Out of Africa

Automatic response kicked in, even though it's been a long time.



Animals just know, don't they?

“I want to talk about my trip, not what I wear. That’s very important, what I do, what we’re doing with US aid, what I do with my initiatives, and I wish people would focus on what I do, not what I wear,” she harrumphed [in a marvellously huffy TV interview]. And yet, her words might have had more impact if she hadn’t said them while dressed like Belloq the Nazi from the Indiana Jones film Raiders of the Lost Ark. I’m sorry, Melania, it’s just really hard to listen to a woman when she’s wearing the clothes of one of the most famous fictional Nazis of all time.

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But what is Melania Trump doing with the US Agency for International Development (USAid)? Last time I checked, the Trump administration – which she is there to represent – tried to slash its funding by almost a third in the president’s first two budgets. Of course, anyone who asked her about that was promptly shut down, as Time magazine reported, because, it turned out in an amazing plot twist, Melania did not want to talk about US aid either.

But her programme! Yes, her famously hard-hitting Be Best programme. Something about cracking down on bullying, wasn’t it? [...] Gosh, if only someone close to the [famously bullying] president was supposed to give a toss about bullying … It’s almost sweet that the first lady wants to draw attention to her baloney platform, given how little she does for it. In 2017, she gave eight speeches. Eight. To put that into some kind of perspective, Laura Bush gave 42 speeches in her first year. Michelle Obama gave 72. Do we have time to mention that a booklet published in May as part of the Be Best initiative, about “encouraging well-being for children online”, was found to be basically identical to one published by the Obama administration?

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So, given that we have now followed Trump’s instructions and thoroughly discussed what she is doing with USAid and her programme, let’s take a look at her damn clothes. Now, first of all, you cannot be all, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, stop paying attention to my clothes, you shallow fools” when you are wearing a pith helmet. A PITH HELMET. To recap, on her trip to Egypt she was dressed in a ludicrous outfit of cream trousers, white shirt, black neck tie and white fedora that was, as the entire internet instantly pointed out, three-quarters Belloq and one-quarter Michael Jackson. Then, in Nairobi, she wore safari trousers, brown boots over her trousers, a white shirt and that helmet [...] So, in other words, for her trip to Africa, Trump’s mood board ran from movie Nazi to old-timey colonialist. Really, she makes it look so effortless.

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I cannot wait for her SS-inspired wardrobe for her trip to Germany.

  The Guardian