Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
On Tuesday, Organizing for Action, a remnant of Barack Obama’s re-election campaign that has been re-purposed to promote the president’s agenda, asked its followers to sign up for health insurance over the holidays. The group’s pitch featured a bespectacled twentysomething male in pajamas, drinking hot chocolate. On the right, “Pajama Boy” quickly became a meme. At last, conservatives had an opportunity to dismiss political opponents as jobless, lazy, unsexed hippies.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie demanded that the stock image get dressed and do some community service. Texas Rep. Steve Stockman chimed in, too. Pajama Boy is a “vaguely androgynous, student-glasses-wearing, Williamsburg hipster” and “the Obama machine’s id” (National Review‘s Charles Cooke); an “insufferable man-child” and a consequence of the “breakdown of marriage and its drift into the 30s” (Politico Magazine‘s Rich Lowry); and a representative of “effete, cosmopolitan America” (The Daily Caller‘s Matt Lewis.) Holy stock photo, Batman!
But a Mother Jones investigation discovered something unsettling. Far from being a divisive cultural wedge issue, pajamas are a normal item of clothing that normal adults wear. Even Republican presidents. The pajamas are coming from inside the White House!
Former President Ronald Reagan:
Former president Gerald Ford:
Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas):
Former president George H.W. Bush:
Former President Abraham Lincoln:
David Gilmour Blythe
Former President Ronald Reagan (again):
Daily Caller editor in chief Tucker Carlson:
In their defense, pajamas are hella comfortable.
