A Remorseful Queen Plays the Trump Card

Troubled Miss USA Earns Pardon From Pageant Owner

During her meeting Tuesday with Donald Trump, hard-partying Tara Conner agreed to enter rehab. (By Rick Maiman -- Associated Press)

NEW YORK, Dec. 19 -- Donald Trump's business acumen and net worth have been fervently debated for as long as he and his inexplicable hairdo have preoccupied this city. But there can be little question about the guy's hunches as a publicity-ravenous egomaniac and preening huckster. In that department, the man is an artist -- and Tuesday, quite frankly, he made his masterpiece.

Amid a cascade of camera flashes and surrounded by the "Inside Edition" branch of America's media family, Mr. You're Fired granted a dramatic reprieve to Tara Conner, the Miss USA crowned in April who had imperiled her reign after reports that she'd failed a drug test and been caught drinking while underage at various Manhattan nightspots. For a few days there it looked as though Ms. Conner and her sparkly tiara were about to part ways.

Cue the Donald.

"I've always been a believer in second chances," Trump said, standing at a makeshift podium in the atrium of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. "Tara is a good person. Tara has tried hard. Tara is going to be given a second chance."

Conner listened in a seat next to Trump, fighting tears, then losing that fight, then fighting some more. The day after her 21st birthday, she looked chastened and grateful and primped to a fare-thee-well in a navy pinstriped suit as Trump called her a woman who'd "made some very very bad choices, some very foolish choices." He had expected, he went on, to terminate Conner's reign when the two met in the morning, but she impressed him with her sincerity and contriteness and the story of her humble origins in Kentucky and the way that New York City had swept her into its vortex of wickedness and sin.

"She was telling me that she got caught up in the whirlwind of New York. It's a story that has happened many times to many women and men that came to the Big Apple," Trump intoned. "They wanted their slice of the Big Apple and they found out it wasn't so easy."

Ah, the Manhattan defense. It wasn't me. It was the Meatpacking District!

Conner, he went on, agreed to go into rehab and knows that if she slips up even once, she's toast. Or words to that effect.

"I believe that she can set a great example for troubled people -- and she's troubled -- throughout the country, throughout lots of countries, that have problems with alcohol, that have problems with life. I believe she will be an amazing, amazing example."

Then Trump stepped aside and introduced Conner, which is when this event went from superb publicity stunt with cleavage and pathos to sublime publicity stunt with cleavage and pathos. Conner inched to the microphone and praised her benefactor, describing him not with words befitting the leering, profit-motivated owner of a televised boobiefest, but with words befitting a saint.

"I've had a very big blessing bestowed upon me," she said moistly. "And you'll never know how much I appreciate Mr. Trump for saving me on this one. It truly takes someone with a heart of gold and blessed soul."

Yeah, that or a man with a genius for self-deification. Who but Trump could have orchestrated this? There we are, sitting near a bar that bears his name (Trump Bar), beside a buffet that bears his name (Trump Buffet) and an ice cream parlor that bears his name (Trump's Ice Cream Parlor), amid Trump-branded chocolate bars, jelly beans, ties, cuff links, shirts and sweaters and somehow the subject is what a selfless sweetie Trump is.