Dear Melania,
As a former ESL teacher, I guess it is up to me to tell you that the title of your new campaign makes no sense. First of all, grammatically it is incorrect and should be "Be the best." However, even if you were to say that, my next question is "Be the best what?" The best bully? The best obstructionist? The best dressed? The best plagiarist?* The best blogger?
By saying "best" it implies that we have to deem everyone else as worse and possibly conduct an ad campaign using Russian trolls to convince the public that all of our competitors are tainted. Is that really necessary? I am happy if I am a really good psychologist. I don't need to be the best psychologist ever. I don't even need to be better than another person. Most of us outside of Trumpdom don't walk around aiming for superlatives. So perhaps you were trying to say "Be your best self." That's nice. But no one can be their best self at all times by definition. And who's to judge? How do we know when we have achieved our "best?" Do we need to enter a competition and win a tiara?
Perhaps you meant "Be kind." Well then, Melania, dammit, just say it! That would BE BEST. Kindness does not imply everyone is worse than you, nor does it imply that you have to be putting on a façade daily. It's not too late, Melania. Let's all BE KIND and BEING KIND is more important than Being BEST!
*Thanks to Rich Laffin and Janet Shanedling for reminding me that to launch this campaign, Melania used information that the Obama team had printed and inserted her picture and "Be Best"
