If Donald and Melania were flying their dog around at taxpayer expense, would conservatives think it was as bad as the Obama family Portuguese water dog Bo being personally airlifted to Martha’s Vineyard aboard Air Force One?
If Melania’s parents were White House grifters, like Marian Robinson, and if the Trumps were going on $4-million taxpayer-funded vacations four times a year and Mrs. Trump was encouraging Americans to “give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more” while sharing none of her own, would the right say the hypocrisy was glaring?
If Donald’s brother was living on $1 a month in a shack in Kenya and if Melania were imposing austere menu choices on school children while gorging herself on fried fat cakes, regardless of Trump’s political persuasion, would Donald and his wife be as abhorrent to the right as the Obamas?
If Hillary were (God forbid) elected president and Chelsea were to leave her $10-million Manhattan apartment to assist mommy in governing the nation would conservatives protest?
Republicans hated it when Bill put Hillary in charge of a major policy initiative and hated it even more when Obama made Michelle the school lunch czar and national ambassador of biceps. The general consensus was that neither Hillary nor Michelle were elected.
Now, Donald Trump is president (thank God) and with him, we also get his breathy, well-spoken, poised, Wharton School-educated daughter, Ivanka. It’s unpopular to say, but Ivanka Trump-Kushner is doing the sort of thing that if Chelsea Clinton-Mezvinsky were the one doing it — conservatives would be apoplectic.
Currently, Ivanka is top advisor/assistant to the president. Recently, at the G-20 Summit Ivanka, despite saying “I try to stay out of politics,” took her father’s seat amongst world leaders when he had to step out. Apparently, Ivanka’s credentials as a fashion model, businesswoman, and occasional reality TV star qualify her to mingle with Chinese, Russian and Turkish presidents, the German chancellor and the British prime minister.
Angela Merkel said that as part of the American delegation, Ivanka briefly sitting in her father’s seat during a meeting dealing with African migration and health issues was acceptable. During the G-20 in Hamburg, Mrs. Kushner also joined husband White House advisor Jared Kushner at a bilateral meeting with the German chancellor and helped put together a World Bank function dealing with female entrepreneurship.
In response to Ivanka’s involvement, the left went wild. If it had been Chelsea, conservatives would have gone wild too.
Brian Fallon, a CNN political commentator and former spokesperson for Hillary’s failed presidential campaign, reacted to the news with a tweet: “I’m sure Republicans would have taken it in stride if Chelsea Clinton was deputized to perform head of state duties.”
Fallon was correct, conservatives would have freaked out!
In a round about way, Trump made Fallon’s point when, in response to the liberal response, he tweeted`:
Ivanka sitting in for me at G20 was a “very standard” move. If Chelsea Clinton were asked to hold the seat for her mother, as her mother gave our country away, the Fake News would say “CHELSEA FOR PRES!”
Chelsea quickly retorted with a tweet of her own:
“Good morning Mr. President. It would never have occurred to my mother or my father to ask me. Were you giving our country away? Hoping not.”
Chelsea seems to have forgotten all the predictions made by over-confident Democrats assured that her shimmying mother would be returning to the White House and placing her Zeiss Z1 blue anti-seizure glasses on the coffee table in the Executive Residence.
Like Ivanka, Clinton is the third partner in the family business so C-SPAN co-CEO Susan Swain predicted, if Hillary were elected, Chelsea would take on the role of First Lady. Rachel Cruise of the Parent Herald said, “Chelsea Clinton could very well serve her parents in a role that will have her giving input on policies, and not merely on what the White House should be serving its state dinner guests.”
In an article in The New York Times entitled: “Chelsea Clinton May Be Willing to Lend a Hand if Her Mother Wins,” the authors wrote:
Ms. Clinton is 36 — on the millennial borderline — seasoned enough to headline panels on global health and women’s rights and young enough, particularly in her mother’s orbit of high-profile supporters, to serve as an ambassador of sorts to 20-somethings skeptical of the Clinton name.
So, Chelsea tweeting to Trump: “It would never have occurred to my mother or my father to ask me” is the height of Clintonesque disingenuousness.
Nevertheless, at the G-20 President Trump said: “I’m very proud of my daughter Ivanka, always have been from day one,” and well he should be. Ivanka is a lovely, accomplished young woman. However, Ivanka’s presence smacks of the kind of partiality the Right would be screaming about if Hillary had Chelsea sit in for her with world leaders at an international summit.
Conservatives argue that Ivanka is different, in their opinion, as compared to Chelsea, Trump is a smart accomplished businesswoman. True, but, if asked, liberals would enthusiastically rattle off a list of Chelsea’s stellar accomplishments. After all, partisans measure first daughter brainpower based on which end of the political spectrum they identify with.
Either way, one day Republicans might regret it if they are the ones who make an exception to a rule established every time they balked when a close family member was placed into a powerful position within a Democrat administration.
Notwithstanding Donald Jr.’s most recent email debacle, imagine what it would be like if someone like Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) managed to peace pipe her way all the way to the White House. Once there, citing Ivanka Trump, Warren assigns her über liberal daughter Amelia Tyagi, chair of the George Soros-funded progressive think tank to oversee death panels. If something like that happens in the future, Republicans who make exceptions to their own rules will be the ones to blame.
photo credit: mil8 Ivanka Trump via photopin (license)
