All the President’s Rugs
Clinton’s Oval Office in 1999
I must admit that it feels silly to talk about the president’s rug. The president of the United States does so many other things that deserve so much more attention than this silly decision. That said, talking about the important decisions of the president in a blog often requires some sort of political position. I try to stay rather apolitical on this blog. As a result, this post is about the useless silly and trivial decoration of the oval office.
President Bush’s Optimistic Oval Office Rug
One of the least important jobs of the president of the United States is to decorate the oval office. Traditionally each president redecorates the room by changing some of the furniture, the paintings on the wall, and so forth. The president also changes the rug to give the office the feel that he is looking for.
President Bush dealt with the tradition of picking the rug by delegating the task to his wife, Laura Bush. His one requirement was that he wanted it to somehow represent optimism.
The rug that Laura Bush picked out has sun like rays emanating out from the traditional presidential seal. The colors are largely types of tan and do seem to represent the western, cowboy president that the white house tries to portray Bush as.
In an apolitical sense, I like rugs with more color.