Each administration has its own culture, its own set of informal working practices. The tone is set, intentionally or otherwise, by the president. It is also usually influenced by the preceding administration. The Clinton White House was highly informal compared to its predecessor, partly because they wanted to send a signal that the younger, baby boom generation had come to power after the old-school starchiness of Bush 41 - and partly because Bill Clinton just liked it that way. Bush 43 and his team, horrified by the perceived laxness of Clinton's style - epitomised, of course, by the Lewinsky affair - emphasised formality. Everyone wore suits. Nobody was allowed in the Oval Office without a jacket and tie. Punctuality was fiercely adhered to. The Obama era is just over a week old but already a new style has emerged, skilfully sketched in this NYT report.
If Mr. Obama’s clock is looser than Mr. Bush’s, so too are his
sartorial standards. Over the weekend, Mr. Obama’s first in office, his
aides did not quite know how to dress. Some showed up in jeans (another
no-no under Mr. Bush), some in coats and ties. So the president
issued an informal edict for “business casual” on weekends — and set
his own example. He showed up Saturday for a briefing with his chief
economic adviser, Lawrence H. Summers, dressed in slacks and a gray sweater over a white buttoned-down shirt. Veterans of the Bush White House are shocked.
I suspect that the new informality is less a reaction to Bush than it is simply an expression of the already-mature culture of Obama and his team, forged in the unprecedentedly intense heat of that two year election campaign. It's the culture of a Silicon Valley start-up: informal but intense, optimistic but driven. Slacks are OK, slacking is not.
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