DONALD TRUMP vs. ROSIE

Is it asking too much for America’s most famous businessman to simply behave like a gentleman? I don’t think so. With great wealth and fame come responsibility, the foremost of which for a man of power is the proper treatment of women.

For weeks, America has been riveted by the nasty public dispute between Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Trump. Rosie, commenting on Trump’s ownership of beauty pageants, called Trump “a pimp,” an unnecessarily harsh term that obscured an otherwise important point, namely, that Trump owns beauty pageants that exploit women as cheap meat to entertain lecherous men.

There were many ways for Trump to respond to O’Donnell’s opening salvo. He could have ignored her, debated her, or simply said that he is prepared to respond to legitimate criticism, but not when it is vented with venom.

Instead, Trump, who like many narcissistic men has a very thin public skin, erupted like a bile-filled volcano. Refusing to respond to any of Rosie’s points, he instead called her “a slob,” “disgusting,” and “an animal.” Now, whatever provocation Rosie might be guilty of—and why undermine a sound moral argument by using names?—one recoils at the spectacle of America’s best-known businessman betraying unbridled misogyny by hating a woman for being overweight.

What Donald Trump has invented is a new kind of rich man. The man who has money, but is bereft of class. The man with a million bucks, but with impoverished manners. The man who lives in high society, but whose behavior is in the gutter.

Character, rather than money, is the real currency by which we are meant to purchase self-esteem.

Source: Donald Trump and Rosie O’Donnell; Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and Donald Trump; Donald Trump Gentleman — Beliefnet.com