Washington Post Bashes Melania's Outfit After Finding Nothing Wrong with Her Christmas Decorations
It’s no secret that the left and the media gets a real kick out of criticizing first lady Melania Trump for, well, pretty much just existing.
There are countless instances of this sort of petty behavior — just click here to see a number of examples.
It has even become something of a mean-spirited Christmas tradition for the media to pile on the first lady over her efforts to decorate the White House.
In 2017, Vox asked: “Is Melania Trump’s White House Christmas aesthetic angelic or horrific?”
Last year, USA Today described the red Christmas trees at the White House as “blood trees,” “ghoulish” and “scary.”
So the way some in the media responded after Melania Trump shared a video tour of the White House Christmas decorations on Sunday should come as no surprise.
This year, Washington Post fashion critic Robin Givhan was apparently unable to find anything to criticize about when it came to the decorations themselves — an no wonder, they’re classic and beautiful.
“The Spirit of America”#ChristmasWhiteHouse2019 pic.twitter.com/4zgxBJN4L1
— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) December 2, 2019
So instead, she went after the first lady’s coat.
“It’s all quite lovely,” Givhan wrote in the first paragraph of her piece Monday, referring to the decorations.
That was about the extent of anything positive Givhan could muster.
The rest of the piece was almost entirely devoted to a critique of the first lady — from her clothing, to the way she looked at the camera, to her supposed “aloofness.”
“For her tour, Mrs. Trump wears all white: a dress with a simple jewel neckline, white stiletto-heeled pumps and a white coat,” Givhan wrote. “The coat is draped over her shoulders as she strolls through the White House.”
“The coat looks ridiculous.”
Givhan assured her readers that the first lady’s coat is “more than a silly fashion folly.”
“The coat is a distraction. It’s a discomforting affectation taken to a ludicrous extreme. In a video that is intended to celebrate the warmth and welcoming spirit of the holiday season, that simple flourish exudes cold, dismissive aloofness,” she wrote.
“As Trump gazes pleasantly at all that her staff and a host of volunteers have accomplished, her attire suggests that she’s casually passing through and has little affinity for the occasion. She’s not getting comfortable, so why should you?”
Does Givhan really think she can glean so much from a video of a person (gasp) walking down a hallway?
Apparently so.
“She has styled herself in a manner that contradicts what her staff has so often insisted — that she is an engaged hostess who sweats the details and frets about her guests’ comfort,” Givhan added. “Instead, she looks like the sort of host who greets her guests at the front door, tells them to remove their shoes and warns them not to sit on the Lalanne sheep.”
“The coat tossed over the shoulders is a generic styling maneuver. It’s often used in editorial photographs so that a model can show off the entirety of an ensemble, including what’s underneath the coat, because all of it has been thoughtfully coordinated. But even the most devoted fashion stylist realizes that at a certain point, when aesthetics start to overwhelm logic, when a flourish becomes a cliche, it’s time to retire it. For Trump, the cliche seems to be a crutch — a way of not having to be fully present.”
There’s much, much more. Givhan claimed the first lady is “all body language and aesthetics” and that “she is the mistress of the house inspecting the work of others.”
“Her attire would be less attention-grabbing if she took off her coat and indicated that she was happy to stay a while,” Givhan concluded.
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham did a nice job of putting The Post in its place.
“It has become an annual holiday tradition for the media to attack all that the First Lady does,” Grisham told Fox News.
“If this was a Democratic Administration, I suspect Mrs. Trump and her work would be featured positively in every mainstream news outlet.”
Here’s the thing. It’s unlikely The Post really cares about what Melania Trump wears.
What The Post — and the rest of the establishment media — really cares about is who the first lady is married to. They criticize her fashion sense — and everything else she does — because they hate everything and everyone associated with President Donald Trump.
It would be nice if they would at least be a bit more upfront about their intentions.
Even the writers at the far-left outlet Mother Jones had the decency to admit what they really think — that “Melania Trump’s Problem Is Not Her Coat.”
“The reason it looks like Melania is casually passing through and has little affinity for the occasion is because Melania is casually passing through and has little affinity for the occasion,” the outlet wrote. “She could be wearing bib overalls and a MAGA hat and she’d look the same way.”
“During the entire video, she displays virtually no enthusiasm for anything other than periodically straightening something that the lazy servants apparently didn’t get quite right. I’m not sure whose idea it was for that to be the theme of the video, but it does her no favors.”
At least Mother Jones didn’t waste words criticizing the first lady’s coat. They got straight to the point.
If only The Post would be as honest.
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