"Biden, always a little taller than you expect, wore a navy suit and a bright-blue tie."

"He passed a study off the Oval, where he keeps a rack of extra shirts, an array of notes sent in by the public, and a portrait of John F. Kennedy in a contemplative pose.... He continued to the Oval Office dining room, a small, elegant space where, in Biden’s eight years as Vice-President, he often visited Barack Obama for lunch. One wall is graced by 'The Peacemakers,' a famous painting of Lincoln and his military commanders, on the cusp of winning the Civil War. Another is dominated by a large television set, installed by Donald Trump."

From "Joe Biden’s Last Campaign/Trailing Trump in polls and facing doubts about his age, the President voices defiant confidence in his prospects for reëlection" by Evan Osnos (The New Yorker).

I paused over "always a little taller than you expect." It had a bit of a large-boulder-the-size-of-a-small-boulder feeling about it. It gets my favorite tag: big and small. I love these conundrums of size. Osnos is using "you" to refer to himself. He's talking about his subjective experience, and he — unlike, probably, you — has been in the vicinity of the President on multiple occasions. But what is this taller and taller effect? It must be that when he's around Biden, he's struck that Biden is a little tall, and, afterwards, Biden shrinks in Osnos's memory, setting him up to be struck once again, at the next encounter, by the slight tallness of Biden.

Biden was showing Osnos — as Biden put it — "where Trump sat and watched the revolution."

My favorite Ron DeSantis moment: Asked which U.S. President would inspire him, he said Calvin Coolidge.

From the transcript of last night's debate:

One of the guys I’ll take inspiration from is Calvin Coolidge. Now, people don’t talk about him a lot. He’s one of the few presidents that got almost everything right. He understood the proper role of the federal government under the Constitution. We need to restore the U.S. Constitution as the centerpiece of our national life. And that requires a president who understands the original understanding of the Constitution, who has a good sense of the Bill of Rights, and who knows how we’ve gone off track with this massive fourth branch of government, this administrative state which is imposing its will on us and is being weaponized against us. So, silent Cal knew the proper role of the federal government. The country was in great shape when he was President of the United States, and we can learn an awful lot from Calvin Coolidge.

I was genuinely touched.

For the record, Chris Christie, asked first, said Ronald Reagan; Nikki Haley, asked second, said George Washington and Abe Lincoln; and Vivek Ramaswamy, asked last, said Thomas Jefferson.

"A Boring Presidential Nominee? Bring It, Democrats."

Writes Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg, reacting to the FiveThirtyEight "fantasy draft"...

Of the 24 candidates they drafted, somewhere between a quarter and half of the selections are basically nontraditional candidates. The theory seems to be: Now that President Donald Trump has proved it can be done, we should expect total outsiders and politicians without conventional credentials to win a fairly large share of future nominations.

Bernstein's not having it. He gestures wanly at Amy Klobuchar, John Hickenlooper, Martin O’Malley, Terry McAuliffe, Chris Murphy, and Jeff Merkley.

That reminds me. I have a tag, "I'm for Boring," which I introduced early in the 2016 campaign process. The first post with this tag came in July 2014:

I'm sick of inspiration and claims of historiosity. We should all be perfectly jaded by now. Inoculated. It's healthful and wholesome. And so what if watching the campaign day by day is "a boring, grinding affair"? That's a problem for [Buzzfeed's Ben] Smith, running his buzz-dependent website, [fretting about how Hillary Clinton "hasn’t unlocked the only thing that could really turn a campaign into a movement... authentic excitement among American women at her historic candidacy"], but it's a nonproblem for the rest of us. Think of the time you can save not reading the websites that try to make something out of the presidential campaign every damned day. What will you do with all that time? Instead of thinking about how what happened in the last hour might be history, you could, for example, read history. May I recommend the Amity Shlaes biography of Calvin Coolidge?



Coolidge was boring. Good boring. Let's be boring for a change.



I want a boring President. Stop trying to excite me.

Perhaps if Clinton hadn't tried to excite us, America wouldn't have opted for the insanely exciting Donald Trump. I do think an outright, openly boring person would be the best foil for Trump. But we saw how he took down "Low Energy Jeb," so....

"Since the Easter Egg Roll was revived under Betty Ford, most of the first ladies who have hosted the event wore suits, or at least jackets, suggesting it was a professional commitment."

"Hillary Clinton displayed her penchant for rainbow-colored pantsuits when she was host, resplendent one year in buttercup yellow, another in grass green. When the Obamas were in the White House, they significantly relaxed the rules, the president often going without a tie or jacket, and Michelle Obama most often in pants with a J. Crew T-shirt or cardigan and Converse (one Tracy Reese floral dress excepted). The message was one of a new, more relaxed, modern and active era."

From a NYT style piece explaining why Melania Trump's "classic... Easter dress... was actually something of a break with tradition." It seems as though Melania isn't so much the First Lady as a woman playing the part of First Lady, wearing "costumes for a series titled 'In The White House.'"

Here are a bunch of old photos from White House Egg Rolls of the past. Here's one showing Hillary in a suit that is not a pantsuit:



Here's how the First Lady (Grace Coolidge) looked in 1927:



Was there an Easter Raccoon back then? Actually, that's a Thanksgiving raccoon.

Is President Trump going to adhere to the presidential tradition of press conferences?

Here's a transcript of Hugh Hewitt's conversation with Sean Spicer, who will be the new White House Press Secretary. They're talking about whether President Trump will have the same kind of press conferences we've seen from past presidents, which Hewitt characterized as "regular" and "energetic."

I had to stop and check to see what the tradition of press conferences really is. Has it been distinct and consistent? Here's a piece from the White House Historical Association. Woodrow Wilson started the practice of press conferences, and all of his successors (so far) have used it.

Calvin Coolidge considered it "rather necessary to the carrying on of our republican institution that the people should have a fairly accurate report of what the president is trying to do." Fairly accurate. Trying to do.

JFK — who's right in the middle of the line of men that begins with Wilson and ends with Obama — gave the first live, televised press conferences. Up until Eisenhower, the sessions were not even on the record, and the President retained the power to rewrite his quotes. When Truman said "I think the greatest asset that the Kremlin has is Senator McCarthy," the reporters helped him see that the quote was too exciting and they even assisted him in mushing it up into: "The greatest asset that the Kremlin has is the partisan attempt in the Senate to sabotage the bipartisan foreign policy of the United States."

JFK made the televised press conference into something that served his agenda and suited his particular gifts and desired image. Later Presidents accepted Kennedy's approach but also adapted it. George H. W. Bush introduced the joint press conference with world leaders. Obama has often substituted interviews with one chosen reporter. In his first 2 years, Obama did 21 Kennedy-style press conferences to a roomful of reporters and 269 of those one-on-one encounters.

With that background on presidential press conferences, let's get back to Hewitt and Spicer:

"Clinton still hasn’t unlocked the only thing that could really turn a campaign into a movement... authentic excitement among American women at her historic candidacy."

"There have been blips of real, viral enthusiasm... But for all the ersatz hashtags pushed by would-be grassroots support groups, it sure hasn’t happened yet," observes Ben Smith.

But... Clinton shouldn’t rely on inspiration for her candidacy. There is, after all, another way to win. Perhaps she can’t run a campaign modeled on the Obama 2008 movement. The alternative is Obama 2012 — a boring, grinding affair that sold a nascent economic recovery, scorched the Republican, and plodded to the White House.

I'm sick of inspiration and claims of historiosity. We should all be perfectly jaded by now. Inoculated. It's healthful and wholesome. And so what if watching the campaign day by day is "a boring, grinding affair"? That's a problem for Smith, running his buzz-dependent website, but it's a nonproblem for the rest of us. Think of the time you can save not reading the websites that try to make something out of the presidential campaign every damned day. What will you do with all that time? Instead of thinking about how what happened in the last hour might be history, you could, for example, read history. May I recommend the Amity Shlaes biography of Calvin Coolidge?



Coolidge was boring. Good boring. Let's be boring for a change.



I want a boring President. Stop trying to excite me.

"At some point, should she run, Hillary Clinton, who did not speak publicly at the ceremonies, will have to sort all this out."

"She will be asked to explain more precisely where she stands on issues of income inequality, economic growth, spending, taxes, entitlements and the trade-offs that will face the next president. Will she be able to be true to the New Democrat ideals that brought her husband to power and also accommodate the energy pulsing through the party’s progressive wing? The answers should begin to come later this year, as she nears a decision about whether to run."

Writes Dan Balz at the end of his column titled "Is New York’s de Blasio prompting a repositioning by the Clintons?" 

"At some point," Hillary, who hasn't spoken yet, will be asked to say something, something more precise, about all these things that she's refrained from speaking about for so long. At some point? At what point? Eventually there will be a point, and when it comes, what difference at this point does it make?

It's a style: Wait long enough and you can say the time has passed for addressing this problem. That's a conservative strategy by the way.

When you see ten troubles rolling down the road, if you don’t do anything, nine of them will roll into the ditch before they get to you.

I think President Coolidge said that.

The energy pulsing through the party’s progressive wing won't pulse forever. And when that throbbing tumescence abates, the calm steady woman will be there as ever, waiting for us all to acknowledge her rightful status as President of the United States.

IN THE COMMENTS: Tom Gallagher said: "Doesn't she need to write a book or two before running for president?" And I had to think: Has Hillary ever written a book?

"Gatsby, Galbraith and the Myth of Coolidge’s Crash."

By Amity Shlaes (who has a new book on Coolidge):

The corollary to the “The Great Gatsby” in the literature of economics is another old “great,” “The Great Crash 1929,” by the economist John Kenneth Galbraith. Galbraith’s narrative, like Fitzgerald’s, is subtle, conjuring complex characters. Yet the effect of both books is the same: to display the 1920s as a decade full of false numbers and false people, reckless pilots who caused an economic wreck so catastrophic it necessitated 10 years of Depression.

"Most presidents place faith in action; the modern presidency is perpetual motion."

"Coolidge made a virtue of inaction. 'Give administration a chance to catch up with legislation,' he told his colleagues in the Massachusetts Senate. 'It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones,' he wrote to his father as early as 1910. Congress always says, 'Do.' Coolidge replied, 'Do not do,' or, at least, 'Do less.' Whereas other presidents made themselves omnipresent, Coolidge held back. At the time, and subsequently, many have deemed the Coolidge method laziness. Upon examination, however, the inaction reflects strength. In politics as in business, it is often harder, after all, not to do. Coolidge is our great refrainer."

From the new biography "Coolidge," by Amity Shlaes.

Were you, like me, struck by the word "administration" in "Give administration a chance to catch up with legislation"? Did you think there was a missing "the" and have to stop and think? We're so used to the entity called "the Administration" that it's hard to see "administration" as the counterpart to "legislation." Or — more disturbing — our go-to word for what the executive branch is "enforcement."

Purchase of the day.

Yesterday, Sunday February 11. Head & Shoulders Clinical Strength Anti Dandruff Shampoo 14.2 Fl Oz (Pack of 2) (Earnings to the Althouse blog = $0.97)

Honorable mentions:

VIZIO E701i-A3 70-inch 1080p 120Hz Razor LED Smart HDTV (Earnings to the Althouse blog = $64.00)

"Coolidge" [Hardcover] Amity Shlaes (Author) (Earnings to the Althouse blog = $1.53)

Rheem Ruud Weatherking Factory OEM Protech Parts 62-22868-93 Furnace Hot Surface Ignitor (Earnings to the Althouse blog = $1.86)

Plus 32 other purchases. Thanks to all who used the portal.

"As the clerk started to give him cash from the cash register, the thief started to cry, explaining that he only wanted to feed his wife and family."

"After the clerk offered to give him pizza and chicken wings, the man waited for the food for about 10 minutes."

“I’d say the clerk was pretty astute,” [said Helena Police Chief Troy McGee.] “I mean, he knows how to talk to this person. Kind of commiserated with him a little. Talked to him about it and you know actually changed his mind about robbing the place. That was pretty good.”

But didn't he commit robbery by taking the pizza and chicken wings without paying? Apparently, the clerk gave him the food. This reminds me of the famous Calvin Coolidge story:

Coolidge gave him $32, calling it a loan so the intruder would not be a thief...