162 Comments
User's avatar
SundayStyle's avatar

To me the funniest thing about the big shoes incident is that apparently it didn't occur to Rubio and maybe Vance as well -- neither of whom are exactly broke -- to simply buy the same shoes Trump had given them, but in the correct size. I mean, the shoes are Florsheim and the internet exists. Then they could walk around saying "I love the shoes, Mr. President, thank you so much!"

If you're going to act like a cringy brown nose you may as well be comfortable while doing it.

Lawguy's avatar

Yes, I've been saying this for some time.

SteveB's avatar

Well, this would be showing more of a sense of strategy than they've shown in the Middle East.

SundayStyle's avatar

You're right, what was I thinking? Leaving the house with matching socks is a challenge for these guys.

Hairless in Gaza's avatar

Yeah, and if they did fail in that, and some wiseass noticed and remarked, "Don't tell me - you've got a pair just like them at home," it'd go right over their heads

Maggielle's avatar

But they understand that Trump *enjoys* their discomfort and embarrassment and they know by now not to spoil his fun, the cruelty being the point and all.

Whipstitch's avatar

Trump is obviously watching their shoes, (though he seems aware of little else) so he could tell they had changed sizes.

SteveB's avatar

Ha ha, remember how Jimmy Carter signed permission slips to use the White House tennis court? And how we NEVER heard the end of it? Lost in trivial details, unable to focus on The Real Problems Facing The American People! Takes you back, don't it?

Bern's avatar

"an MOR version of Palantir cofounder Alex Karp"

Hah! ... but ...

Never mind all that – what size are those sneakers?!

Pat Fitzgerald's avatar

Holy shit, those sneakers. But the cheap suits don't look that bad.

Roy Edroso's avatar

Say what you will about those sneakers but they are expensive

Circumspectral's avatar

A sure sign of civilizational collapse: sneakers as Veblen good.

SteveB's avatar

It's the REAL sign of massive wealth: You spend insane amounts of money on stuff that's supposed to be cheap, like a thousand-dollar t-shirt.

Whipstitch's avatar

"Fiji water" was a thing a couple of years ago.

Pere Ubu's avatar

Did it at least taste like Fiji?

SteveB's avatar

I don't know what MOR means, the closest I could come is AOR, but I don't want to hear the musical noodlings of Palantir cofounder Alex Karp, especially if five-minute solos are involved.

redoubtagain's avatar

I dunno, I'd rather he limit his self-indulgent noodlings to a recording studio with an overpriced Fender-Rhodes than what he's doing to America in his current "job".

SteveB's avatar

We've made "hard work" into a fetish in this country, like whatever awful thing you're doing is redeemed by the fact that you put in long hours doing it. I think of the fuckheads who gave us the home mortgage crisis, we would have all been better off paying them to sit on a beach somewhere.

Roy Edroso's avatar

"Long hours" not at home, you mean. I think the pandemic really fucked with people ideas about office work.

Bern's avatar

Cue John Handy:

h͟t͟t͟p͟s͟:͟/͟/͟w͟w͟w͟.͟y͟o͟u͟t͟u͟b͟e͟.͟c͟o͟m͟/͟w͟a͟t͟c͟h͟?͟v͟=͟M͟r͟p͟p͟y͟R͟E͟k͟4͟F͟A͟

Roy Edroso's avatar

Middle Of the Road

SteveB's avatar

Oh, that's less interesting than all the things I imagined.

SteveB's avatar

Which ties up perfectly with his neighbor from Louisiana, James Carville, and his Democrats should play dead armadillo strategy.

Mark Lungo's avatar

Middle Of the Road, as in Easy Listening music.

Manqueman's avatar

I dunno... I was going along OK but then I'm supposed to believe that even in an editorial meeting at a legacy outlet they'd note that Trump's insane? I dunno... You know, since there's zero, maybe less, interest in reporting why would it be even mentioned? I dunno...

I mean if Donny's sanity (pathological since birth) was any sort of important issue, yet more so since starting the whatever with Iran, the establishment media would kind of discuss the subject. Since they report approximately none of it...

Maybe I'm just failing at my job to suspend all disbelief or whatever.

Yeah, no, I clearly failed here.

Bern's avatar

"Journalists are the canaries in the coal mine!" is pertinent here. The canaries won't sing til they start floppin' offa their perches (I know – technically incorrect, but point is the journos die first, silently, having failed to outloud the truth...)

redoubtagain's avatar

Canaries Die In Darkness

SteveB's avatar

"If you didn't want to die, why did you get on the train to the coal mine?"

Circumspectral's avatar

My thinking, unformed as it may be in my early morning pre-caffeine fog, is that the gray lady’s gray wall is so structurally solid (I heard they own their own granite quarry in Vermont), no one on the inside has to worry about casual musings about the obvious ever making it outside onto a published page…or screen…whatever.

Manqueman's avatar

It’s not just the Times. It’s all of them and has Ben for decades.

SteveB's avatar

Yeah, these things can be said privately, just not in the newspaper.

ohsopolite's avatar

It's not over until the Grey Lady sings.

Cheez Whiz's avatar

I suspect a lot of minions in the trenches are not swayed by the glamour of Trump, but are merely surfing the wave they are on. There are exactly the kind of people to occasionally make Crazy Grampa cracks to show how transgressive and independent they are.

Manqueman's avatar

Please to clarify. The people at the top are all sick fucks, like Trump but maybe differently and/or slightly less so.

Are you talking about people at the bottom, as it were, just ducking their heads or engaging in a little passive aggressive action?

SteveB's avatar

"I think Trump is awful but I demonstrate my high-mindedness and journalistic integrity by never allowing such a thing to be printed" could be a thought present in the minds of these sick fucks.

Manqueman's avatar

I don’t think it’s journalistic integrity but just something they yet won’t report on honestly as a rule. Like any issue with unrestrained capitalism, our oversized budget for a questionable military, why there’s global warming but nations refuse or can’t address as warranted, and every other major issue.

SteveB's avatar

Well, of course they would say to themselves that it's "journalistic integrity", which doesn't mean it is.

And how far were we into the AIDS crisis before the Times reported on it? It took years, IIRC.

Cheez Whiz's avatar

They would claim your "honesty" is bias and patronizing to a reader who can make up their own mind. Conclusions are for muckrakers and ideologues. Its not exactly wrong, but it is blind to the scope of the problem and motivations of one of the Both Sides. The View from Nowhere is a shield to protect them from the consequences of touching those 2 issues.

SteveB's avatar

We see toadying and cowardice, they see self-denial. "Oh, I'd just love to tear him a new one, believe me, but the Canons of My Profession would never allow it!" See also, judges, including those operating in Nazi Germany.

Manqueman's avatar

By honesty, I mean reflecting reality.

Trusting the reader to figure it out their own is dishonest which, you know, is contrary to literal journalism.

Then there’s what would have been the moral issue before morality died about deliberately bullshitting.

Cheez Whiz's avatar

Yeah, worker bees. There are people inside and outside government who've drunk the Flavor-aid, others who are working scams, and others just surfing the wave of the moment, keeping their heads down, and occasionally making snarky comments in the back of the classroom. Thats our 2 subjects today.

I'd rank Miller and Vought much worse, much sicker than Trump. They know exactly what they want and are doing it, aggressive destruction of the United States as it was in hopes of a thousand year libertarian Reich.. Trump doesn't care. Some people might see that as worse. I have no idea what Susie Wiles is but she may be worse than all of them.

SteveB's avatar

" I have no idea what Susie Wiles is..."

That makes two of us, but if you have spent your life in politics the opportunity to be on the Winning Team and to be In The Room Where it Happens must be absolutely irresistible. Every principle you have (if you ever had any to begin with) would fall before that.

SteveB's avatar

Of course all these people are Christians, and here's Ol' Scratch hisself offering them power and fame and money if they just agree to throw aside all ten of the commandments, and in a millisecond they grab the pen and ask "Where do I sign?"

Pat Fitzgerald's avatar

Philo is gonna need a drink or three with all that string gathering.

SundayStyle's avatar

Instead of pulling a string/thread he needs to get a shovel and put his back into it. The bullshit is deep.

Bern's avatar

"we have to respect that"

Include me out.

Bern's avatar

The f̶l̶o̶g̶g̶i̶n̶g̶ mogging — nogging — slogging —will continue until the snarky sotto voce is spoken aloud.

Elaine the Mean Old Feminist's avatar

Shoe size isn't the only thing men overestimate, at least in my extremely limited lesbian experience 😁

Bern's avatar

Your experience with limited lesbians sounds fascinating! Please elaborate!

Elaine the Mean Old Feminist's avatar

Some lesbians I know should indeed be limited 😂 many of them would say this feeling is mutual

Derelict's avatar

If you've ever had any difficulty understanding just how much of some men's sense of self is tied to their own perception of the size of their penis, Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, and JD Vance are all right there on public display every day showing the entire world how they're failing to cope with their own sense of inadequacy.

Claire März's avatar

Would a nuclear weapon make my dick look big?

Derelict's avatar

I said, "Baby, it ain't the size of the boat, it's the motion of the ocean!"

And she said, "Well, you can't make butter with a toothpick."

Richard Von Busack's avatar

Late female friend:”size doesn’t matter is the real fallacy”

ohsopolite's avatar

"That won't stop me from trying!"

SundayStyle's avatar

"Do these shoes make my dick look too small?"

Circumspectral's avatar

Is that why they buy pickup trucks built for remote mining operations to navigate shopping mall parking lots?

Bern's avatar

"Ned. Ned. This is not a trend. Trump is mentally impaired. He’s not following a trend. He hasn’t noticed a trend since padded shoulders and Cinemax. He just did a — a really fucked-up thing."

When can I hire this Brictal person? I have some messaging that needs sprucing.

Also, 2 marks.

SteveB's avatar

I've noticed that the characters in Roy's humorous sketches are sometimes better than their counterparts in real life. It relieves the tedium of a world full of moronic assholes.

Roy Edroso's avatar

I catch them saying the subtext. Like Strange Interlude!

Claire März's avatar

"Men, they said, often buy the wrong size when buying their own shoes. And they almost always estimate too large."

Gotta hand it to the NYT. It's the ultimate "both sides do it."

Bern's avatar

Fair, but you gotta admit it is really hard to buy one pair of shoes in differing sizes.

SteveB's avatar

Not unless you've got a partner.

Derelict's avatar

OTOH, there is a thing now where shoe sizes are slowly inflating. The last time I went to buy shoes, I bought a pair of hiking boots size 11, and a pair of sneakers size 10.

My actual "old-time" shoe size is 9. And, indeed, I still have several pairs of shoes, sneakers, and boot all in size 9 that fit perfectly and are identical to the newly purchased footwear--except that the new stuff is labeled as larger than the old stuff.

Bern's avatar

Shoe size is the sole issue, is what you're saying.

Derelict's avatar

It's one way to demonstrate that you're well-heeled, yes.

SteveB's avatar

Trump makes Marco toe the line, what a heel, I'm out.

rfc's avatar

Uh, it's likely that it's not just the sizing that's inflating, but your feet as you get older. In addition to general aging, in women, pregnancy loosens up all sorts of tendons, etc. At marriage I was a size 8.5; after three kids I am a size 10.

Derelict's avatar

Sure. Except that I have a pair of watermocs that I bought back 1992 or so that are size 9 and still fit perfectly.

Believe me: I thought my feet were getting bigger, but my old shoes say no.

SteveB's avatar

You'd think there would be international standards, like a platinum-iridium size-9 foot in a scientific institute in Paris.

Pink Collar (retd.)'s avatar

Marketing decisions, more likely. It does seem weird for shoes to be labeled in larger sizes than they're cut. Maybe that's a version of reducing package weight to claim the price hasn't increased.

When I lived in Japan, the largest women's shoes were 24 cm (one rare time, I found a 24.5). That's about an 8, a common enough U.S. size and not the largest. Presumably, all Japanese women could wear a 24 or smaller, or else they may have expected to squeeze into the allowable size.

DrBDH's avatar

It’s the exact opposite, every country has its own standard last(s). Italian shoes run narrow, for example. On top of that, international shoe companies try to accommodate all regions with one last manufactured in, say, Vietnam,* so none of those sizes match locally made footwear. That’s why anything you buy on line is guesswork. I used to think, “So what, buy several pairs in different sizes and return the ones that don’t fit.” But then I saw a piece on CBC (that’s Canadian, eh) that tracked returns and found most of them were thrown away if a cheap second-hand retailer didn’t want them. Someone’s land fill is full of your incorrectly sized shoes while kids in Bangladesh go barefoot in the monsoon floods.

*that’s not to say they use a Vietnamese last, which I imagine is smaller than an American last, but that they use the company’s national last, like America’s or Italy’s.

Michael H Webster's avatar

Or if there were a way to “measure” the size of one’s foot and then buy the correct size shoe accordingly. Someone should invent such a thing.

SteveB's avatar

Next you'll suggest there should be standard sizes for clothing you communist.

ohsopolite's avatar

Standard sizes are SOCIALISM!

SteveB's avatar

Reagan used to do a bit about some government office for the standardization of screw threads, LOL what a waste of money, amirite guys?

Michael H Webster's avatar

For something like that to get traction today it would need a screen and an AI assistant at the very least, though it would be cool if it did streaming, functioned as a power bank and perhaps made toast. I should pitch that to a VC.

SteveB's avatar

It connects wirelessly with the factory in Vietnam where your shoes are made, and automatically signs you up for a Shoe of the Month subscription service.

Bern's avatar

! back atcha!

I like that they have 12 devices (the Mondo!) on the 1st page, and the $87 manual on the second page.

SteveB's avatar

Not as expensive as I thought they would be, and still made in America!

SundayStyle's avatar

I will die on the hill that this is not a Both Sides issue despite what the Times may say. You can mock women for having too many pairs of shoes, but NONE of us go into a fugue state and forget our size when buying them.

Circumspectral's avatar

Like, I have wide feet, and occasionally purchase a half-size larger if I really like the shoe and they still feel snug, but if I can fit three fingers behind my heel, as it looked like with Little Marco’s, I’d probably be asking the clerk, “why are you fucking with me?”

SteveB's avatar

I refuse to believe this. Why are you estimating? Are you in a shoe store? Do they not have a Brannock device?

SteveB's avatar

Researchers are scratching their heads at an outbreak of foot cancer among people in a certain age cohort.

Claire März's avatar

"The situation is fluid." Haha good one.

SteveB's avatar

And so is the convenience-store vodka I'm using to get through it!

SteveB's avatar

I was once standing at a bus stop, a man reaches into his backpack and pulls out a half-gallon plastic bottle of McCormick vodka, takes a swig, then passes it to his girlfriend, and then into the backpack goes Mr. McCormick.

It was nine o'clock in the morning.

Pere Ubu's avatar

Plastic bottle vodka... *shudder*

SteveB's avatar

Really, at that point it's just Everclear, right?

ohsopolite's avatar

The hour and the beverage of choice are both marks of a dedicated career alcoholic.

SteveB's avatar

Just a lil' somethin' to get me goin'.

Chicago Jeff's avatar

For my mental health, I try not to follow minutiae like this clown-shoe story. My brother was telling me about this on Saturday and I could barely believe him. Now Roy posts a photo of this public self-debasement and I am laughing my ass off.

Tubby is going to call for a nuclear strike before the next few years are done. He wants immortality, and he knows he's withering and dying. He thinks his name on things and in the history books is all that matters, even if his name is on a disaster that kills hundreds of thousands of innocent people. I only hope there happens to be a decent military person that day, that hour, that minute, that second... who decides to not push the button. I say I hope... but I don't hold much hope.

It will be the lasting legacy, the real and final explosion of the United States Baby Boom. I wish I was joking.

Lawguy's avatar

Given the number he fires and the direction they may go, it may not be all that lasting.

Richard Von Busack's avatar

Satiremaxxxing! My favorite part of this all-too-plausible horror story beside the editor saying "Pull the string!" as if he were Bela Lugosi, is the idea of how Megyn Kelly will respond to the inevitable, and by inevitable, I mean "something that is going to happen before Memorial Day."

Claire März's avatar

And it'll be Joe Biden's fault.

SteveB's avatar

Didn't hide the keys to the nukes when he went out the door.

Richard Von Busack's avatar

Thinking about this, it occurs to me that during my days of making sure that the nice advertiser's display ads didn't bump into one another, that our rule was "Third time's the trend!" So, what'll ease theTimes' job of explaining why Emperor Stinky gave that mouthy reporter "The Chimp's Salute" is that immediately Rubio and Mike Johnson would fill their hands in solidarity.

Claire März's avatar

Lil Marco would fill his clown shoe with Daddy's poo if it got him a gold star.

k_kamath's avatar

Does anyone think there's metaphor at work here? Is this a figurative message, the too-big shoes for his kids? Is this an example of the collective unconscious working through a maniac, the latter-day Monster of Cahokia, asking his sub-thugs to step up and fill the big shoes he's given them? Is it a cry for help?

For the record, Florsheim shoes SUCK. Strictly metrosexual, verging on the feminine. Give me Mephisto or any comfort, foot-forming brand any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Samuel Hubbard makes a better shoe. Gucci? Maybe my latent homophobia is oozing out of my boil-covered corpse, but those are also for guys who are a bit light in their loafers.

Trump needs to send a message to these guys to man up. Choose a more butch brand. Steel-toed boots for Hegseth. and get Gabbard a pair of platform black boots with a riding crop.

k_kamath's avatar

Olathe, yee-HAW! The reds and two-toned look are just right to be worn with a light blue suit, or even faux tactical togs. Oh, what a photo op! Even if Dan Quail back in the day had showed up in a Hawaiian shirt, short shorts with a golf club, I doubt it could make as big a splash historically. Bravo!

Bern's avatar

But Lucchese has $600 chukka boots.

Roy Edroso's avatar

He picked Florsheim because they were big when his brain stopped working.

SteveB's avatar

And it wasn't working very hard before the stoppage.

redoubtagain's avatar

And couldn't remember Thom McAn.

SteveB's avatar

Weren't cowboy boots the thing during the Bush administration? I'm surprised the Times didn't dig that up in their desperate attempts to normalize Tubby's lunacy.

Brian Newhouse's avatar

Which Bush administration--older or younger?

SteveB's avatar

Eh, you can't expect me to keep track of such things, I'm lucky if I can find my car keys.

Pink Collar (retd.)'s avatar

The all hat and no cattle one.

Hairless in Gaza's avatar

In this house, we say "Bush the Greater" and "Bush the Lesser"

SteveB's avatar

I resent that I have to keep track of two of them. Like the other day I was thinking about something that happened when Trump was impeached and I couldn't remember whether it was during the first impeachment or the second impeachment.

Hairless in Gaza's avatar

We all do, fella. In conversation, I often refer to the elder as “Oh, him” and his spalpeen as [sotto voce] “Oh. HIM.”

Tehanu's avatar

The late (alas) Molly Ivins called them Bush and Shrub.

Bern's avatar

Shrub was always out choppin' brush, which I thought everso slightly dangerous. I mean, one misspelling and BOOM – Dan Quayle!

Rand Careaga's avatar

Even though I would have thought the meaning of the phrase apparent in context, I had once to explain “light in the loafers” in the course of relating to some young persons a moderately amusing episode in which the phrase had been attached to my good self.

SteveB's avatar

Is it from Bob Hope? Seems like something he would have paid his writers for.

Hairless in Gaza's avatar

Isn't there a scene in CHINATOWN were Nicholson's character condems Florsheim's?

k_kamath's avatar

Jake loses a shoe in the spillway where Mulwray's body is found. He expresses consternation at the loss of his expensive finery. Just before he gets his nose clipped in the director's cut, kitty cat.

Pink Collar (retd.)'s avatar

Though this lot are not in any way fun, I'll take the prompt to post the following.

(A comment: "This really should be the English national anthem.")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI0v0GCFrjc

Lawguy's avatar

Personally I've always followed Sideshow Bob when considering my proper shoe size and its worked so far.

Pere Ubu's avatar

But do they squeak?

SteveB's avatar

NPR does this, normalizing the current lunacy by reaching waaay back to find some behavior by some past president that's tangentially related but not even 10% as crazy as the shit Tubby does. I think they call it "Putting the news in context" or "Adding historical perspective" of some shit like that. Things Have Always Been Like This as a variant on We Have Always Been at War With Eastasia.

Hairless in Gaza's avatar

I've been saying for decades: getting your news exclusively from American media is a bit like a diet consisting exclusively of popcorn and crystal meth

Bern's avatar

Them crazy Floundring Fathers had shoes with BUCKLES on 'em!