2016 May 16^th

The big news today is a New York Times piece interviewing a number of women about their experiences with Donald Trump. One of these interviewees, Rowanne Brewer Lane, is said to have met Trump at a pool party at his Mar-a-Lago resort. Trump was taken with Brewer Lane and asked her if she had a swimsuit. She hadn’t brought one, but he took her to a room where there was a drawer full pf bikinis. She was to pick one and to put it on. She did and Trump is said to have exclaimed, “Wow” at the sight of her in a bikini.

Well, not so fast. Ms. Brewer Lane now claims that this “Times” story was a hit job. That the paper had distorted the interview and none of this happened as described. That Rowanne Brewer Lane subsequently “dated” Donald Trump there is no doubt at all. Pictures of them together are on the internet; nor is there any doubt that this 26 year old swimsuit model was a “Wow” just as Trump had said. Pictures of her are also on the internet. Of course, at this Time Trump was also “seeing” Marla Maples. In due course after Trump and Maples produced a child, he would actually marry her. She would subsequently divorce him on the grounds of infidelity, the same grounds used by Ivana Trump, his first wife, some years earlier.

The question to be answered is what might motivate Brewer lane to disavow what the Times claims she said? Brewer Lane, now 52, has not been a swimsuit model for some time. Perhaps ingratiating herself once more with the Donald is now motivation enough.

Brewer Lane’s disclaimer of the Times comments about her and Trump will do nothing to help Trump’s woeful lack of popularity with women. Perhaps the case of his first wife Ivana Trump is instructive here. Trump gave Ivana considerable management responsibility within his organization; and he is unsparing in his praise for her abilities. When his children and their exemplary work ethic and behavior are mentioned, he claims that all of the credit for that goes to Ivana who was responsible for their children’s early upbringing. None of that praise for his wife, Ivana, stopped him from having a series of affairs culminating in his impregnating Marla Maples. This is his idea of how women should be “valued.”

We hardly need to list the derogatory comments he has made about women. From Megyn Kelly who must have been bleeding from her “whatever” to the awful face of Carly Fiorina who apparently forgave him for that insult and has climbed aboard the Trump wagon. Let’s face it, these folks know what they have to do; If Hillary Clinton wins the election they are out. Better to take any insult and be on the winning side than to lose with principles intact and be out in the cold.