Politics & Power Quote by Jeff Greenfield

Greenfield’s line is a political profile disguised as a costume comedy, and the joke lands because it weaponizes aesthetics. “Free spirit” signals the romantic American archetype - rebellious, instinctive, a little unruly. Then he snaps it shut inside a “Peck and Peck cage,” a reference to the mid-century brand shorthand for prim, matchy, respectable femininity: tasteful outfits, tasteful manners, tasteful silence. The cage isn’t literal repression so much as social packaging, the way a public woman is expected to present as palatable decor.

The deliciously petty fantasy - “making rude noises at public gatherings of Republicans” - is Greenfield’s way of sketching ideological friction without sermonizing. He doesn’t accuse her of radicalism; he gives her a bodily, childish act of dissent. That matters. It frames rebellion as impulse, not platform, and it lets the reader imagine a private self pressing against the polite boundaries of class and gender. The “Republicans” tag also dates the mood: a period when the party could stand in for buttoned-up propriety, country-club restraint, and a certain scolding public moralism. He’s not just needling conservatives; he’s needling the idea of “proper” public behavior that conservatives are often cast as enforcing.

As a journalist, Greenfield’s intent is portraiture with a blade: he wants you to see how charisma can look like mischief even when it’s forced into conventional roles. The subtext is that the performance of respectability is itself political, and the most subversive thing about her may be the suggestion that she’s bored by it.