Change We Can Taste

In a demonstration of the phenomenal superficiality of the left wing media, even if it is manifest only in an e-zine, Slate offers us this rant about the change we need in the Executive branch:

Slate Finds Something New to Pillory Bush

As a wine lover who can only dream of having the budget to taste some of the great wines of the world, I’ve got to say this is a degree of inanity which defies even the most jaded views. The guy takes one final shot at the outgoing administration and offers advice from his own taste palette perspective on White House wines.

How many ways can we dismantle this puff piece? Let’s start with the mention of Thomas Jefferson’s famed cellar. Can we say that he was a personal collector rather than a micro-manager of state dinner gastronomy? His wine collection was noteworthy, but it wasn’t a function of his office.

Then, in this period of economic crisis, terrorist threat, sociological breakdown and political realignment, do we really want the President getting involved in the wine cellar? Is this guy serious about building a collection of 3000 bottles or so by the end of his first term? Does he have any idea what the turn-over rate would be for official functions? I’m betting that number flows through the White House program monthly. It’s meaningless.

Did you get that dig at Nixon? Yep, the accusation is that he was serving American swill to the guests while secretly getting Ch. Margaux poured into his own Styrofoam cup. But, at least the Slate thinker acknowledges that it was LBJ who established a policy of serving American wines exclusively at state dinners. In 1965, that might have been purely a function of Lyndon’s down-home BBQ and cornbread sort of tastes. For anyone to suggest, as the writer does, that this nationalistic behavior somehow leads to inferior wines at the executive dinner table today is ridiculous. Showcasing America’s wide ranging and very high quality wines is appropriate at state functions. There is no shortage of exceptional wines for all menus and from all varietals that are strictly domestic.

Give Sarkozy some fine California cabernets, cab/merlot blends and Russian River Valley Pinot Noirs and he’ll be blinking back tears as he sees the market for first growth Bordeaux and Grand Cru Burgundies eroded before his Gallic eyes. Slip Chancellor Merkel a bit of American Reisling and she’ll think it’s homeland Rheingau Auslese. Serve Berlusconi a glass or two of California Sangiovese and he won’t notice it doesn’t have the black rooster on the bottle neck. Give any of them some fine Zinfandel and they will wish they could grow it in their home country.

And, having grown up in Chicago I’m familiar with the district which Obama came from. I’ve got to suspect that neither from his current neighborhood nor from the experiences of his upbringing does he bring a lot of wine expertise to the job. He could appoint someone from the Clinton years to be his Wine Guru, provided he could get them through the vetting process. Maybe Gov. Blagojevich could recommend someone? Most of the folks from the South Side of Chi-town are into a “forty” in a brown paper bag or a pint of Thunderbird in the back pocket.