It's a longstanding tradition for new U.S. presidents to redesign the White House Oval Office to suit their own tastes. They often pick new furniture, choose new drapery, paint the walls and hand-select their own oval-shaped carpet.
Out with the old, in other words, and in with the new.
President Barack Obama's Oval Office was decorated with the neutral colors of brown and taupe, which served as a backdrop during his televised address to the nation on Iraq on Aug. 31, 2010.
The centerpiece of Obama's Oval Office, though, was the large oval rug that covers much of the floor. Its color scheme was described as wheat, cream and blue.
Circling the presidential seal in the center of the rug are five quotes chosen by Obama. They are:
- "The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself" - President Franklin D. Roosevelt
- "Government of the People, By the People, For the People" - President Abraham Lincoln
- "No Problem of Human Destiny Is Beyond Human Beings" - President John F. Kennedy
- "The Welfare of Each of Us Is Dependent Fundamentally Upon the Welfare of All of Us" - President Theodore Roosevelt
- "The Arc of the Moral Universe Is Long, But It Bends Towards Justice" - *
* This quote has been attributed to both civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and abolitionist Theodore Parker. King is quoted as saying the phrase, as quoted on the rug, at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference on Aug. 16, 1967. Parker, in his 1853 treatise "Of Justice and the Conscience," wrote a similar phrase that appears to have been later paraphrased by King: "I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one ... And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice."
Though the source of the quote became an issue in the media in the days after the redesign, the kerfuffle was over a moot point; neither King's nor Parker's name actually appears on the rug. Nor does anyone else's.
The White House did not disclose the cost of the redecoration of Obama's Oval Office, but said it was "in line" with what former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton spent. Obama administration officials also said no taxpayer money was used, and that the cost was paid for by the nonprofit White House Historical Association.