Unbelievable. They even engaged handwriting analysts to judge whether a child wrote the letter. Did they ever question anything that Obama did? Are they even reporting on the massive IT scandal connected to Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the Democrats? Nope, too busy trying to stalk Pickle…
Via WaPo:
On Wednesday afternoon, while paddling through a week that began with press secretary Sean Spicer’s resignation and was pockmarked by Donald Trump dogging his attorney general, the White House launched a hopeful tradition: letters from children to the president, read aloud in the daily press briefing.
Four hours later, the term #PickleTruther was teeming on Twitter, and things had gotten really weird.
“My name is Dylan but every body calls me Pickle,” Wednesday’s letter began, read by spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders from her podium. “I’m 9 years old and you are my favrit president. I like you so much I had a birthday about you. My cake was the shap of your hat.”
Pickle had a few questions for the president, which Sanders answered: The White House has 132 rooms. The president would be happy to be Pickle’s friend. Sanders wasn’t sure exactly how much money the president had, she told Pickle, “but I know it’s a lot.”
Reporters asked Sanders to provide them with a copy of the letter, and she said she would, once she’d blacked out Pickle’s last name. A few hours later she tweeted out a photograph of a single sheet of notebook paper; it was retweeted 900 times by Trump fans and detractors.
At first the detractors centered on Pickle’s request to know “ho much monny do you have.” Was this not, folks pointed out, exactly the kind of question that the “release your taxes” movement had been asking for months?
But then the comments became more investigative. Was it odd that the notebook paper, which theoretically arrived in the mail, didn’t seem to have the crease marks one would see on a letter folded into an envelope? Was it unusual that a young child would have spelled “people” and “friend” correctly, but then mixed up “how”? What kind of 9-year-old would request a birthday party themed around a 71-year-old man?