Melania Trump Plagiarism: Crazy Like a Fox?
I posted this on Facebook:
OK watch this: SUPPOSE for one second that the Trump campaign–which defied all the odds and managed to knock out the Bush dynasty plus some other candidates that were ostensibly qualified politicians–isn’t completely stupid. SUPPOSE for one second that they wouldn’t let a plagiarized speech by the candidate’s wife slip through. (After all, critics think the “Star of David” was intentional and not a slip up.) So now you’ve got all the media broadcasting Melania’s speech, side by side with Michelle Obama. So free publicity, and subconscious message that “Trump campaign respects the thoughts of a black woman when they uphold American values.” Discuss.
Then Dan Doherty added in a comment: “Not to mention that it already has you subconsciously associating Melania with the first lady in your head.”
When Scott Adams links to this post, I’ll be happy if he praises me, but it’s OK if he just says, “Exactly. I’ve been predicting this for a while now.”
Uh, I’m gonna go with just regular crazy, so, no.
I was thinking this too, Bob. People have been saying that Melania isn’t First Lady material, but now they’re comparing her speech side-by-side with the actual First Lady.
Also, it was a very small and fairly innocuous part of the speech that was lifted. Who doesn’t agree that we should work hard and pass our virtues to the next generation? Is it really such a controversy that two candidate’s wives echoed this sentiment using very similar words?
On the other hand, this does distract from the rest of the convention and gives the antagonistic media the attack angle is was surely looking for. I’m going to say it’s probably not intentional (that they got caught), but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was.
– Sun Tzu
Yeah, I gotta say, this effort to make an incredibly amateurish mistake look smart doesn’t work for me. Trump has run a wildly incompetent general election campaign, and this looks like an incompetent speechwriter, who searched for ideas about what a prospective First Lady should say at a convention, and either accidentally or intentionally copied Michelle Obama’s speech. If I were the Trump campaign (and God knows, they probably shouldn’t be taking advice from me) I’d own up to the mistake and fire whoever it was immediately. The problem with pretending it’s not copying is that every time they claim that, they just look like liars, and Trump has enough difficulty with that already.
Better response: “No, I guess we were both inspired by .” I would be searching like mad for such a source. It shouldn’t too difficult, those are pretty mundane sentiments.
I think they tried that, but this isn’t a similarity, it’s word for word copying. Unless there’s a third source (which there almost certainly isn’t because Michelle Obama, a savvy lawyer, would be very unlikely to have plagiarized that particular speech), I continue to think they’re better off admitting copying and firing the offender.
Third source? Hey maybe it’s from the Q Document.
This questions whether there is such a thing a bad publicity for Trump. I would have thought this was bad publicity, but the same rules do not seem to apply.
I still don’t buy the deliberate positional thing. It is not a case of plannong it in advance, but taking advantage of whatever publicity follows from your mistakes.
Trump has been running on the theory that “There’s No Such Thing As Bad Publicity” will translate to politics. The reasons that works in a primary campaign don’t translate to a general election.
” So now you’ve got all the media broadcasting Melania’s speech, side by side with Michelle Obama. So free publicity, and subconscious message that “Trump campaign respects the thoughts of a black woman when they uphold American values.” ”
In what way is copying someone’s words a sign of respect for that person?
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Colson 1820.
It’s quite a coincidence, but IMHO the phrases duplicated from Michelle Obama’s speech happen to be exactly those promises that were most flagrantly broken in the past 7 years. Michelle Obama 2008:
Barrack Obama 2009:
Word is your bond, huh? Do what you say you are going to do, huh, huh?
Barrack Obama 2012:
Work hard for what you want in life, huh? Treat people with dignity and respect, huh, huh?
I can’t help but think someone was having a bit of a dig there… not sure whether it was fully planned, but these lines would be the quotes that I’d be dragging up if I wanted to blast the Obamas for their rank hypocrisy. Getting the reactionary media to repeatedly hammer Trump’s own points while they think they are making fun of him is pretty much a Trump signature move by now. They’ve been Trumprolled yet again.