Let’s begin with an excellent New York Times video of Melania Trump two days ago voicing words much too similar to those delivered in 2008 by Michelle Obama to be assigned to mere coincidence.
Some pundits have speculated that Trump’s less-than-professional campaign staff is to blame for not having caught the plagiarized passage. But such a take on the matter misses the larger point by a mile. This point is that the unidentified person who wrote Melania’s speech deliberately included the damning passage.
We can be relatively confident in this assessment because other more laudable, unstolen passages of Melania’s speech reveal that its author is by no means a complete newbie to speech-writing. We can strengthen our confidence in this by reminding ourselves that even a high school student knows what plagiarism is, and how to easily avoid it.
So, let me say it again. The person who wrote the plagiarized passage knew what he or she was doing while penning it, and while giving it to Melania. Who would do such an underhanded thing? In pondering this, keep in mind how much of an embarrassment Donald Trump is to the Conservative Party. Also keep in mind that many conservatives are quite reasonably terrified of Trump winning the presidency. They are terrified that a Trump presidency will spell the end of the modern conservative movement. So, as insurance against failing to unseat Trump at the convention, one or more conservatives infiltrated Trump’s campaign with the single-minded aim of sabotaging his chances of winning. We all know what conservatives are capable of. As we move into the last four months of the campaign, trusting that his people truly are his people will now be quite a problem for Trump. But that’s not his only problem.
Melania lied when she said she wrote the speech. It’s not like it’s possible that she lied, or that she may have lied. She very obviously lied. And now, in order to defend her honor, her husband, who knows far better than anyone else that his wife did not write that speech, has very obviously lied. Trump had been hoping that media reporting on the Republican Convention would focus on Hillary’s trustworthiness. But now that hope is forever dashed. Most people will not believe someone who has been so red-handedly caught in a lie, especially when that someone is running for president of the United States. And these same people will conclude that the last thing our country needs right now is a pathetically transparent liar who is also not smart enough to prevent conservative saboteurs from infiltrating his inner circle, and destroying his campaign.