Melania Trump Is the Ringside Politics Champion of the Year

Every year on the Ringside Politics program, we award our “Turkey” of the year during Thanksgiving and our “Champion” of the year in late December. This year, the “winner” of our turkey award was House Speaker Paul Ryan, a fitting choice for such a failed leader. However, our “Champion” award was a more difficult selection. During the past year, many fine people distinguished themselves in a positive way Finally, after input from our great listening audience, our decision was clear. For many reasons, including her grace and style under unrelenting criticism and pressure, First Lady Melania Trump was chosen as our Ringside Politics Champion of the Year.

The latest example of critics abusing the First Lady occurred earlier this week. Leaving on Christmas night, President and Mrs. Trump made a surprise visit to American troops serving in Iraq. It was a trip that made a very positive impact on the troops, who warmly greeted the President and the First Lady.

Not surprisingly, the visit drew criticism from the liberal media because some of the troops displayed “Make America Great Again” hats and asked the President to sign them. Of course, the same liberal media said nothing when then President Barack Obama signed his picture and military gear for our troops in Kuwait and at Fort Stewart, Georgia.

On social media, nasty critics reserved some of their venom for the First Lady, criticizing her wardrobe, especially her choice of “Timberland boots.” On Twitter, she was blasted as “the biggest idiot in the room” for her sensible choice of footwear. In reality, Mrs. Trump looked fabulous as usual, but those who hate her husband also regularly insult her for everything from her fashion to her accent.

Since Mrs. Trump was born in Slovenia, English is not her native language. Thus, she is the first non-native speaker of English to hold the position of First Lady. In fact, she is so accomplished that she is fluent in six languages. None of this stopped untalented leftist late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel from mocking her accent.

While Mrs. Trump is regularly criticized, and lampooned, former First Lady Michelle Obama received constant praise during her tenure for “courage” and “beauty” and “intelligence.” She was celebrated on 12 magazine covers and is still a regular guest on the late-night “comedy” programs. In contrast, Melania Trump has not been invited to grace magazine covers nor be a guest on the network talk shows.

This nasty treatment is another indication of the unbelievable media bias that is heaped on the First Family on a regular basis. Mrs. Trump is a former fashion model who would be a perfect fit for a magazine cover and an accompanying feature. She is not only beautiful, but she is also a successful businesswoman who launched a jewelry line and introduced a brand of caviar-based skincare products. Certainly, she has a fascinating story to share with fellow Americans, but few media outlets seem to have an interest.

In another indication of the bias directed toward Mrs. Trump, several fashion designers, including Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs, Christian Siriano, Zac Posen, and Sophie Theallet, refused to provide outfits for her to wear. Of course, Mrs. Obama faced no such discrimination from fashion designers.

The abuse of Mrs. Trump was noted by “Wheel of Fortune” host Pat Sajak, who tweeted "If she were married to someone the media approved of, it would be all Melania all the time. Every move would be breathlessly recorded, and every outfit would be featured in multiple publications. Her intelligence and beauty would be highlighted 24/7."

When not boycotting Mrs. Trump, the media is heaping abuse upon her. In response to Mrs. Trump’s beautiful Christmas decorations at the White House this year, lifestyle magazine House Beautiful was anything but complimentary. Instead, the magazine claimed it was reminiscent of the horror movie “The Shining.”

If there was any real journalism left in our country today, reporters would be trying to learn more about our appealing First Lady. Melania Trump is a woman of many attributes, including tremendous courage. As the only First Lady to fly in a V-22 osprey aircraft, it should surprise no one that she accompanied her husband on his trip to Iraq. Thus, it became the first time in years that a First Lady had visited our troops in a combat zone.

Melania Trump epitomizes the qualities that Americans should admire in our First Ladies. While clearly both fashionable and beautiful, Mrs. Trump’s most impressive qualities are her toughness and determination in the face of a hostile media environment. For the first two years in the White House, Melania Trump has represented this country well, displaying both class and dignity.

Thank goodness she is now our First Lady, a tremendous improvement from the previous occupant of that position. She is a worthy recipient of our Ringside Politics Champion of the Year award.

Elsie, thanks for researching this Garden of Allah. The F. Scott Fitzgerald connection made me think of that fabulous Great Gatsby party :- )

There was music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam.

On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city, between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants including an extra gardener toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before.

Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York--every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves. There was a machine in the kitchen which could extract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour, if a little button was pressed two hundred times by a butler's thumb.

At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby's enormous garden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-d'oeuvre, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold.

In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another.

By seven o'clock the orchestra has arrived--no thin five-piece affair but a whole pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos and low and high drums.

The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing upstairs; the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors and hair shorn in strange new ways and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile. The bar is in full swing and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside until the air is alive with chatter and laughter and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other's names.

The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music and the opera of voices pitches a key higher.

Laughter is easier, minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word. The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath--already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the center of a group and then excited with triumph glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light.

Suddenly one of these gypsies in trembling opal, seizes a cocktail out of the air, dumps it down for courage and moving her hands like Frisco dances out alone on the canvas platform. A momentary hush; the orchestra leader varies his rhythm obligingly for her and there is a burst of chatter as the erroneous news goes around that she is Gilda Gray's understudy from the "Follies." The party has begun.

Hey Elsie,

I found the Melania image on Google Images, Large size with the keywords “Melania sitting”.

https://www.google.com/search?q=melania+sitting&tbm=isch&source=lnt&tbs=isz:l&sa=X

I did see the Robert Redford edition of Great Gatsby but not the Leonardo one.

And you’re right about the strange word “prodigality”. It’s used to describe “laughter spilling out” and maybe Fitzgerald meant that Gatsby’s excessive spending on the lavish party lubricated everyone’s mood and encouraged greater laughter. I’ve felt that way at those rare occasions when the host event pulled out all stops.

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