Jack Abramoff emerges from federal court house after pleading guilty in corruption case (photo: Gerald Herbert/AP)Maureen Dowd (TimesSelect subscription required) wrote this about Jack’s ‘getup’ in this image:
The sight of Jack Abramoff striding out of federal court here yesterday, looking like a stocky gangster from a 40’s movie in black fedora and trench coat, may seem like the strongest evidence so far of how graft and hubris have overwhelmed the capital.
It could have been a scene from “The Godfather,” a favorite film of the felonious lobbyist.
You can’t fault Maureen for noting an apparent resemblance to garb a mafia don might’ve worn to a similar court appearance. But her take on this was superficial. SHe clearly hasn’t spent much time in Borough Park. For Jack’s not dressed as a mobster, but as a Modern Orthodox Jew. That’s a stream of the Orthodox movement which, while being halachacially strict also maintains a nodding acquaintance with modernity. The black fedora and overcoat and standard issue gear and would be perfectly at home in Borough Park (Brooklyn) or in Hancock Park (Los Angeles), neighborhoods where Modern Orthodox live and worship. They wear the fedora while in public to conceal the yarmulke they wear underneath it.
Thanks for drawing the cultural allusion, Richard. I didn’t know what to make of that get-up when I saw the pics yesterday. One of my favorite shots of Abramoff is the picture you posted awhile back of him sprawled at his desk in double-breasted pinstripe, I think. Part Mafia don, part Hollywood mogel, it struck me that like our costume-prone prez, here was another fantasist, a grown man escaping into a world of pretend.