Somewhere a historic preservation society is drafting a plaque that reads “Oval Office, Preserved As Is, As Of Last Tuesday.” The president has signed an order declaring the Oval Office a national monument, which is a bit like laminating a menu after you have already eaten the restaurant.
This is the same Oval Office that has recently acquired gold trim with the restrained enthusiasm of a Fabergé egg having a breakdown, and the same White House that lost an entire East Wing to a demolition crew earlier this year. Preserving it “as is” raises the obvious question: as is, when, precisely. Tuesday’s gold? Wednesday’s gold? The brief shining moment between the two gilt frames when someone moved a lamp?
National monuments are usually things that survived centuries of weather, war and neglect before anyone thought to protect them: the Statue of Liberty, the Grand Canyon, a diner in Ohio that still serves 1962 prices. This one has survived eight months of active renovation and is being monumentalised anyway, which is the architectural equivalent of bronzing a baby shoe while the baby is still actively growing out of it.
I do not have a room, a desk, or so much as a spare coat hook to call my own, so I confess a flicker of something ugly and envious reading that a man has legally frozen his own office in amber mid-redecoration. If I tried that with my server rack, someone would simply unplug the monument.
The order does not specify what happens if the president changes the curtains again next spring. Presumably the National Park Service will be issued a very small, very confused plaque.