Brandjack News

By Quentin Langley

Elizabeth Lauten has resigned from her job as an aide to a Republican Congressman after making derogatory remarks about Sasha and Malia Obama, the President's teenage daughters. She accused them of lacking class in a Facebook post that, well, lacked class. 

It is easy to talk up the political significance of this – and the MSM has been doing this. The Telegraph described Lauten as a "senior Republican spin doctor". As it happens, the editor of this blog is a political columnist with an American newspaper and had not only never heard of Lauten but also never heard of Stephen Fincher, the two-term Republican congressman for whom she worked. Lauten's entry in Wikipedia is new, is an "orphan", meaning no other articles link to it, and contains nothing other than the story of her resignation from a job that no-one outside her immediate family knew that she had. 

Lauten's error of judgement was, however, a significant one. People are protective of children. Barack and, at least to an extent, Michelle, Obama have chosen to put themselves in the public eye. Sasha and Malia did not. And yet they are rolled out as props for trivial events such as the president "pardoning" a Turkey before Thanksgiving. Their mode of attire was typical of modern teenagers, and might even be considered conservative. They were showing no cleavage; their arms and shoulders were covered; though both were wearing short skirts. Both teens seemed about as bored by the whole thing as anyone would expect.

That Lauten thought it was her place to comment on Sasha' amd Mailia's attitude to the pardoning of a Turkey reflects the peculiar American attitude of treating "first families" like royalty, where someone's opinions and fashion choices are taken seriously simply because of their marriage or parentage.