Every day is casual Friday at the White House

Hey. Some may congratulate the president on his ability to not have an ego and to relate at a more direct level with his staff. Those people would be wrong. This casual informality is exactly the stuff dreamt up by egos. The presidency is larger than any one person, and any one person should not diminish its traditions and grandeur simply because he wants to allow a personal point of privilege.

Monday, in a piece by Jon Ward in The Daily Caller, another top adviser to President Obama, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, defended the Obama administration from yet more criticism that they were poor communicators. Gibbs went a step further and diminishes the entire edifice in which they work, the White House itself.

Gibbs: “It seems like every where you look you feel like … doing an event in your grandmother’s house. Every room’s got a fireplace, some old picture on the wall, a light fixture on the wall that no one actually has in real life, and a book shelf.”

Yes, it’s true. Most people cannot relate to the fixtures in the White House, nor do they expect to. Gibbs was somewhat right. It is your grandmother’s house. And your grandfather’s, your parent’s, and your kid’s house. It is in fact, the people’s house. When they see these adornments, they feel a sense of ownership and pride, not disdain and jealousy. These guys simply don’t get it.

Old pictures on the wall are of former presidents, founding fathers and borrowed Smithsonian works of art. President Obama has the option of choosing exactly which “old pictures” he would like and where.

(In fact, the president has many prerogatives at his disposal if he would like to tinker with tradition. He could choose to have “Hail to the Chief” played when he enters the room, or only at specified times. Presidents since Washington have had their own opinions on the lavish musical prelude. President Truman made it the official tribute; George W. Bush rarely used it.)

Back to the jacket in the Oval Office. While enterprising folks were able to find a picture of President George W. Bush without his jacket in a rare casual moment, they were not able to dispel the idea that the policy in the Bush White House was ‘jacket-required’. The New York Times itself commented on the renewed policy in January 2001. Former Chief of Staff Andy Card and former Communications Director Dan Bartlett were both happy to reinforce this point in 2009. What transpired last year, was in fact a policy change in White House decorum. The new policy was ‘jacket not required.’

And now it seems the policy has changed to ‘respect not required.’ Whether you are a close friend and adviser to the president or a fierce opponent, he is the president of the United States and deserves the respect of that office, even if he chooses to not accept it.

Obama’s everyone-on-the-same-level attitude is not confined to wardrobe, salutations and décor; it is evident in President Obama’s apology-first foreign policy. By diminishing our nation to the same status as any other country in the United Nations, Obama perceives that a sense of humility will buy international favor.

The president needs to accept being called Mr. President, and so do his friends, staffers, opponents and countrymen. The president needs to accept that America is great, and so is his office. The U.S. presidency represents the greatest democracy this world has ever known, where a chief executive is accountable to the republic and to its people. President Obama should be humbled and graced by his responsibilities, and be reminded of them at every given moment.

Rory Cooper is the Director of Strategic Communications at The Heritage Foundation. You can follow him on Twitter @rorycooper.