Melania Trump is not the problem

This may be going out on a limb here, in this hyper-partisan political climate, but I’m writing in defense of Melania Trump. Rest assured, this is not a defense of Donald Trump and this by no means gives a pass to Melania for plagiarizing Michelle Obama’s 2008 convention speech. Nor do I give Mrs. Trump a pass for padding her resume by claiming to graduate from college. All of that is newsworthy and deserves scrutiny. Then of course there is the question of her immigration status when she first came to the U.S. in 1996. Did she have a work visa or not? That deserves some scrutiny, considering her husband’s ridiculous ideas about immigration.

There are a lot of reasons why I would question whether Melania Trump would be a good First Lady, but this one topic is clearly not something I would consider unworthy of a First Lady — or any other woman in a high profile position. What I do find objectionable is the way Melania Trump is portrayed by elements of the so-called “progressive” community.

For many weeks now various publications, tabloids both online and print, have sensationalized the fact the Mrs. Trump was a model, primarily of lingerie. And, we found out, she has posed for some nude photos.

Well, okay, that’s interesting. She made a living posing provocatively in front of cameras back in the day and that is no doubt one of the things that appealed to The Donald. But now we are treated to a never-ending collection of Facebook posts — with links — to the infamous photos with questions, like what we saw from the New York Post. They had an online feature entitled, “Melania Trump like you’ve never seen her before.” Before that was The Mirror, from London: “Raunchy pictures emerge of Donald Trump’s wife Melania posing nude for men’s magazine when she was 25.” Really? What was raunchy about them? And I did forget the New York Post headline: “Menage a Trump.”— apparently Melania posed for photos with another female model. Oh Dear, the humanity.

I’m not so secretly admitting I looked at the photos, the topic caught my attention, the same way Sports Illustrated catches my attention on Facebook with their posts about the SI Swimsuit Issue.

• 

  You know what I would like to see posted by SI? Their take on the trade deadlines in Major League Baseball as we head into the final weeks of the season. Who is dealing who, to where and for how much? What’s their take on Yasiel Puig getting sent down to AAA Oklahoma City and his childish antics there? And what about Prince Fielder being forced to retire?

• And since this is Dodgers country: what’s their take on Clayton Kershaw’s injury status? Does Sports Illustrated still cover Major League Baseball? I just Googled “Sports Illustrated Covers 2016” and I kid you not — all but six images were from swimsuit issues.
• But there were a couple covers about Major League Baseball, specifically the “2016 Baseball Preview” and a cover with the great Ken Griffey, Jr., formerly with the Seattle Mariners and Cincinnati Reds.
• Or how about their coverage of the Rio Olympics?

Back to Melania Trump. We know what the publications are doing by posting this stuff. And we know what the lefties are doing when they share the links on social media. That is another form of “Body Shaming.” The publications, if you’re trying to figure it out, are using Melania Trump’s past profession to attract viewers. The more clicks on their links, the more advertising dollars.

Women that make a living in the adult entertainment business are incredibly stigmatized and often find it nearly impossible to start a second career once they leave the adult industry, even if all they did was pose nude for rather tame publications like Playboy. Women with valid teaching certificates and really good diplomas from very reputable schools can’t get jobs as teachers, or if they are teachers and their past careers are revealed, they get fired.

If the former model doesn’t put it on her resume and the employer finds out about it — and they always seem to find out — the woman is fired. Posing nude, or in scanty lingerie is nothing new. It’s been around for decades. Sports Illustrated and Victoria’s Secret make hundreds of millions off their sexy fare. The SI Swimsuit Issue practically pays for the rest of the year and every day they put links on Facebook to their latest gallery of swimsuit photos.

Those models are well known of course and they can and do pose nude away from SI without getting banned by the sports magazine. Sports Illustrated now publishes an issue called “The Body Issue,” which features male and female athletes nude — but covering up all the saucy bits.

Emily Ratajkowski is probably the most famous to do so. She has posed nude, full frontal in some cases, for a variety of photographers and publications — Like Harper’s Bazaar — and doesn’t apologize for her choices.

But for women who may have dipped their toe in the nude modeling waters for a Playboy college issue one time, it can be a career ending decision. And it shouldn’t be.

Nor should posing in provocative and nude photos be a disqualifier for being the First lady. And quite honestly, from the photos that have surfaced (resurfaced?) since Donald Trump became the nominee, the Melania nude photos are not really that provocative. She’s just nude. As in: what’s wrong with the nude human body? They are only provocative because her husband is running for president.

There are a lot more reasons — that are actually important — that should disqualify, at least in theory, Melania Trump. And even if a majority of Americans objected to a First Lady having posed nude, if her husband were to be elected, it wouldn’t matter. She still gets the title.

But Melania Trump is not the one running for president. Her husband is. We should be questioning Donald Trump’s fitness to be president, and journalists are doing that. He derides a Gold Star Mother because she and her family — including the son who was killed — are Muslim. He invited a foreign power to commit espionage on his political opponent in hopes of it aiding his campaign. His list of lies grows so quickly most fact-checking organizations can hardly keep up.

Recently he suggested “Second Amendment people” do something to stop Hillary Clinton when she becomes president. Of course he claims that’s not what he meant. The contortions his supporters went through to try and explain what Trump said have been humorous, and often suggest Trump is too dimwitted to be president.

For those who may have forgotten what he said — considering everything else he’s said since then that is so frightening —Trump told a crowd of supporters, “Hillary wants to abolish — essentially abolish the Second Amendment. By the way, if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”

Yeah, we all know what he meant at the time. For the people in the GOP still endorsing Trump, Like Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, it was just a “joke gone bad.” Or San Diego Congressman Duncan Hunter admitting Trump was too dimwitted to be president. He told Wolf Blitzer of CNN, “I don’t even think it was Trump misspeaking.” Say what? “I think Trump said what he meant, and what he meant was we can stop Hillary Clinton from being elected, we can stop Hillary Clinton from being the next president who chooses who is going to sit on the Supreme Court.”

But in the timeline of Trump’s comment he meant take care of Hillary Clinton after she’s elected. Hunter then explained, “You’re treating Mr. Trump’s words like he is the most articulate person who has ever graced our ears with his words and that is not true, he is not a politician. He is not a person like you who is very articulate and very well spoken. He’s a business person who is running for president.”

But wait: isn’t Trump the smartest guy in the race? That’s what he was pedaling in the primaries and what he’s pedaling now. He brags about graduating from Wharton. Well maybe he is dimwitted, just as Hunter, Rudy Giuliani and others have suggested.

Who can forget his claim that the elections — which haven’t been held yet — are rigged. That’s in response to his crashing poll numbers. And the media is corrupt and rigged. The guy who most benefited from media coverage during the primaries claims the media is corrupt. That’s rich.

The latest — as of this moment — is his claim the President Obama is the founder of ISIS and Hillary Clinton is the MVP of ISIS. Despite the fact that under President Obama’s direction our military is pounding ISIS daily in Iraq and Syria, shrinking the area of land the terrorist organization controls.

He doubled down on it, telling radio host Hugh Hewitt he meant exactly what he said: President Obama is the founder of ISIS. Hewitt said, “You meant that he created the vacuum, he lost the peace …” Trump’s reply: “No, I meant he’s the founder of ISIS. I do. He was the most valuable player. I give him the most valuable player award. I give her, too, by the way, Hillary Clinton.”

By Friday he was walking it back, saying what his acolytes told him to say to try and explain away the controversy, which is pretty much what Hewitt had said to the candidate the day before.

Donald Trump is a liar, he’s tried to engage in espionage, his campaign manager is an operative of Vladimir Putin, he’s suggested his opponent be assassinated and claims the president is the founder of a terrorist organization.

Then you remember everything else he has said that is extremely offensive, not to mention all his shady business deals, the bankruptcies — there is plenty we can say that disqualifies Donald Trump from being president of the United States. We really don’t need to attack his wife because she posed for nude photos in the 1990’s. So what.

Lefties: Keep your eyes on the orange hair. Stop trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator in America.