Robin Givhan: “Uh, no offense? But this manger tableau bit has been done to death, don’t you think? And the whole ‘wrapped in a natural cotton blanket’-thing? Christ—could we be any more bourgeois…?”*
****
(h/t Michelle Malkin; see also Wuzzadem, Captain Ed, The Anchoress, Betsy’s Page, QandO, and Mary Katharine Ham)
****
update: Robin her own self—looking for all the world like a half-eaten chocolate cupcake from a Mary Kay store opening (h/t Darleen)
Comment by B Moe on 7/22 @ 10:24 pm #
Clothes Nazi.
(/hat tip Dan Jenkins)
Comment by Royce on 7/22 @ 10:45 pm #
So Jeff… where is that armored, prancing little SOB?
Comment by Darleen on 7/22 @ 10:47 pm #
I’ve posted the pic at my own place before it disappears, but I’d say Robin Givhan has her own issues when it comes to appropriate attire.
Comment by Salt Lick on 7/22 @ 11:35 pm #
You know what would have been really cool?—if the Roberts family had all come out dressed in black robes, like the Supreme Court. Big robes and little robes. Then at the end of Big John’s remarks, they could have done a “Blue’s Brother’s” thing. Maybe Robin would have thought they were the First African Methodist Expeditionary Mount Bethusda Choir.
Comment by CraigC on 7/23 @ 1:00 am #
RACIST!!!!!!!!!
Comment by Rick on 7/23 @ 1:51 am #
Is that her regular corner? That’s the same crack ho grin Whitney sports every time Bobby goes on trial.
Comment by Major John on 7/23 @ 2:56 am #
Thanks for that Rick, I survive a war to come home and damn near choke to death on cheap Shiraz as I laugh at a blog comment….
Comment by CraigC on 7/23 @ 4:56 am #
Oh, shit, I thought you were still over there.
OVER THERRRRRRRRRRRRRE
OVER THERRRRRRRRRRRRRE
Comment by Attila Girl on 7/23 @ 6:07 am #
I kind of liked the quasi-British, Christopher Robin short pants on the boy.
And of course Robin appears on the one hand to have desired that the poor boy wear long pants during a heat wave in Washington, DC, and on the other to have pined for Gap Kids!–but nothing too casual.
Why do I suspect that she was just as determined to be displeased by Roberts’ family as the rest of the MSM was to take issue with the man himself?
Comment by B Moe on 7/23 @ 11:16 am #
Am I to assume from Robin’s picture that over-dressed is when you wear clothes over your undergarments?
Comment by Rick on 7/23 @ 11:45 am #
Anytime Major J.
Welcome home.
Comment by SeanH on 7/23 @ 3:25 pm #
Does it mean I’m not consevative enough if I agree with that column and don’t know why everyone’s panties are twisted? I mean dressing the kids up is one thing, but short pants and saddle shoes? How is something that anachronistic anything but a costume? A public figure dressing his children in clothes that were last in fashion half a century ago is something a Washington fashion columnist shouldn’t write about? Seriously, if Roberts had been wearing a waistcoat, silk top hat and spats or a zoot suit he would have looked more out of fashion than his family did to you guys? I don’t get it.
Comment by Darleen on 7/23 @ 4:24 pm #
anarchronistic?
I don’t think it means what you think it means.
And Ms. “where’s my dress” Givhan ain’t just making snide remarks about a nominees children but for her it is the hallmark of incipient extremism… “…the Roberts family went too far.”
Guess little Jack would be more acceptable to the insulated, coastal urbanites if he had been dressed in the lastest gangsta … er … hip hop clothing downsized for little wannabes.
Comment by SeanH on 7/23 @ 6:51 pm #
It means exactly what I think it means: MW online – 2 : a person or a thing that is chronologically out of place; especially : one from a former age that is incongruous in the present.
Sure, you can still buy short pants for a kid. I can buy a fancy toga too, but both are apparel “from a former age that is incongruous in the present”.
She didn’t make snide remarks about his children, she made snide remarks about the clothes he chose to dress his children in. Seeing as it’s kind of her job to write about fashion for a Washington paper it just seems a bit strange to me to see people freaking out because she wrote about a questionable fashion decision at the White House. You can disagree with her opinion, but attacking her over it is ridiculous. She didn’t denigrate anyone in that article, she just questioned their taste in clothes. Christ, she was tougher on the flip-flop girls than she was on the Roberts family.
This is exactly what I don’t get. She’s painting him as an extremist because she said they “went too far” with fashion? That seems like one hell of a stretch to me. The right blogosphere’s always pointing out the thin-skinned outrage addicts on the left but I’m at a loss to think of anything sillier than this that the left’s gotten worked up about lately.
Comment by Jeff Goldstein on 7/23 @ 7:00 pm #
That piece was a snide and catty attack on a family disguised as a “Style” report.
This was a Supreme Court nominee and his family—not a red carpet ceremony at the Oscars. The column was ideologically motivated and an transparent attempt to paint Roberts and his family as both reactionary, Eisenhower-era Cleavers and Kennedy Camelot wannabees.
I’m really not worked up about it, though. Just think it bears pointing out. And I feel badly for Mrs Roberts, who I’m sure never had any pretensions to being on the cutting edge of fashion.
This was simply Givhans pissing on what for this family was a very proud moment. And for doing so she shows herself to be a petty partisan.
Comment by Rob C. on 7/23 @ 7:21 pm #
“looking for all the world like a half-eaten chocolate cupcake from a Mary Kay store opening”
Man, I hate it when somebody gnaws all the frosting off and then puts the damn thing back on the plate.
Comment by SeanH on 7/23 @ 7:28 pm #
I read it again, Jeff, and I guess I just don’t see the ideological angle. It just reads like a typically catty style column about the difficulty people have dressing appropriately for the White House with legitimate (IMHO) examples of over- and underdressing. I’ll certainly concede the point that pissing on their family on one of the biggest days of their lives is pretty damn low though. I guess I’m just surprised to see so many people blogging it.
Comment by Jeff Goldstein on 7/23 @ 7:33 pm #
Well, I think it has to do with memories of how Cheney “underdressed” at a Holocaust memorial.
And I think so many people blogged about because they can imagine themselves being on center stage for one brief moment because a loved one had done something truly remarkable, only to have some shrew with a nit to pick with conservatives savage them and their family so that she could make a hackneyed connection to 50s America.
Comment by SeanH on 7/23 @ 8:19 pm #
I can see that. The article didn’t strike me quite that way so I genuinely curious what exactly the objection was. Sorry if that second comment of mine seems argumentative, Jeff. I didn’t want to debate anyone, but the vocabulary lesson kind of ticked me off.
Comment by dwilkers on 7/23 @ 11:32 pm #
It was a catty, nasty attack on the guy’s family. I mean for heaven’s sake leave the freakin kids alone. I can just picture Ms. Roberts dashing around trying to find suitable clothing for the kids – after all they were only going to appear with the President of the United States on prime time national television.
And she doesn’t look like a half eaten cupcake, more like 10 pounds of new potatos stuffed in a 5 pound bag.
Comment by Juliette on 7/24 @ 1:41 am #
Givhans ripped Condi also when the latter was looking good in her black outfit.
Comment by Juliette on 7/24 @ 1:42 am #
Oops, Givhan…eh, whatever.
Comment by Ted Baar on 7/24 @ 7:41 pm #
Poor Post. Not only do they insult everyone attacking the kid’s wardrobes but I have sad new for the little sub-competent bitch of a fashion editor. All she has to do is visit the Ritz Carlton in Boston on Easter Sunday (I suspect St. Pats or the St. Moritz would get you the same result in NY) morn and watch the parents with their Kerry Stickers (still) and the children (and in many cases themselves) all dressed like that.
More evidence that not only is the Post out of touch with the Red States but their own constituency. Pathetic self castrating (craniotomies all around) weeny editors. It’s what happens when hatred blinds you to the obvious, but nice PR for the god guys.
Ted Baar
Boston
Trackback by Pee Female Pee Pee Hole on 1/2 @ 10:54 pm #
Pee Female Pee Pee Hole
I can not agree with you in 100% regarding some thoughts, but you got good point of view