By Debbie Schlussel
Is “America’s Designer”, Ralph Lauren, going to return the profits from all of his U.S. sales for the last eight years? You might wanna think twice the next time you’re thinking of buying a Ralph Lauren/Polo shirt or suit. Or even Lauren’s new lower-priced line, “Old Glory”.
Lauren (whose real name is Ralph Lifshitz, but “Polo by Ralph Lifshitz” doesn’t exactly portray the image he’s pimping)–who made billions from American consumers by wrapping his clothes in the American flag and our sense of patriotism–isn’t exactly patriotic.
Lauren told USA Today that–like President-Elect Obama’s wife, Michelle Hussein Obama a/k/a “Blackie O” (shorter version of “the Black Jackie O”)–he wasn’t proud to be an American for the last eight years (see sidebar column–“I Lived What Obama’s Talking About”). And, of course, he’s pimping himself to be the new designer outfitter of Blackie O’s White House haute couture:

The country of the past eight years is “not the America I want to be a part of,” Lauren says, although it’s “still my country,” he’s quick to point out. He has hope in Obama. “I’m very excited. I think he’s going to be effective. I have confidence in him. He will equalize America.” . . .
Lauren says he’d be thrilled to outfit the new first family.

We know that, like Hollywood, most designers are uber-liberals. But you’d think that–in the interest of good business–a designer wouldn’t exactly trash the biggest market for his clothing, the market that made him wealthy beyond his wildest dreams after a humble beginning as a Lifshitz of Brooklyn.
I didn’t see Ralph Lauren returning the gazillions he made from American consumers over the past eight years–the citizens of that country he didn’t want to be a part of. I didn’t see him giving up the Hamptons mansion and swanky digs in suburban New York for a hovel in Pakistan over the last eight years. He seemed pretty happy to cash his checks here over the last eight years–ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching.
I didn’t see Lauren/Lifshitz stop his selling of the American image of sporty rugged individualism over the last eight years of his not wanting to be a part of it. I didn’t see him say for the last eight years: I’m taking a time out because I’m no longer proud of the American dream and aspirations for upward mobility that I’m selling.
I have a lot of Ralph Lauren Polo clothing left over from the ’80s. It’s classic and timeless–never going out of style. My junior high classmate and friend, Adam Helfman, and I used to only wear Polo in 8th and 9th grades at Hillel Day School. We wore this stuff because we thought it embodied all that’s great about America–the rugged outdoors and the great west of American history; and the clothing that we two Jewish Americans wore to symbolize that, unlike anywhere else in the world, in America, we, too, could achieve the status of those to whom the manor were born.
In college, I wrote a term paper about the America and patriotism Ralph Lauren was selling, the same America and patriotism I thought made him a success. Apparently, the patriotism was phony, and the America–well, he didn’t exactly believe in it.
Apparently, Ralph Lauren doesn’t actually buy into the dreams he was selling to middle class America through his designer duds. At least he didn’t for the last eight years. Which means I don’t buy what he’s selling for the next 8 . . . or 80.
Don’t be shocked if, after throwing the last eight years of America under the bus, he’s suddenly the designer of one of Blackie O’s inaugural gowns or outfits.
Like I said before, there is so much throwing of people and country under the bus by those associated with Barack Obama, pretty soon they’ll need to replace the buses with monster trucks. Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!