August 18, 2007

"The perfect nexus of celebrity-spotting, couture gowns and young love -- with just enough wonk thrown in to explain even dour politicos' obsession...

Gearing up for a White House wedding. Haven't had one -- not a real one -- in 35 years. Hillary Clinton's brother doesn't count. If Chelsea had gotten married in the White House -- why do I get the feeling Chelsea will get married in the White House? -- it would count. The last time we had a real one -- the child of a President marrying -- it was Tricia Nixon.
"If Jenna got married in the White House, it would be a tremendous boost to [President Bush's] popularity," says Doug Wead, former special assistant to the first President Bush and author of "All the Presidents' Children." "Nixon received a lot of goodwill because of Tricia's wedding. I've said before that President Bush's best chance to come out of his term well is if they capture Osama bin Laden and one of the twins gets married."
I think capturing bin Laden would beat both twins getting married... in a double wedding... to twins. But we do need our distractions, and public opinion is tweaked down as well as up by all sorts of irrelevant things.

22 comments:

AllenS said...

bin Laden is dead.

Zeb Quinn said...

why do I get the feeling Chelsea will get married in the White House?

First comes adoption, then comes marriage. Adoption to either Giuliani or Fred Thompson that is.

vet66 said...

Allen: I agree. Bin Laden is dead.

Zawahiri keeps it quiet because he needs to keep the iconic bin laden alive for recruitment purposes. Bin Laden is sort of akin to Moses on Mt. Sinai from an arab POV.

The U.S. doesn't talk about it because they don't want to martyr him. So everyone keeps binny boy in limbo for their own purpose. He will gradually fade away to be remembered as Colonel Sanders of al qaeda infamy.

I doubt if the nuptials of Jenna will be a "Pimp my wedding moment" to boost ratings. Even the democrats wouldn't be that tacky.

Peter Hoh said...

No matter how lovely, I doubt a White House wedding will help boost the President's popularity.

Troy said...

Peter --sadly you're right. The utter lack of goodwill by a significant minority of the country -- especially from those holding microphones and cameras -- would suck the joy out fo the wedding. It might be better to get hitched elsewhere.

12 months of whining..."How can Bush spend money on china, flowers, and dresses while Iraq burns?" blah blah blah. Ugh!

MadisonMan said...

Troy, I don't think the wedding will do much for Bush, either, but it's because a wedding doesn't make the same statement it did back in 1974.

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Unknown said...

It doesn't appear Bush gives a damn what the media think of him. And why would a lame duck would stage a wedding just for a few bounce points?

Just another opportunity for media sneer. I agree--Jenna, honey, get married at home.

Jeff said...

So we need to have a double wedding of the Bush twins to a zombie Bin Laden.

It would be a perfect vortex of popularity.

Plus it would bring out the zombie vote.

Anonymous said...

Jeff, we don't really need to bother about the zombie turnout.

I expect the dead will be out voting in their usual numbers next election.

Invisible Man said...

It doesn't appear Bush gives a damn what the media think of him. And why would a lame duck would stage a wedding just for a few bounce points?

Yes, right. Looks like Bush can be a whittle bit sensitive about his carefully scripted image.

Last week, Marques Harper of the Austin American- Statesman wrote a short piece about the president's sartorial style on his Texas ranch, where Bush is spending a two-week vacation. The article was reprinted Tuesday in a Waco, Tex., paper, and the leader of the free world was not pleased.

Harper received a phone call that morning from White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino, who, Harper told friends, said the president read the article and was unhappy about the way he was portrayed.

"I was surprised," said the style writer, who declined to repeat the off-the-record conversation with Perino when we called.

Harper wrote: "The president has two distinct looks when he's in Texas: the ranch-hand man and the crisp appearance of a ranch owner. In recent months, with his sliding popularity, he's opted to look more like 'Walker, Texas Ranger' than a sweaty, tough ranch hand." In the piece, an image consultant offered that Bush needed to "step it up" to keep his "bravado image" on the ranch.

"It was a piece that looked at his ranch wear at Crawford over the years," Harper told us yesterday. "It was a fun piece. Here in Austin, I got e-mails saying, 'That was the dumbest story I ever read.' "

Ruth Anne Adams said...

Jenna's intended comes from Virginia, and will be in school at UVA, only 100 miles from D.C. Why shouldn't they get married near all his family while still giving her the home court advantage?

The Bush daughters are not averse to couture as their Vogue photo essay displays. Why not a little splash, glitz, glamour? We need it.

Anonymous said...
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Maxine Weiss said...

I would love to see a double ceremony. The only thing better is if both the Althouse sons get married on the same day!

Unknown said...

I guess the Austin Statesman writer has ESP. He declines to repeat the supposed conversation with Perino, but claims to know that Bush dresses the way he does because of his "sliding popularity" and offers an unsolicited opinion from an image consultant of their own choosing, thereby making my point: anything Bushian offers endless opportunity for sneering.

Yeah, but what about Halliburton!!

Revenant said...

bin Laden is dead.

I'm inclined to agree, but I've been wrong about that before. I swore he'd died during the initial war against the Taliban, but he turned up a couple years later. Now that he's missing again I'm hesitant to make the same prediction a second time.

Cedarford said...

The country has changed. Lots of traditional men & women, far more than the Democrats admit - love seeing a wedding involving the high&mighty. It makes the leaders more human at a big life's moment.

But the sour grapes crowd had grown more assertive and mor arrogant and much moisier as they pound their approved Leftist metanarratives:

1. How DARE Jenna get married in the White House when she should be fighting and dying in Iraq!
2. How DARE the country enjoy the wedding when people are fighting and dying in Iraq.
3. How DARE the Bush-Hitler and his Stepford wife feel good when flooded -out New Orleans welfare mothers continue to struggle to find a place for their 3 looted plasma screen TVs, 7 kids and 2 others in jail soon to come home!!

But all would be forgiven if Jenna had only married a black man or a Muslim. Then all the fake Lefty outrage over their "dead hero Troops", dead Iraqis, and suffering NOLA parasites would be as rare as a Lefty serving in the Armen Forces or Lefty bluebloods in San Fran or Manhattan taking in homeless NOLA Mommas as houseguests.

If Chelsea had gotten married in the White House -- why do I get the feeling Chelsea will get married in the White House? -- it would count.

We can count on no fake outrage if Chelsea got married in the White House. Lefties would gobble it up. Moderates and conservatives would not pull the 180 DEG opposite of Lefties outside a few hate blogs.

But the only thing better than Chelsea marrying in the White House would be her marrying a transgender male from a minority group who has physical handicaps. In a dual ceremony where Hillary marries one of her longtime devoted bulldyke "HIllaristas" after divorcing Bubba Bill and banishing him from the White House.

PS -
The one person I really feel sorry for in celebrity marriage is Prince Harry. Dad's a doof, deceased Mom a bit unbalanced and both a whore and a gay icon. And Diana picked a dashing young horseman with flaming red hair as her lover before Charles was back rutting Camillia.
And Prince Harry is, unfortunately, the spitting image of his real Dad.

Trumpit said...

The only White House wedding I'd find the least bit interesting would be if Karl Rove got hitched to Scooter Libby. The kiss would be too much even for my inured eyes; i'd have to look away.

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Trumpit said...

Somebody needs to tell Cederford that he's a rotten human being and the scum of the earth, so it's gonna be me. He called Princess Diana a whore and her son a bastard. He said Hilary is a lesbian and referred to other lesbians as bulldykes. He made thinly veiled racist remarks about poor desperate people from New Orleans who were left "low and wet" by the Bush Administration during Katrina. He called them all vandals & thieves and worse. He gives Republicans a bad name as if they needed anymore help in the sullied reputation department after electing Bush & Cheney twice. You also stink, Theo Bohem, for saying you agreed with the filth that Cederford wrote. You both need to fork over all your money to the needy to make up for what you think and write. Then you can both die!

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MDIJim said...

I think I agree with Theo about the desirability of a Rodham-Clinton presidency. Is there any way to make it come sooner so that we are spared all the silliness of first a primary campaign - slinging bullshit in Iowa farm yards, "front runners" who have managed to gather a few thousand votes in marginal states; and then a convention - pontificating anchors, riveting speeches by has-beens and never-weres; and then a campaign - negative ads in grainy black and white with sinister voice-overs crowding out the Geico gecko and Billy May's miraculous products?

You guys are well-versed in law. Is there some constitutional way to just roll Bush out of the White House and roll Hillary in without a year of this madness?