MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Pat, you took note of the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Something doesn’t seem right to you.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Pat, you’re a little concerned.

BRZEZINSKI: He’s very concerned.  Pat, I’m going to hold it up.

PAT BUCHANAN: I’m surprised.

BRZEZINSKI: You’re surprised?

BUCHANAN: Yeah. In the Oval Office, the President of the United States.  I have never seen a president in shirtsleeves in the Oval Office. Ford or Nixon or Reagan.  Reagan always had his coat on in the Oval Office, as did Nixon, and they would go into that side office they’ve got where they worked, where they would take their coat off.  And Nixon of course moved across the street to the EOB where he had his private office on the first floor over there. That’s where he’d take his coat off and be working.

SCARBOROUGH: This bothers you.

BUCHANAN: No, it doesn’t bother me, but it surprises me. It’s the new informality or something like that, you know?

BRZEZINSKI: Well, it’s a new day. Mark Whitaker, you were asking Pat about this.  I don’t know, I kind of like it, actually. I guess there’s a formality to the Oval Office.

SCARBOROUGH: But then again, Mika likes swimsuits and shirts, so –

BRZEZINSKI: N-o-o-o.  N-o-w-w-w. Sto-p-p-p-p.

Some wag might suggest that even if Bill Clinton kept his coat on . .  .

So what do readers think?  Bold new fashion statement befitting our informal age, or inappropriate for the world’s focal point of power and responsibility?