs and short legs. My wife, who is 5'4" laughs that we have the same inseam.

In the military I had to have my shirts and jackets tailored for me because none of the standard issue fit. The ones that were long enough were to big (I was skinny then) and the ones that fit everywhere else were too short.

Today I routinely have to buy shirts in XL length to get them to fit.; 12/5/08, 7:19 AM
MadisonMan said...: I don't wear suits.; 12/5/08, 8:39 AM
Freder Frederson said...: I think only men like Titus should know or care what size suit another man wears. (Not that there's anything wrong with that).

BTW I am a 44R--and I had to double check my suit to make sure.; 12/5/08, 9:31 AM
veni vidi vici said...: Well, ok then!

I like fashion, but clearly I have no idea about what sizes are based on. I have always thought that the size was based somewhat on height, since my taller brother (who's notably skinnier than me) wears 42, and my oldest brother, who's a few inches shorter yet a little bigger in the chest, wears 38's and 40's.

So I was wrong.

On the other hand, PatM, is apparently a one-track BDS-spotting/spouting idiot, or wrote a very funny bit of humor in his nonsensical response post.

What the hell does hate (and of which of the two guys, anyway?) have to do with anything I said? I (erroneously, as has been demonstrated and admitted) took it to the writers of the piece, but now I'm a Bush or Obama hater?

Mary: "Man, I heard Obama wears size 11 shoes."

Jane: "Fuck you, hater!"

Just brilliant, boy-o!; 12/5/08, 10:06 AM
. said...: If Bush had been an African-American Democrat, and done and said everything exactly the same, he'd be lauded as the greatest president in over 100 years by the left, and vehemently demonized by the right. Millennial American politics has little-if-nothing to do with policy and almost everything to do with labels and narrative.

The character assassination/misinformation/defamation that's come from our political class over the last eight years has been despicable, rooted in the most venal motives that haunt our species of primate: identity politics bordering on the tribal, magical thinking completely out of proportion to what a President can/can't do for society, paranoia and demonization of "the other party" completely out-of-touch with reality and detrimental to the country's interest, justifying any words or action by the opposition.

I'm tempted to say it was all rooted in--or at least heavily exacerbated by--the 2000 election. For those in the Donkey camp who live and breath liberal politics, seeing Bush in the White House shook their entire worldview shaken to the core by what was basically a coin toss. The event must've been a tragedy--to a people whose political views betray an inability to cope with tragedy.; 12/5/08, 10:15 AM
GM Roper said...: Easy, Laura was correct, check the ties. They don't use the same knot, I got a hundred... Ann, look at the knots and re-try. I'll bet you do much better.; 12/5/08, 10:16 AM
Freder Frederson said...: If Bush had been an African-American Democrat

he wouldn't have gone to Andover, gotten into Yale on his mediocre grades (I doubt there were any African Americans in 1964 who had a Father and Grandfather who were Yale Alumni). So I doubt he would have been able to use his many connections to avoid service in Vietnam and get bailed out of one failed business after another while dealing with a serious alcohol (and possibly a drug) problem.

He also would have never been elected governor of Texas and of course never would have been in a position to run for president.

So your whole premise is ridiculous.; 12/5/08, 10:30 AM
Unknown said...: I just went through it really quickly instead of trying to guess, but I noticed that Obama seems to prefer stripes of some sort, while Bush generally avoids them, or at least had a wider variety that made them not predominate.; 12/5/08, 11:51 AM
veni vidi vici said...: On the side of Freder without necessarily agreeing with the particulars of what he said, I'll add in response to "." that memories of the 90's run pretty short.

I was caught in some of the St. Vitus' dance around the Clintonian "ruination" of the country that was selling a lot of books for the loudest voices of the right, but I have to say that seeing the musical chairs game in 2000/2001, when the partisans merely swapped hats and roles so that the left could rail and sell books about the Bush "ruination" and the right could rally 'round in the manner of their opponents shortly before, really took the edge off for me.

And this election just passed, I think I grew up because I didn't care. Not the way that many did, anyway. Every election cannot "the most important election of our lives" be. It just can't, and in many if not most cases, it isn't. Watching the Democrats resume their role from the 90s (essentially the role Republicans played in the 00's, although most on either side would never admit it) and the Republicans struggling to get exorcised about the incoming administration (mainly trying to find an angle by which to persuade folks to open their wallets and contribute to their cause/magazine/books/etc.) only shows me anymore that the hard-partisan thing is like fanboyism is to rock bands or favorite video games: primarily a meaningless diversion.

I'm actually pleased that if Bush was a Democrat he'd have been lauded for his achievements, just as if Clinton was a Republican he'd have been celebrated as the second coming of President Eisenhower, minus the pre-office resume). What this indicates is that the ship of state is steady-as-she-goes, and that over the course of an administration (4 or 8 years), any changes are more likely to be marginal and anything greater will be by consensus -- even where opponents trumpet the "outrageousness" of such changes. This is proven by the way such changes are rarely undone by successor administrations of the opposing party.

And yeah, mexico city agreement type stuff is marginal. Windfall profits taxes, quick drawdowns, immediate taxrate "restoration" and the like are not marginal, thus we likely won't see much progress on the latter points for awhile yet, and then less than expected.

Bullish on America, that's me!; 12/5/08, 12:19 PM
Doubting Richard said...: I got a little over 50% in that quiz. Not bad for a Brit!; 12/5/08, 6:31 PM