I posit that those who condemn Trumps actions seem to be the very crowd chanting that the villains of Oct 7th are the Israelis massacred and raped by Gazans. TD
"Which is to say, all the outraged hoopla over Trump’s reconstruction of the East Wing is nothing more than hoopla from a collection of historical ignoramuses who have zero idea about the changes over the decades — centuries! — to the White House."
"Suddenly — make that again — the Trump critics are aghast.
The reason this time?
"President Trump — the only president in history whose private sector career was centered around building buildings and buying real estate — has gone ahead with a decided upgrade of the East Wing of the White House.
The Trump objective, of course, is to improve the building by replacing the suite of East Wing rooms generally associated with the Office of the First Lady with a serious, major-league ballroom that Presidents will be able to use for official entertainment of good-sized crowds. And, as noted, his critics are, but of course, crazed.
"As a former White House staffer myself, I can certainly attest that, as the old building is currently structured, there is a decided limit to the size of crowds a president can welcome at a time. The famous East Room is not as big as some appear to think, and crowds of visitors, of necessity, spill out into the adjacent Green, Blue, and Red Rooms along with the State Dining Room and the grand Cross Hall.
"Trump, as noted, the sole builder to hold the presidency, has envisioned a considerably larger-sized ballroom that will allow presidents to entertain on a larger scale — something that is routine in the residences of various global heads of state.
"What is remarkable, if not surprising, is the apparent complete lack of knowledge by Trump critics of previous architectural changes to the building by Trump’s many predecessors.
"No one today gives a second thought to the endless flow of stories that reference the Oval Office or the West Wing without understanding that neither was part of the original White House.
"It was all the way back there in the turn of the 20th century — 1902 — that President Theodore Roosevelt authorized the razing of greenhouses that were eventually replaced by what we now know as the “West Wing.” The Oval Office as America has come to know it came to be in the term of TR’s successor, William Howard Taft.
"As the 20th century moved on, it was the polio-stricken President Franklin Roosevelt — for whom swimming was a doctor-recommended method of exercising his paralyzed legs — who had the first White House swimming pool installed. Later — oh the horror! — the pool was drained and covered over by President Nixon, who had it redone into what Americans now see frequently as the White House press room.
"In 1948, during the Harry Truman presidency, a leg of daughter Margaret Truman’s piano fell through the floor in her room. The end result was the realization that the ancient interior of the building — supported by the original wooden beams of the 1800s — would have to be removed, and the original wooden beams holding the building together replaced with modern steel beams.
"Thus began the most massive reconstruction of the building during the Truman era." .More ...
Jeffrey Lord, a contributing editor to The American Spectator, is a former aide to Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp. An author and former CNN commentator, he writes from Pennsylvania at jlpa1@aol.com. His new book, , is now out from Bombardier Books.
