VP on Lands’ End Payroll

He was wearing a hat and a heavy coat. The coat had plastic in it and was grey rather than black. big deal. He is responsible for the Iraq war, why is it important whether he looks funny in a photo?

This pissed off a lot of Poles too.

This is the equivalent of those mirrored sunglasses American (but not British) troops all wear in Iraq. A false sense of protection, with no consideration of how others will see you.

Why did Cheney wear the parka when he could have worn the same coat Reagan wore to the SS cemetary at Bitburg?

The cheap shot at Lands’ End betrays you as a blue-stater. Carhartt is the reference you were looking for.

Of course, this VP’s job seems to be a little different.

Yes. In this case, it involved finding some way to tell the entire rest of the world to go fuck itself, without actually speaking.

The cheap shot at Lands’ End betrays you as a blue-stater. Carhartt is the reference you were looking for.

Actually, the only person I know with a Carhartt jacket lives in Connecticut.

But really. Is it that hard for Dick Cheney to send some guy out to go buy a black parka and some black insulated boots? And a big Russian hat? Look, if you need to wear Polarfleece to a Holocaust memorial service because of health issues, that’s okay. But only in black.

It’s a tough choice here between shutting up given the gravity of the event and noting that the Republicans rode the wave of sartorial snarkiness when it suited them, i.e. the endless analysis of Gore and Kerry clothing choices during the last two Presidential campaigns. Cheney’s coat was the same colour as Kerry’s “camo” about which he did so much sneering just a couple of months back.

Strangely enough, Carhartt is sold at a 200% markup in the UK as casual fashion gear (or at least it was last time I cared, somewhat before Burberry became the rage), while Land’s End is cheapish and middlebrow. (There’s good arbitrage in bringing Carhartt across the pond.)

And I’d say Cheney wasn’t close to sporting Carhartt. More like a reject from the L.L.Bean catalogue.

Look, John, it pains me to criticise you, because your comments are almost always a bath of light in the dark fog that is the internets. But you’re just wrong here. Bash Bush as much as you like (I’ll even help you; here’s a tire-iron). But don’t blame him for what his grandfather did.

I live among Germans. The grandfathers of some of them were Hitler’s whatever. Of the grandchildren, some are sterling folk, some are quivering spinctres, most are pretty much like you and me. In no case, though, do they bear any blame for what their grandfathers did.

Surely there is sufficient evidence to condemn Bush without bringing in something that is (in the strictly technical sense of the term) utterly irrelevant.

Land’s End? Nah, too wannabe LL Bean yuppie.

Carhartt? Nah, too hipster wannabe pseudo-working class.

Cabela’s. Mail-order cheesy hunting gear and clothing.