August 28, 2014: President Barack
Obama wears a tan suit to a White House press conference. No big deal, right?
Apparently, it was a big deal to conservatives. They absolutely lost their minds.
The press conference was about the situation regarding ISIS in Syria, and how the U.S. military was planning to respond to it. At the conference, Obama said that the U.S. had yet to develop a plan regarding the removal of ISIS, and talked extensively about his concerns in the region.
But conservatives focused not on the message, or even on the messenger, but on his choice of clothing:
* Representative Peter King, Republican from Long Island, New York: "There's no way, I don't think, any of us can excuse what the president did yesterday. I mean, you have the world watching... ISIS is watching. If you were the head of ISIS, if you were Baghdadi, if you were anyone in the ISIS, would you come away from yesterday afraid of the United States? Would you be afraid that the United States was going to use all its power to crush ISIS?" King also said, referencing the beach resort in his home District, “He looked like he was on his way to a party at the Hamptons.”
* Lou Dobbs, host on Fox Business Network: He said the tan suit was "shocking to a lot of people."
* Pete Hegseth, panelist on Fox News Channel: "Only the Democrats, and only the liberals, could elect a guy in a tan suit." (As if he had worn it during either of his election campaigns.)
* Vanessa Friedman, fashion critic with The New York Times: "Khaki is a sort of wishy-washy color... a particularly odd choice for a discussion of wishy-washy military policy."
Someone, I forget who, but a supporter of Obama's, remembering his book titled The Audacity of Hope, called the suit "The Audacity of Taupe." Someone else turned his slogan of "Yes we can!" into "Yes we tan!"
The month before Obama's news conference, Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian was arrested in Iran on espionage charges and eventually convicted in an Iranian trial. In 2019, he tweeted, "I was in prison when this happened. Today is literally the first time I’m hearing of it... if this was actually a thing to be covered at the time – and now – we are indeed the most privileged – and perhaps pettiest – nation ever."
In June 1984, Ronald Reagan not only wore a tan suit, but was photographed wearing it in the Oval Office. Nobody objected then, either liberal or conservative.
I've also found pictures of tan suits being worn as Presidents by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Gerald Ford and both George Bushes. As Reagan would have said, "Well... "
UPDATE: On August 19, 2024, the 1st day of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Vice President and Presidential nominee Kamala Harris made an appearance, wearing a tan suit. On August 28, 2024, the 10th anniversary of the incident, Obama tweeted side-by-side pictures of himself and Harris in tan suits tweeting, "How it started. How it's going. Ten years later, and it's still a good look! #IWillVote.com."
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August 28, 2014 was a Thursday. These Major League Baseball games were played:
* The New York Yankees lost to the Detroit Tigers, 3-2 at Comerica Park in Detroit. Batting against Shawn Kelley, Alex Avila singled Bryan Holaday home with the winning run in the bottom of the 9th inning. That, and the lineup getting only 5 hits -- 2 by Carlos Beltrán, and none by the soon-to-retire Derek Jeter -- ruined a good start by Hiroki Kuroda.
* The New York Mets lost to the Atlanta Braves, 6-1 at Citi Field. The Mets were only down 1-0 after 7 innings, but Jon Niese ran out of gas.
* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Tampa Bay Rays, 5-4 at Camden Yards in Baltimore.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Chicago Cubs, 7-2 at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati.
* The Cleveland Indians beat the Chicago White Sox, 3-2 at the new Comiskey Park (now Guaranteed Rate Field) in Chicago.
* The Minnesota Twins beat the Kansas City Royals, 11-5 at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City. Royals reliever Bruce Chen absolutely collapsed in the top of the 10th inning, allowing 2 singles, 2 doubles, a triple, and 2 walks, 1 of them intentional, for 6 runs.
* The Houston Astros beat their in-State rivals, the Texas Rangers, 4-2 at Minute Maid Park (now Daikin Park) in Houston.
* The Los Angeles Angels beat the Oakland Athletics, 4-3 at Angel Stadium of Anaheim. Howie Kendrick won it with a sacrifice fly, bringing Albert Pujols home in the bottom of the 10th inning.
* The San Francisco Giants beat the Colorado Rockies, 4-1 at AT&T Park (now Oracle Park) in San Francisco. Yusmeiro Petit, normally a relief pitcher, started this game for the Giants. Having retired the 1st 8 batters, he ran his streak of consecutive batters retired to 46, a new major league record. I have a separate entry for this event.
* And the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Boston Red Sox, the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Miami Marlins, the Milwaukee Brewers, the Philadelphia Phillies, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the St. Louis Cardinals, the San Diego Padres, the Seattle Mariners, the Toronto Blue Jays and the Washington Nationals were not scheduled.
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