By Laura Ainsworth, Staff Writer
December 20, 2018
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The “progressive” New Yawk-ish elites at VOGUE magazine have done it again. In the spirit of Christmas, they're running a story headlined “What’s Up With This Year’s Surreal White House Portrait,” slamming not just the Trumps’ official Christmas portrait, but them personally, as a couple.
First, in case you haven’t seen the portrait, let me say that it is beautiful. The President wears a classic tux, and Melania shimmers in an elegant white dress with high neck and long fitted sleeves. The background is a hall in the White House lined with traditional pine trees decorated in all-red ornaments and thousands of tiny white lights. Classic. It’s really stunning.
If Barack and Michelle had been pictured in exactly the same way, the editors at VOGUE would be falling to their knees in praise and writing epic poems to the portrait’s rapturous beauty. But with Donald and Melania, they are relentless in their petty, hyper-partisan criticism.
“The optics of the annual holiday photo have a certain surreal quality,” they write (there’s no byline), going on to say that the FLOTUS and POTUS look “almost like cardboard cutouts of themselves.” And it seems odd to them that the Trumps would be posing with big smiles, considering all the indictments that have taken place this year (never mind that none of them have anything to do with Trump and Russia), and that their “flagrantly fraudulent charity organization” is being dissolved. Wow.
(I’m sure if this portrait were of Hillary and Bill, the editors at VOGUE would be taking the opportunity to rail about the obvious pay-to-play at the Clinton Global Initiative. Of course they would.)
They even snark at the President and First Lady holding hands in the portrait, saying that this is “famously out of character for them.”
The editors say they were so disturbed by the portrait that they actually brought in their art experts to better understand why the it felt so “strangely off.” If they really want to know, I could tell them right now: it’s because they viscerally hate the President and First Lady.
If the First Couple had NOT been smiling, it would have been, “No wonder they look so grim, with all the indictments coming down.” If the First Couple had NOT been holding hands, it would have been, “See, they don’t really even like each other.” Whatever they do will be slammed.
The editors note that this portrait doesn’t have the blood-red trees seen in Melania’s Christmas video; never mind that those were just one part of the overall White House decorating scheme. No doubt they’ve referenced the red trees just so they have a lead-in to a completely out-of-place remark about “The Handmaid’s Tale.” “Handmaid’s Tale” references are really getting old.
They wonder why the First Couple look like “wax statues.” Their resident experts say it’s the lighting, which is “very overdone” and makes it look as though they’re “competing with their decorations.”
The piece goes on with more snarky comments, ending with a reference to “former Trump White House associates falling like snowflakes on a winter day in the Mueller investigation.” The President and First Lady are trying to keep spirits bright, they say; that’s why this picture is “wildly sunny.”
I am so sick of this kind of garbage. That’s why I will never, ever subscribe to a magazine that fills its pages with uninformed political tripe, even if they offer to send me a “professional subscription” for a pittance or even for free. I don’t want to add to their circulation figures, even by one. The publishing industry is going through a challenging time, to be sure, but I hope if anything has to go, it’s the leftist “bubble” publications targeting women. “Female empowerment,” my eye; the people who publish these magazines would eagerly dis-empower any woman who opposes them politically.
https://www.vogue.com/article/donald-trump-melania-trump-christmas-portrait-white-house-photoshop
But I do happen to encounter these magazines at the beauty salon, and since I am there fairly frequently in my eternal quest for loveliness, I see a lot of what is in them. I look at them in the name of research and am always dismayed by what I see. During my last visit, I picked up an issue of VOGUE from November, which, of course, came out before the midterms. I wanted to see what these magazines were saying in the weeks leading up to that election.
The big feature article, entitled “Scenes from a Revolution,” is about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It features an almost two-page spread photo of AO-C, shot by photographer-to-the-stars Annie Leibovitz, who also takes to the streets to photograph her campaigning. Since AO-C had won the Democratic primary in New York, she was already considered a shoo-in. Alexandria, in all black, lounges in an office chair in her sepia-toned Bronx apartment, with her live-in boyfriend Riley partially seen off to the left. Some papers and her glasses are on a nearby table. The entire composition is in black, sepia-gold and gray. She’s leaning in and gazing contentedly into the camera, her head resting in her hand.
Notice that even though I disagree strongly with her political views, I did not get snarky in describing the portrait. I can’t resist mentioning, though, that Vogue tells me her sweater is by Victor Glemaud. I don’t know who Victor Glemaud is, but I’m always amused by socialists wearing designer names. In the guide at the back of the magazine, I see the cardigan she wears sells for $495. The top underneath is $395. Her jeans cost $225. So this socialist is hanging around her apartment in a casual black outfit that costs $1,115. Plus tax. In her socialist utopia, she’ll have to be part of the ruling elite to be able to afford that --- or any of the designer clothes pictured in VOGUE.
The subhead reads: “As young women on the political left storm the gates of government, Irina Aleksander reports on a game-changing election and the progressive movement’s new star, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.”
If I start quoting extensively from this piece, you are going to get sick. (I get sick so you don’t have to!) It is absolutely as fawning as you imagine it might be. I’ll give you one tiny sampling: When asked why establishment politicians are so spooked by her, she says, “I think we’re scared of things we’re not familiar with, that show power. If a spaceship landed in your backyard, it’s like ‘What the f--- is that? Is it going to hurt me?’”
Yes, they have to quote her saying the f-word, which is obligatory even for politicians now, at least on the left. And I would add that her analogy is appropriate in a way, because even with her degree from Boston University, she has about as much knowledge of economics as someone who just stepped out of a spaceship. Perhaps less. And, yes, her ideology will hurt you.
Just in general, from looking at these magazines, I see the message of “female empowerment” being undercut by photography featuring female bondage, cruel shoes, crotch shots and waif-like anorexics. And have you noticed that some high-fashion models look like androgynous genetic experiments that went a little bit haywire? But I digress.
In another part of the magazine, a tribute by Bette Midler to her longtime friend, designer Michael Kors, features a dramatic full-length portrait of Michelle Obama wearing a long black gown complete with train; this photo had first appeared in VOGUE in 2013, while Michelle was First Lady. Her gown is by Michael Kors. Photography by...Annie Leibovitz, of course.
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