Dear Commons Community,
New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, roasted Donald Trump as a “crass embarrassment” to our country in her column today. She does it by examining the relationship of Donald Trump and his wife, Melania. In Dowd’s view, Melania is coming across as someone with quiet dignity who is living through a nightmare of a marriage where every transgression is in the public eye. Here is an example:
“…while the kid from Queens was abroad trying to impress the soul-sucking global elites he got elected railing against, pathetically bragging that he had “a crowd like they’ve never had before in Davos,” Melania made a solo visit to the Holocaust Museum here for Holocaust Remembrance Day. This looked like a subtle reproach to Trump for his unspeakable defense of the “very fine people” among the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Va., and an allusion to the president’s statement last year on remembrance day, which somehow neglected to remember Jews or anti-Semitism.
Afterward, the always elusive first lady became even more elusive, slipping out of Washington, much to the surprise of the press. Suddenly, as Stormy Daniels began her media tour on “Inside Edition” and booked an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel,” Melania was making a stealthy landing in Florida on an Air Force plane.
Trump could humiliate his wife by being a big, horny pig, but he is the one who comes off as the embarrassment. He’s an embarrassing husband and an embarrassing president and an embarrassing leader of the free world. Barack Obama was always calling to our better angels. Donald Trump is paying off porn stars and denigrating struggling countries that send minorities to the U.S. as “shitholes.” How did we drop so far and so fast from class to crass?
Maureen saved a couple of barbs for Hillary Clinton and the Democrats:
“…it was the Democrats’ preference for lecturing and entitlement over winning and wooing. They passed over people who had better messages and more authentic personae who might have beaten Trump, like Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, and gave the nomination to Hillary Clinton, a flawed feminist icon who was stunted in her ability to criticize her rival for his retrogressive treatment of women since she had enabled her husband in his retrogressive treatment of women.
The Times reported Friday that Hillary protected a senior adviser on faith in her 2008 campaign who was accused of repeatedly sexually harassing a young female aide. Hillary ignored the advice of her campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, to fire the man, Burns Strider, and simply docked him several weeks of pay and made him undergo counseling. The subordinate who complained was given a new job.
As The Times’s Susan Chira wrote, the episode was “a poignant reminder that placing women in positions of leadership does not ensure they will always act to protect other women.”
Dowd’s piece is worth a read.
Tony
