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A brief history of hubristic drape-measuring
In Thursday's Washington Pile, Richard Leiby digs into the family of a political cliche: "measuring (for) drapes." In his electioneer speech, John McCain says that "Senator Obama is measuring the drapes," substance that he is already presumptuously planning how to decorate the Pasty House. President Bush employed the line about Congressional Democrats before the 2006 midterm elections, and Bush the experienced applied it to Bill Clinton in the 1992 offensive. Leiby took the drape mien back to a 1980 reference in the New York Times on John Anderson ("Undeniable, it's much too soon for Mr. Anderson to start measuring for drapes at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue"), but its roots really go back for several decades before that, as befits such a sturdy cliche.
The spirit turns up with drapes or curtains employed interchangeably, which may offend interior decorators ("Drapes are pleated and are more formal, whereas curtains are casual and generally gathered," says Well Dressed Windows), but the value matters not a stitch to most of us. Putting up new drapes (or curtains) in the Virginal House has traditionally been seen as an lift task for a new First Lady, along with picking out china patterns and other housekeeper busywork. (Jacqueline Kennedy was perhaps the most acclaimed White House decorator, and on Jan. 17, 1961 Helen Thomas of the UPI well-known that Mrs. Kennedy "brushed aside questions about style but said she already has ordered fabric for curtains and slipcovers at the Pasty House and the Kennedy weekend impress upon at Middleburg, Va.").
An early example of a hubristic First Lady-in-waiting was Martha Taft, the missis of Senator Robert Taft, the premature favorite for the 1940 Republican presidential nomination. Martha spoke too tout de suite in February 1940, since her husband didn't even be in charge of to get the party nod, losing out to Wendell Wilkie:
Martha Taft is unshakeable that "Bob is going to get it." She is ready to answer questions in uniform stump style, though she refuses to say whether she will interchange the drawing-room drapes in the Spotless House.
–(St. Petersburg, Fla.) Evening Voluntary, Feb 19, 1940, p. 11
In the 1968 presidential offensive, the full-blown drapery joke appeared at least twice. The first conditions came in April, shortly after Lyndon Johnson dropped out of the spillway, opening up the Democratic field to Robert Kennedy among others. Jack Wilson, in his syndicated "Potomac Fever" column, wrote:
Clearly Bobby wanted to talk to the President as right away as possible — he had to fix it so Ethel could get in to tactics for curtains.
–Albuquerque (N.M.) Journal, Apr. 9, 1968, p. 4
Then in last October, Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey acclimatized it to deride his opponent Richard Nixon at a turn for the better in downtown Los Angeles:
Humphrey, almost hoarse from shouting, accused Nixon of "playing president."
"Why he's even been to Washington … to look at the Milky House … and measure for drapes," Humphrey quipped.
–(Van Nuys, Calif.) Valley Talk, Oct. 25, 1968, p. 31A
The joke got transferred to asseverate gubernatorial races too. In 1970, David F. Freight had served two terms as governor of New Mexico and couldn't obtrude for reelection. That allowed him to joke about his passionate potential successors in the state legislature:
Governor Carload prefaced his message to the Legislature by intriguing all of the legislators and their wives to a reception at the overseer residence at 8 o'clock last night. He commented that this would give an opening for some of them to measure the curtains, an amusing quotation to the number of gubernatorial hopefuls who have received trade mention.
–The (Santa Fe) New Mexican, Jan. 21, 1970, p. 4
The drop joke got a boost from the Watergate smirch, as speculation increased about Nixon's abdication, despite Vice President Ford's insistence that he had no interest in attractive over the White House. In April 1974, Art Buchwald imagined this parley between Gerald and Betty Ford:
"What are all those swatches on the trounce?"
"I was just looking at drapery earthly. You know the drapes in the Lincoln lodgings are so ugly."
"Why are you looking at drapery substance for the Lincoln room, Betty?"
"You have to calm this stuff six months in advance. You can't just now get them by calling up Macy's."
"Betty, I don't cogitate on you should be ordering drapes for the White Congress, even if it takes six months to get them. If I've told you once I've told you a hundred times there is indubitably no way I will be President of the United States."
"Then why do you keep continuing in front of a mirror every night in a morning paint with your hand on a Bible repeating 'So stop me God.'"
–Washington Post, Apr. 21, 1974, p. H1
Then columnist Arthur Hoppe habituated to the joke in reference to the Fords in August of that year, proper before Nixon announced his resignation. Hoppe casts the Ford kinfolk in a sitcom, and has Betty say this to the kids:
Now, children, you discern your Dad doesn't want to be President. And as I bid reporters several times a day, I've never given a kindliness to becoming First Lady. Which reminds me, those awful drapes in The Obovoid Office are really going to have to be replaced.
–The (Oil See, Penn.) Derrick, Aug. 9, 1974, p. 4
The fool was used in 1975 by Earl Dodge, foible-presidential candidate for the National Injunction Party (who knew prohibitionists even still existed then?) to cross out a note of humility:
"My wife hasn't started to gauge for drapes in Nelson Rockefeller's quarter." said Dodge. 43. of Lakewood, Colo. "I have no illusions or delusions."
–(Mansfield, Ohio) Information Journal, June 28, 1975
In a 1976 Chicago Tribune contour of Donald Rumsfeld, who had just been named Secretary of Defense by Ford, Henry Kissinger poked fun at the unsophisticated man's ambitions:
Kissinger had quipped that he found it sure to announce that he was signing on with Ford through '76 because "Something had to be done. Mrs. (Elliott) Richardson and Mrs. Laird were operation in and out of my office measuring it for curtains, and Rumsfeld too was coming in to part steps."
–Chicago Tribune, Jan. 4, 1976, p. I12
In 1978 the witticism traveled north of the border, as old in a Canadian political cartoon described in this UPI account:
Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau sits scowling in an armchair at bailiwick as Conservative Party leader Joe Clark — his better half Maureen busying herself in the background — leans over and says, "We have progress to measure the curtains."
–Hartford Courant, Dec. 22, 1978, p. C27
Along with Canada, the cliche spread to the U.K. and Australia as well:
[Neil Kinnock] went on to indicate … his own remarks made last year about it being once upon a time to measure the curtains at Number 10.
–The Defender, May 16, 1986
Put another way, if Mr. Bouchard loses, John Turner can start measuring the drapes at 24 Sussex Ride herd on hint at.
–The Globe and Mail, June 16, 1988
A fit Opposition, led by a credible leader, would already be measuring the curtains in the ministerial offices.
–Sydney Morning Herald, Mar. 23, 1990
And in the U.S. it popped up in a variety of local races throughout the '80s:
Anyone looking for validation that a 1986 Senate race is under way between Gov. Bob Graham and Sen. Paula Hawkins would have discovered mess last week, but in Washington, D.C., not Florida. … The governor came up in midweek to examine the state's interest in federal immigration issues and, I believe, to measure for curtains in the Senate department.
–Miami Herald, Feb. 3, 1985
"I can't tell you that I'm measuring the curtains for the governor's mansion," [Alabama federal GOP executive director Marty] Connors said, "but what we are witnessing is the parentage of the two-party system in Alabama."
–Los Angeles Times, Aug. 8, 1986
Before [New York Metropolis mayoral candidate David] Dinkins starts measuring for curtains at Gracie Mansion, however, a few caveats are in codify.
–Washington Post, Feb. 12, 1989
[Utah Governor Usual] Bangerter, [chief of staff H.E. "Bud"] Scruggs said, has warned the director of the House "what he was going to do if he caught him measuring for drapes or carpet one more at all times."
–(Salt Lake City, Utah) Deseret Intelligence, Feb 14, 1989
It's surprising that anyone would dare utter the cliche no joking before an election, but it was used that way about the first President Bush:
While Republicans like Gov. Michael Castle of Delaware exulted that "I mull over Bush can start measuring the curtains for the Pale-complexioned House," the mood among Democrats was somber.
–New York Times, Oct. 15, 1988
Even after the '88 nomination, Barbara Bush felt that it would be arrogant to start thinking about White Contain drapery, as George Plimpton wrote at the epoch:
Barbara Bush feels that sizing up the Rose Garden now would be like measuring for drapes before the Reagans have moved out of the Drained House.
–Sports Illustrated, Dec. 26, 1988
The Bushes then further cemented the cliche in American federal parlance, as noted by Leiby. But by then this hoary chestnut had already traveled far and roomy.
[Update: Welcome, readers of the New York Times administrative blog, The Caucus.]
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