Sometimes words do speak louder than actions. And the garment First Lady Melania Trump was captured wearing yesterday, with its blindly insouciant message — “I really don’t care. Do U?” — certainly speaks loudly to critics of her husband in the media who spend every waking our looking for ways to damage him.
What makes the clothing choice that much more regrettable is the fact that she was on her way to a children’s shelter in Texas when she was caught wearing it.
The New York Times goes to great length to describe the jacket, as though the paper’s fashion section had swapped places with domestic news. Then it provides a critique via the “digisphere”: “’Insensitive,’ ‘heartless’ and ‘unthinking’ were some of the words hurled … about the choice.”
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All of that is of course nonsense. It’s an outer garment — nothing more. To illustrate how much of a non-issue this is, just imagine that Michelle Obama had appeared wearing it.
Then again, Melania Trump is not Michelle Obama. Which is not to compare the two woman but, rather, to observe that the press went out of its way to be gracious to the former first lady, even when as the wife of a self-styled populist she showed up at a state dinner clad in a $10,000 dress. Mrs. Trump, in contrast, is kept on a short tether. And when she does something like this (which admittedly is rare), the media are ready to pounce.
When asked about the outerwear, Melania’s Communications Director Stephanie Grisham, said in a statement to reporters. ““It’s a jacket. There was no hidden message.” To which the Times responds, “She’s right, of course. It wasn’t hidden.”
Well, at least the conspiracy theorists who speculated that Mrs. Trump was dead at her husband’s hand can find a new topic.
