BY KAREN WEBB

Are these people crazy? George W. Bush says the oval office is a sacred shrine, so he gave us the jacket rule and then destroyed the country while proving that clothes do not make the presidency. They are raving lunatics.

They show a picture of Bill Clinton giving what appears to be a tour, with regular people, after he went jogging and they say it is disrespectful.

Bush went to work at dawn? Why have I never heard that line before? I have heard that he took a regular nap and went to bed with the chickens as we say in Texas, but I never heard the one about going to work at dawn. He took over two years of vacation days and claimed to always be on top of it and in the office.

Oh, my God, what pretension.

Clinton even in the jogging outfit went to work early and stayed past midnight most of the time and left us with a large surplus. It was not unusual for him to work 18-20 hours a day.

Bush comes in and insists that wearing a jacket in the oval office will excuse leaving us a several trillion dollar debt, a war based on selective use of intelligence, torture as a family value and put the economy in the toilet. And I am supposed to be flabbergasted that Obama chooses to take his coat off when it is hot in the office.

He should do, what, instead? Turn down the thermostat, open the doors when it is freezing outside, use the AC in January and buy parkas for the rest of the staff? All of this is supposed to respect the office?

What unadulterated gall.

Pat Buchanan is outraged? He has never seen a president in the oval without a jacket, but there are pictures of presidents in the office, working, without jackets. Most are Democrats, but there is one of Gerald Ford in a turtleneck and what appears to be a pair of plaid golf pants while playing with a dog. There have been a lot of actual four-legged dogs, including Bush’s, in the oval office. How business-like is that? Only working dogs are allowed in all the other DC sacred government shrines.

Obama has breakfast with his kids, has a workout and starts work at 9 a.m., but just like George he is on call all the time and so far, like Clinton, he works late, sometimes until 10 p.m. – and my guess is he doesn’t take naps.

Let me make this abundantly clear: if President Obama can actually fix the unholy mess George W. Bush made while wearing designer jackets in that sacred shrine, I don’t care if he is wearing Chicago Bulls basketball shorts, a Bears jersey and a White Sox cap, or Michelle’s inaugural ball gown, a suit of armor, or Scarlett O’Hara’s green on white picnic frock, with a hoop skirt and pantaloons.

Let’s just say that when my president has an emergency or would like to get in a few more hours of work time, I would prefer he get to it without taking a shower and getting all spiffy for camera ops where he sits looking dense, but smirking, and can’t put an entire, coherent sentence together.

– Karen Webb lives in Moore, OK and is a regular contributor to The Oklahoma Observer