How have some countries managed to persuade the rest of the world that when you visit, you have to wear their traditional garb or they will be gravely offended? I mean, this is just absurd:
I propose that from now on, all foreign visitors be required to dress up like pilgrims. Or our forefathers- complete with wooden teeth, painful cummerbunds, and powdered wigs.
A couple visits to the US of A, and I bet this tradition abroad will end.
Zifnab
Omg! President Bush is secretly a wizard or something!
chopper
i’m thinking pinhead, but wizard will do as well.
caption: “yeah, i got a cigarette, pooty. just let me dig into my ‘bag of holding'”.
RSA
From the 2006 Hogwarts yearbook. . .
ThymeZone
Oddly, this is always the way I pictured him dressing when we weren’t looking.
Zifnab
If only the shot was of Putin and Bush holding hands. The sparkle in McChimpey’s eye. The wind on Putin’s scalp. They make a lovely couple.
Alan de Bristol
Take a look at the whole line-up of leaders at APEC in their robes.
http://www.apec.org/
Is there some kind of colour coding going on?
MNPundit
It’s because eastern traditional clothes are about 1,000,000,000,000 times more comfortable than western clothes, except pjs.
Pb
OMG, that is hilarious. Now the next question is, can Putin and Bush get Andrea to wear a dress too…
Steve
I thought we fought a war so we wouldn’t have to wear those powdered wigs any more.
Tim F.
Notice the body language in that shot. I get the sense that if Bush leaned any further over Putin would drop him like a sack of potatoes.
Blue Neponset
Is that Bush & Putin visiting Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?
Molly McRae
When I first saw the picture I wondered what the reaction would have been if John Kerry or any Democrat dressed like that on a visit to Viet-Nam.
Zifnab
John Kerry dresses that way because he hates our troops.
RSA
I’m surprised Commander Codpiece is smiling; check out the apparent size of Putin’s cartoonishly large package compared with his.
CaseyL
That’s hysterical. It looks like an adult version of a high school drama class production of “South Pacific.”
The Other Steve
My girlfriend tells me that in 1999 when he was campaigning to replace Yeltsin, he made a stop at a military school and spent a bit of time tossing cadets to the floor. He’s a black belt in Judo and is quite skilled.
Note for 2008 candidates: Instead of wind surfing, take up Karate.
Faux News
More great photos and commentary of this event on Wonkette:
http://www.wonkette.com/politics/george-w.-bush/world-leaders-in-dresses-hot-apec-action-215991.php
The Other Steve
this apec pic is disturbing
srv
Before or after kissing them?
ThymeZone
Good lord, that is disturbing. On so many levels.
Is that real, or Photoshop?
capelza
Forget the Pilgrim outfit…slap a Coonskin cap on their heads! Maybe dress ’em up like Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti Western or something.
canuckistani
I suggest total body painting in the colours of whatever football team plays in the conference location, plastic horns and rainbow fright wigs optional.
capelza
Oh great idea canuckistani! Cheeseheads!
Jay
Here you go:
Brown/Bronze = Beef.
Yellow = Vegetarian.
Pink = Chicken.
Blue = Fish.
re: The pictures in wonkette, the second one shows Bush is getting ready for his lame duck status.
The Other Steve
Mullet wigs perhaps?
Tax Analyst
Hysterical! And the full apec picture – it looks like some kind of cult thing – or out-takes from a really bad remake of “The Wizard of Oz”.
Cassius Chaerea
Man, if anything shows Bush’s lame duck weakness and the contempt that other world leaders hold for him …
They dressed him up in a clown suit. And he had no choice but to comply.
Whatever happened to the good old days of, lo, just two or three years ago, when Dick Cheney could wear a ratty winter jacket to a Holocaust memorial ceremony?
Tax Analyst
Oh, jeez…and I altogether forgot “Zippy the Pinhead”.
Perry Como
“Aight, I put on my robe and wizard hat.”
Buddhist with an attitude
You guys are really, really ignorant.
«Associated Press – The tradition of posing in clothing symbolic of the host country began with the first APEC summit in Seattle in 1993, when the leaders wore leather bomber jackets. Indonesian batik, Filipino barong made of pineapple fiber, and gold-embroidered Chinese silk tunics are among the other traditional shirts the leaders have worn, sometimes to their apparent chagrin.»
And «APEC is famous for its tradition of having attending leaders dress in the national costume of the host nation.» http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APEC
jcricket
Has anyone seen all the pictures of the GOP leadership at the Reverend Moon’s coronation? Now that’s some fun stuff.
(Teensy pictures, sorry).
craigie
Look! We’re being visited from the future!
And yet sadly, it seems that people from the future are no smarter than us. Especially about clothing.
Bombadil
They look like a bunch of kindergarteners wearing daddy’s shirt backwards as a smock for fingerpainting class.
Punchy
What is it about these costumes’ shape or shading that makes one almost automatically focus on the crotch? That giant shaded inverted “V” is just screaming “look at where this crease ends! Look at it!”
I need to get me some of these.
Krista
They don’t have to wear the symbolic clothing the entire time, do they? I thought it would be just for one particular event + photo-op.
Um, Seattle in 1993? They should have put them in flannel shirts and Docs instead, methinks.
pie
That APEC photo is just crying out for a caption.
Any ideas?
cleek
Any ideas?
“This should be an easy win, George. Just remember what we talked about – keep an eye on Malfoy. He plays dirty.”
Jay
Putin: Mine’s bigger.
or
Don’t stand, don’t stand so, don’t stand so close to me.
craigie
It’s what all the hip barbers are wearing these days.
Peter VE
Bush: “If Nixon just hadn’t wimped out, we wouldn’t have to prance around in this dress.”
Putin: “Brezhnev should have let him win. I’m throwing his corpse out of the Kremlin Mausoleum.”
CaseyL
“No one may stand taller than the king!”
grumpy realist
“No, trust me. I read about this in ‘Dress for Success'” –Bush to Putin
Punchy
“Queer Eye for the Dumb Guy”
Tax Analyst
Punchy, that’s great.
Tax Analyst
Oh, “Buddhist”, yes – but didn’t you read John Cole’s disclaimer on the right-hand side of the screen just below the balloon and the guy underneath it? “Hot Air
and Ill-Informed Banter”. You’d have to admit this thread fully qualifies to that criteria.
chefrad
Kummerbunds!
I live in DC. I use Kummerbunds thrice a week.
skip
Bush looks just little “the Little Prince,” which he is. Very little.
John Harrold
I know it looks silly, but when one visits a foreign place it really endears one to the locals to at least appear to embrace the culture. Right now I’m sitting at work wearing a lavalava (basically a sarong). The Samoans here don’t think: who’s the transvestite; in fact they don’t think anything at all because everyone here wears the same thing.
SeesThroughIt
Perry Como–
That was exactly what I thought of when I saw that pic. But I didn’t think anybody else would get the reference..
russell
Any ideas?
“Tell me the truth… does this make me look fat?”
Buddhist with an attitude
Tax Analyst et al, this thread is a disgusting and despicable demonstration of euro-ethnic arrogance: whities getting together to laugh at brown people’s clothes. I am aware of Americans’ parochial ignorance, but even after I pointed out that it’s a well known (to the rest of the world) APEC custom, people still continue making fun of the Vietnamese national clothes. Is this how you came up with such delightful nicknames as towelheads or ragheads when you look at Iraqis?
Perry Como
“I cast a lvl. 8 War of the Infinite!”
CaseyL
Bush: “… and it hides my Shadow puppeteer lots better’n just the suit jacket.”
Putin: “It is also excellent to conceal your complete lacking of dick.”
Bush: “Dick? Naw, he’s back in the bunker.”
Putin: “Your dick is in a bunker? I am not understanding the euphemism.”
Bush: “You-foam what? Hell, Vladdy, I mean Dick’s in that ‘undisguised location’ he likes so much. Don’t know about foam, ‘less he missed his meds again.”
Putin (mutters): “Foam? Meds? Undisguised location?” (to bodyguard:) “Sergei, is this noodle-eared cabbage fart making the proposition at me?”
Sergei: “At least he is giving the warning. Chancellor Merkel did not even get that much.”
Putin: “If he touches me, kill him.”
The Other Steve
There’s a certain irony invoked when you are called ignorant for making fun of George Bush in a dress.
pie
I was thinking of that, too, CaseyL. Putin looks like he hasn’t forgotten the lessons of Chancellor Merkelgate.
When you look deep into Putin’s eyes, somehow you just know that it’s the right thing to do.
rachel
Pajamas are traditional eastern clothes.
raj
Don’t forget, this web site is a member of Pajamas Media
KCinDC
They’re not a trillion times more comfortable when you’re wearing a suit and tie underneath them.
db
Folks at Martini Republic feel the same.
John Cole
Does it make your ass look fat?
Tax Analyst
I’m not even wearing a lavalava and now I’m looking at my ass…hmmm…not bad, really. Buddhist – I don’t know about the other folks here, but I, in fact, do not use the expressions “raghead” or “towelhead” EVER – well, except as shown here, in the context shown and in quotation marks. I just don’t…they don’t really strike as clever insults and they don’t further any discussion either, so I don’t see any point to use them in any context. I do, however, reserve the right to make fun of the way political leaders dress (or do anything, for that matter), particularly morons like George Bush. You see, we have been held HOSTAGE to this idiot and his short-sighted, deceptive, flat-out dishonest words and actions for 6 years now and we have had to take whatever we could as far as “amusement” goes up until this last election. We have a little more latitude now, and we are going to use it. I personally apologize if my remarks offend you…I personally apologize in ADVANCE if I say anything further in this thread that you see in an offensive light. But I reserve the right to make fun of George W. Bush in a lavalava, in a lavatory, or any other clothing or place or situation that comes to my attention. Now…where were we, anyway?
profbacon
When people vist the United states they should wear T-shirts with something offensive.
I want to see Tony Blair wear a T that says `Rock Out With Your Cock Out!`.
And Baseball hats. That`s traditional American dress.
Bruce Moomaw
Looks like a hospital gown — which might not be the most inappropriate garb for Bush.
By the way, George Washington did NOT have wooden false teeth — his false teeth were ivory (as was standard in those days). They did, however, have a disturbing habit of suddenly locking wide open during his speeches, forcing him to reach into his own mouth and release them before he could continue. Good thing they didn’t have C-SPAN in those days.
Skarl
It’s more fun to laugh at leaders in traditional dress when even the culture its traditional for no longer actually wears it.
It raises an interesting question though: since Bush & Putin look ridiculous in that clothing, and those people who wear it normally don’t, are they
a) just badly dressed
OR
b) is that culture’s clothing designed to make a different physique/appearance/personality look good?
In other words, if in the West, our ideal male is someone who looks good in a suit, do we tend to promote a specific personality or set of values as a result?
I suppose all this stuff is probably old hat to people with more knowledge of feminist thought…
elliot
Bush: “I’m going ‘commando’ you know.”
Putin: “Thank you for sharing that.”.”
mountaindan
I was in Hanoi for Bush’s visit & a group of westerners & Hanoi natives watched the western leaders in this garb standing behind the Vietnamese prisident…who talked FOREVER reading from a paper, never looking up. Bush (& i have video i took) was ever the school boy…completely undignified…talking, smirking, looking bored..in short an embarassment. in the vdeo he’s the body shifting back & forth behind the Viet Nam Prez in close ups…