Michael Dorstewitz whined in an April 30 Newsmax column:
The constant bleating and caterwauling from Democrats and media figures directed at President Trump and his administration is bad enough, and might even be expected. But common decency should dictate that their spouses and children would be off-limits.
It should, but it hasn’t worked out that way. Families are now considered fair game.
The most recent example came late last week from alleged comedian Jimmy Kimmel during his parody of a WHCA Dinner speech.“Welcome to the 2026 White House Correspondents’ Dinner!” he began.
When a clip of Melania Trump appeared, he added, “Our first lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.”
A few days later a gunman attempted to shoot his way into the actual WHCA Dinner, presumably to make the first lady a widow and take out a few members of the president’s administration in the process.
The first lady let Kimmel know how she felt.
Dorstewitz didn’t point out the obvious: that Kimmel’s joke could not possibly have been about the WHCD because not even the alleged gunman cited Kimmel’s remark as an instigating factor. He went on to huff:
Politics has become all too toxic between the candidates and against office-holders, with some people openly complaining because the gunman who interrupted Saturday’s WHCA Dinner didn’t hit his target.
The first step to cooling the rhetoric has to be to make the family off-limits.
It’s the only decent, responsible thing we can do — it’s a line we can never cross again.
It’s called being civil.
Dorstewitz might want to have a chat with the publisher of his column about civil behavior involving the families of politicians. In 2012, Newsmax hyped a claim by Donald Trump that “once seriously considered getting a divorce,” despite the complete lack of any evidence to substantiate it, and a 2014 article played class warfare by carrying the headline “Obama’s Daughters Enjoy Gourmet Lunches at Posh School.” Newsmax also touted a never-substantiated claim that Michelle Obama once used a “derogatory term for white people.”
Will Dorstewitz hold Newsmax to the same standard he’s holding those he doesn’t like for committing the same offense, or demand that Newsmax be less toxic toward the family members of politicians it doesn’t like? Not likely.