Trump is turning the people's house into a ‘dictator-chic' Saudi palace
My dad, another Irishman, worked at the Capitol. And sometimes my mom and I would drive down and gaze at the White House and Capitol, so proud that an up-and-coming Irishman could have beaten out all the other architects to play such a central role in conjuring the seats of our new republic.
I would think about that when I grew up to be a White House reporter, interviewing president George H.W. Bush in the Oval Office. The room where it happens was a place of wonder, baked in history – good and bad. A famous old ivy, which lasted through so many administrations and eavesdropped on so many remarkable conversations, was the main item on the mantel, flanked by porcelain vases. (Now there are nine gold decorative objects and counting.)
Back then, the room was understated and overwhelming. As Michael Douglas' CEO said in The American President, showing off the Oval Office: 'The White House is the single greatest home court advantage in the modern world.'
Real power doesn't need to shout. In fact, it can whisper.
But Donald Trump was shouting down to reporters on Tuesday as he surveyed his desecration from the White House roof. He looked at his brutalist Rose Garden renovation, a stone slab with Florida-esque patio furniture and the site of the proposed $US200 million ($311 million) ballroom, encroaching on the East Wing and encompassing 90,000 square feet, nearly twice the size of the White House residence.
Trump vowed to pay for the ballroom with private funds – which means, of course, that someone else will curry favour and pay.
(Trump bulldozed the Rose Garden, which Melania Trump helped renovate, just so reporters covering his outdoor pronouncements and White House staffers would not sink into the grass.)
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