January 22, 2025

JD Vance enters the Oval Office for the first time.

41 comments:

Skeptical Voter said...

J.D. Vance was not the first hillbilly to enter the Oval Office. I think Andrew Jackson was the first, and he let a lot of other hillbillies in after his inauguration.

campy said...

The oval office didn't exist when Jackson was president. The wing it's in was opened in 1902.

planetgeo said...

Not only will that not be his last time visiting that office, but I believe that one day he will be sitting at that desk signing executive orders.

Leland said...

It is interesting the idea of walking into the Oval Office for the first time. At first, I was kind of put off by Speaker Johnson making a to do about Vance heritage and being his first time. That is the kind of thinking that supports DEI and “firsts”, which I suppose is today’s blog theme. But, it is amazing to make it Vice President and entering the Oval Office for the first time and seeing their reaction to it. Still, since I haven’t been, it could be a movie prop for what seeing it does to me.

Rory said...

Only in America can anyone enter the Oval Office.

Chris said...

Let's hope we can end this executive order nonsense and get back to the true process for creating and passing laws by then.

tcrosse said...

The barefoot boy from Yale Law.

RideSpaceMountain said...

"So this is the hallway JD. Over there is a bust of Ike Eisenhower. This door leads to the oval office, and over hear is where they found Hunter's booger sugar."

john mosby said...

In Trump’s America, you enter Oval Office.

In Democrat Party America, Oval Office enters you!

JSM

Greg The Class Traitor said...

JD did it on merit

Celebrating people who earned their way up from the bottom is a good thing. It lets people know that there is hope.

What's wrong is giving people shit that they haven't earned, and therefore do not deserve

paminwi said...

Greg: spot on!

Dave Begley said...

On pure merit, JD Vance has risen to the top. He's come a long way from Middleton, Ohio.

Aggie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dave Begley said...

There was a Republican female Govenor of Nebraska (Kay Orr) who never had the Lt. Governor in her office.

Aggie said...

"Let's hope we can end this executive order nonsense..."
Trump wrote a little over 200 EO's his first term, fewer than all of the Presidents back to McKinley, with the exception of Bush I, Ford, and JFK. FDR wrote almost 4,000, and he (and other Presidents) got brushed back a few times for over-reach, by the USSC. I've always seen them as articulations of policy, mostly directed at the Executive Branch to establish discipline, but also as policy instruction to Congress, so that the legislators in his party know clearly where he stands.

Steven Wilson said...

And the reason was?

rehajm said...

I would like to see it one day. My brother in law has been. Bush 41...

Bill in Glendale said...

Johnson has some class. Good for him.

mindnumbrobot said...

Very cool. Legitimate humility and joy in the moment.

planetgeo said...

It's not "executive order nonsense". He's the CEO of the entire federal government with its dozens of departments and hundreds of sub-agencies. Many of those departments and agencies have greatly expanded their assumed powers and have engaged in regulatory overreach that is not legitimately authorized by explicit laws.

As the incoming CEO, it is totally proper and wise to lay down broad principles and policy guidelines that he wants all entities under his authority to operate under. If those agencies or any legislators believe he is providing guidance that is beyond the scope of his authority, they can challenge such cases in court or via legislative action. And this has already begun for some of his EOs.

JRoberts said...

I wonder what happened to the fake Oval Office that Biden used in the basement of the EEOB?

Quayle said...

A government of the people, by the people, for the people. (If we can keep it.)

Stoutcat said...

The barefoot boy from the USMC, and then Ohio State... and then Yale.

Mickey said...

It’s very harshly lit, to the point where nothing has a shadow and everything is flat, like the ceiling is covered in fluorescent tubing. I’d hate to be in there.

Anita said...

I've been thinking a lot about Vance's grandmother these days. I don't know the details of his story, but know enough to know her courage and determination saved that young man. I imagine she's watching him with pride.

Jupiter said...

Well, yeah. And it's only possible to enter the Kremlin in Russia. Also Lubyanka, for that matter.

Jupiter said...

No Hitler salute?

Aggie said...

Still see a little of that jarhead swagger, walking down the hallway to the Oval Office.

Jupiter said...

Hillbilly Elegy is a pretty good read. You can get a copy through the Althouse Amazon Portal.

Ralph L said...

Andrew Jackson was Scots-Irish but wasn't a hillbilly like Vance's family. He grew up near Charlotte, was admitted to the NC bar at 20, and moved to Nashville as a prosecutor.

Dave Begley said...

She was not a good person or good governor.

Wince said...

Vance did seem to take notice of the two couches.

Rocco said...

Dave Begley said...
"On pure merit, JD Vance has risen to the top. He's come a long way from Middleton, Ohio."

That's Middletown, Ohio. Middleton is the family name of the Princess of Wales.

Mikey NTH said...

Andrew Jackson's portrait on the wall. A sign that Trump will be the disrupter that Jackson was? That he will champion the common man as well?

Louise B said...

I thought President Trump should have that graph he turned to look at in Butler, PA framed and hanging in the Oval Office.

rehajm said...

I’d be afraid couches would make people comfortable. I think that last lecture prof said the best guest furniture in an office is a chair missing a front leg…

tcrosse said...

A couch would be someplace for Trump to sleep when he's in the doghouse with Melania.

Peachy said...

Please tell me the sofas have been cleaned, re-upholstered - or even replaced - since the Billy Jeff.

Peachy said...

Yay! No more Crack heads and money whore puppets!

pacwest said...

I've been to the Oval Office mockup at the Bush2 library. Cool enough. Even got to play with the "red botton".

Christopher B said...

I see a couple of folks have responded in the way I was thinking so I'll just add that if you mean Congress should return to the practice of writing reasonably detailed instructions to the Executive Branch, and the Courts should stop granting excessive deference to agency interpretations of vague statues, then I'm all for it. If you mean the Executive should simply be supine, then I'm backing DJT all the way.