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Lots of buzz this morning over the news that Melania Trump plagiarized two key paragraphs in her keynote Republican Convention speech last night.
Who did Melania steal them from? Michelle Obama.
The side-by-side comparison of the two speeches is undeniable. Melania is guilty of plagiarism. Yet, the Trump campaign is digging in, denying the entire thing, and, incredibly, blaming it on Hillary Clinton.
Though Melania claims she wrote the speech herself, these things are always written by staff, and in fact, the Trump campaign admits that the speech went through various staffers. It’s therefore extremely likely that a soon-to-be-fired Trump campaign staffer stole the sections from Michelle Obama’s 2008 convention speech. Fire that staffer, admit the mistake, and be done with it — the controversy is over. But not Donald Trump. Trump’s campaign manager went on TV this morning and blamed Hillary Clinton for the entire thing.
Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort said this morning that whenever Hillary Clinton is threatened by a woman, she demeans her. Manafort added that the talking points in Melania’s speech are “common words and values.”
The media to its credit isn’t accepting the Trump campaign’s excuses or denial. It clearly happened. So why doesn’t the Trump campaign just admit a staffer screwed up, and be done with it?
Here’s the side-by-side video. It’s like watching Nat King Cole and Natalie Cole sing that duet:
Let’s compare the two speeches. CNN did a great graphic that makes it clear:
One of the best ways to defuse a controversy/scandal is to admit it, fix it, and move on. Had Donald Trump simply admitted that a staffer screwed up, and that the staffer was disciplined and/or fired, the entire brouhaha would be over. The media would mention the mistake, maybe show the side-by-side of the two women speaking, and conclude by saying Trump apologized for the glitch and fired the staffer, and it would be done with.
Instead, Trump is being Trump, ego-driven and always refusing to apologize. Manafort, his campaign head, was just vicious this morning going after Hillary over all of this.
Mediaite has Manafort’s reaction:
“Well there’s no cribbing of Michelle Obama’s speech,” Manafort said with a sheepish laugh. “These were common words and values, and she cares about her family.”
“She was speaking in front of 35 million people last night. She knew that,” Manafort continued, before remarkably figuring out a way to implicate the failed policies of Hillary Clinton in his response (“This is once again an example of how when a woman threatens Hillary Clinton, she tries to demean her and take her down”). They’re just “common words,” said Manafort, despite the overwhelming evidence that the 2008 address was essentially transcribed at parts with a few words and phrases swapped out using only, I imagine, Microsoft Thesaurus.
Manafort falsely added that it was the Clinton campaign who first discovered the plagiarism, somehow suggesting that this makes the controversy less valid. In fact, it appears to be a writer and interior designer named Jarret Hill:
What Trump’s campaign — aka Trump himself — is doing is feeding the story. The campaign issued a response that simply was not credible, which will invite the media, and the Clinton campaign, to reporter further on the controversy, respond to the new allegations from Manafort, giving the story yet another news cycle. And rather than have last night be about Melania Trump’s beauty, grace and intellect — hers was in fact a good speech — all we’re talking about today is why Melania stole parts of her speech from Michelle, and why she wont’ simply admit it.
Ultimately the buck doesn’t stop with Melania, it stops with Donald. He’s the one running this show. And he thinks not-backing-down is a virtue. And sometimes it is. But sometimes it simply makes matters worse. And your wife ends up paying for it.
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