the bad suit

Hello,
Please have a look at this:

Few events have so encapsulated the Funhouse Mirror aspect of American political debate as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to New York. According to the Chicken Little Brigade in Vice President Dick Cheney's office, the bearded little fellow _in the bad suit_ is only the latest in a succession of freedom-hating "madmen" bent upon destroying what the old Superman comics called "Truth, justice, and the American way."

I think I’d say _a_ bad suit. Does “the” mean Ahmadinejad's suit had been widely talked about before and the readers are presumed to know it?

I don't watch a lot of TV and even I managed to hear it mentioned.

I would have to agree with the writer's word choice. This use of "the" has nothing to do with what's been said before. It's used to indicate the bad suit as a defining characteristic of the Iranian president by making it unique to him. If it was just "a bad suit", it would just be taken as passing information and would be considered an extraneous detail. You see the word "the" used in situations like this quite a bit.

The reason "the" is used, is because your are talking about something specific. It sounds a little odd to say "THE fellow in A suit," which would be used less frequently, I think.

Hmm. I think it's easiest to draw comparisons to similar phrases, like the story about "the man in the iron mask". Here the use of the definite article clarifies we're not talking about just any old iron mask, but a particular iron mask.

That said, I do think there's some kind of expectation that the reader will know what suit is being talked about. Not necessarily a strong expectation, and it's OK if the reader doesn't know, but I think a different wording would have been used if nobody would have any idea about this suit.

- Kef

Google:
in a bad suit 570
in the bad suit 54
in a short dress 16,500
in the short dress 77

He climbed out of bed, clad only in a pair of ancient boxers…
the fellow in a tall hat
the fellow in a yellow jacket
"I've got 84 cents," I sheepishly told the fellow in a Hardee's shirt behind the counter.
Hugo is the fellow in a blue coat and tricorne hat.
He climbed out of bed, clad only in a pair of ancient boxers…
Who’s the girl in a blue T-shirt?
There is a Sadako that turns up but the girl in a summer dress with an enigmatic smile could not be further removed from the utterly unearthly creation ...
Colleen Dunn played the Girl in a Yellow Dress.
The girl in a sports suit will grease you with the French cosmetic milk
"Sash," said the girl in a white dress.

Kef, I hadn’t seen your post when I sent mine – it took a while to search for the examples.
BTW after reading the first three answers I swear I thought, “I wish Kef said a word”. You’ve read my mind!
Now I think the “the” is a deliberate trick to draw attention to this negative info and thus belittle the little man – it’s a signal: You should know about the horrible suit, all the world does.