Sigh. The New York Times has taken the occasion of Barack Obama's election to run another inane Washington, DC "style" story about how they think a tiny sliver of our city's population - namely the handful of very old, well-monied white people with deep connections to national politics - is in charge of setting the tone of the District of Columbia. The entire article is breathtaking in its silliness, but the lede is the most ridiculous:
Bill Clinton brought jazz, Rhodes scholars, a slice of Arkansas and all-night pizza policy sessions. When George W. Bush arrived, Texans took over the town. Blue jeans were out; coats and ties and cowboy boots were in.Really, NYTimes? Do you honestly, after all this time, not understand that the be-jeweled old ladies and collar-popped young Georgetown crew who appear in the pages of Capitol File magazine have almost nothing to do with how the rest of the city lives, regardless of who is in the White House? The idea that George W. Bush changed the wardrobes of Washingtonians is at least less offensive than the one that Bill Clinton "brought" jazz to D.C.
