Hey blog guy... YOU'RE FIRED!

The Donald is now The Blogger... or is he?

Fellow PR blogger Peter Himler recently noted that real-estate tycoon / pitchman / reality-show host / casino-developer / hyphen-and-slash-consuming giant Donald Trump (pictured at the right, with his personal stylist Lawrence King) was adding the title of "corporate blogger" to his resume.

He starts with the question:

"Does anyone actually believe that Donald Trump will pen his own blog?"

Ever the curious sort, I checked out Mr. Trump's entries myself. I was particularly struck by the following passage from a post entitled Corporate Corruption: If You Have to Lie, Cheat, and Steal, You're Just Not Doing it Right:

"If you have to lie, cheat, and steal, you're just not doing it right. My career is a model of tough, fair dealing and fantastic success--without shortcuts, without breaking the law." - Donald Trump

I sent in the following comment, which I cross-posted at The Flack:

Mr. Trump, welcome to the world of blogging. I'm sure you'll find this forum an excellent model for feedback.

Regarding your statement: "My career is a model of tough, fair dealing and fantastic success--without shortcuts, without breaking the law."

How do you reconcile a claim such as that with the Vera Coking case in Atlantic City? While it is true you have broken no laws, most people will associate your use of eminent domain as a violation of "fair dealing" and "without shortcuts." (Especially in the political climate we are in post-Kelo v. New London.)

All comments to "Trump: the Blog" are screened, and this was really an exercise in seeing how responsive a tool this would be, as well as who is doing the screening. My comment appeared as:

Mr. Trump, welcome to the world of blogging. I'm sure you'll find this forum an excellent model for feedback.

My guess is Donald Trump doesn't read the raw entries to his comment page. I know this, because I checked out my site-tracker, and someone from New York City surfed Accentuate the Positive within a minute of my comment's acceptance. I don't think The Donald has the sort of time to look at my humble little blog personally.

I also doubt I will get an answer to what I consider to be an excellent question to a man extolling his commitment to "fair play." From a PR perspective, such statements can quickly backfire on you. Instead, my response has been spun into an endorsement -- and a relatively weak one at that, compared to what "Donny T." wrote just an hour or so later:

"This blog is so awesome I can't contain my fluids."

(I wish I had thought of that.)