How much can a politico publicly lash out when it comes to familial attacks?

It is inevitable that an elected government official is going to come under attack for his actions. But to what degree is he allowed to get offended when members of his family get caught in the partisan crossfire?

You don't make the cover of Time ...

That managed to occur this week with regards to President Donald J. Trump, who is P-O’ed with the Nordstrom retail stores that publicly made a change in policy to stop carrying a line of clothing that had been designed by presidential daughter Ivanka.

NORDSTROM SAYS THE clothes just aren’t selling; which when one considers the negative taint that has come to the Trump name amongst the majority of our society ought not to be a surprise!

... by being overly touchy about family

But Trump wants to believe that this is yet another attack on his persona (because, after all, Trump is a privileged person who is entitled to be regarded as more important than the rest of us mere mortals), and it led to his latest use of Twitter to send out a 140-character missive.

One of his famed Tweets from a Twit, so to speak. In which he says it is “Terrible!” that anyone would do anything negative in the name of Ivanka Trump. “My daughter has been treated so unfairly by Nordstrom,” he wrote.

Presidential press secretary Sean Spicer (whom many of us now think of as being merely actress, and Plainfield native, Melissa McCarthy in drag) went further, making a public statement saying that Nordstrom was engaging in, “a direct attack on his policies and her name.” Even presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway briefly got into the act, feeling the need to tell people to "buy Ivanka's stuff."

Actress McCarthy's political alter ego ...

WOW!!!

Nordstrom definitely got under his skin. Either it truly was an overly harsh attack, or (more likely) we have an overly touchy person serving as president. Who knows how ridiculously over-the-top he’ll react when there’s a real crisis situation.

Yet I do have to give Trump one bit of credit – his response is far from the worst we’ll ever hear from a government official who’s upset that his family’s name has been besmirched.

... got dragged into defense of Trump daughter

For that, we may well have to look merely to City Hall – albeit to the occupants of some four-and-a-half decades ago.

I’M THINKING BACK to 1971 when the “scandal” was the fact that municipal officials had approved deals awarding city contracts for insurance business to a company that had (coincidentally enough) just hired one of the mayoral sons for a job.

That was the incident in which Mayor Daley (the elder) went on a tirade about how a man ought to be allowed to help his sons advance in life that ended with the line, “If I can’t help my sons, then they can kiss my ass.”

Which often gets altered to jokes about mistletoe hanging from one’s coattails by people whose sensibilities are such that they don’t like to read the much-briefer word for buttocks in print.

I have no doubt that when discussing issues involving daughter Ivanka, Trump was probably feeling something identical to the line of thought that Daley actually came out and said all those years ago. A part of me is surprised he didn’t come out and say the same thing.

CONWAY: She's been 'counseled,' whatever that means

BUT WE GENERALLY regard it as one of Old Man Daley’s weakest moments – one of the few times when he admittedly tried to use politics for personal enrichment. Even though the one who would have become enriched was son Michael – who is the one Daley son that never got into the political game and ran for office.

Daley may have felt he had a legitimate point, just as I’m sure Trump thinks he’s now sticking up for the daughter who is “a great person – always pushing me to do the right thing!”

But having the president use the power of his office to try to bully a business into submission on behalf of his daughter is something very unbecoming of our government officials. We really should expect more from them.

Unless Trump is comfortable with the notion of having people outside of the 46 percent who elected him regard him as nothing more than our society’s derriere!

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