Suspiciously Dapper Yappers Give Dems Dressing Down

Health care reform opponents a little too fashionable for Barbara Boxer's taste

By SARA K. SMITH

Updated 12:00 PM PST, Wed, Aug 5, 2009

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Senator Boxer does not care for your suspiciously posh-looking outfit.

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California Senator Barbara Boxer made a very good point the other day on the teevee, which is that the Town Hall roustabouts making so much trouble about health care reform are far too well-dressed to be actual Republican voters.

Now, her evidence is actually somewhat grounded in fact: in late 2000, a swarm of clean-cut, khaki-clad, non-Floridian Republican youngsters descended on Miami in order to protest the presidential vote recount and yell a lot on the television in order to make it appear that the whole Sunshine State hated Al Gore. And it worked, maybe, because Gore sure didn't end up winning that election!

The so-called "Brooks Brothers Riot" lives on in the fevered imaginations of many Democrats as evidence of how any well-dressed Republican expressing an opinion in a public forum is not to be trusted. Nine times out of ten, that person will be a phony, a mole, or a political shill.

Look at any of the hundred bazillions of photos available, for free, on the Internet, of the Tea Party protests that attracted conservative voters of all stripes. Do these folks look like the sort of people who have ever seen the inside of a dry cleaner's? Do they look like they have even seen the inside of a dwelling that couldn't be hoisted onto a flatbed truck and hauled to the next exit off the highway?

So sure, it's a little weird if suddenly Town Halls across the U.S. are suddenly being swarmed by folks in summer-weight wool suits and Windsor-knotted neckties moaning about Obamacare and "sociamalism." The question is, could such a thing be happening? Or is Barbara Boxer so demented that she's imagining the Brooks Brothers Riots, Summer Edition?

Regardless, Boxer needs to drop the anti-Republican bigotry and realize that virtually all Americans -- black, white, Hispanic, rich, poor, insured, comatose, and indifferent -- are terrible dressers, regardless of party. If she is actually seeing people in Town Halls who aren't wearing Snuggies and flip-flops, she shouldn't be worrying about if they're secret Republican operatives. She should be worried that they're foreigners.

Sartorial critic Sara K. Smith writes for NBC and Wonkette.