Last night we learned that, as a young child growing up in Slovenia, Melania Trump lived Michelle Obama’s childhood. As pundits have been noting (with various degrees of astonishment and amusement), parts of Ms. Trump’s speech were, let’s say, “strikingly similar” to the 2008 DNC speech from the current first lady.
The phrases in question came when Ms. Trump — who told NBC News earlier on Monday that she had written her speech herself — was discussing her upbringing in Slovenia and her parents.
Who knew there was a South Side of Slovenia where Melania could pick up exactly—exactly—the same life lessons as Michelle Obama.
As the wouldn’t-survive-a-fourth-grade-sniff-test nature of the cribbing became clear and the lights snapped on, little Trumpian roaches ran in all directions. First, you had the world’s toughest former federal prosecutor declaring no foul.
Matt Lauer: You’re a former prosecutor, could you make a case for plagiarism?
Christie: Not when 93% of the speech is completely different …
Christie then turned to the screen with “See Donald? I’m still here, Donald. It’s not too late! It’s not too late!” Or maybe not. But that’s only 93 percent different than what he did say. Right now, everyone accused of plagiarism in every industry is desperately trying to find a way to have their case tried by Christie.
Meanwhile, over at Trump whatever-quarters, campaign manager Paul Manafort also had a perfectly normal explanation—if your study of ethics was gained at Trump University.
"Certainly, there's no feeling on her part that she did it," he told CNN. "What she did was use words that are common words."
See. Just words. Organized in phrases. And sentences. Did Michelle have a patent on any of those words? Then how can it be wrong?
Manafort stopped short of suggesting that Melania actually wrote Michelle’s 2008 speech. So far.
And while Melenia was originally credited as the sole author of the speech, she suddenly gained a co-author or two to share the credit.
[Manafort] told ABC News’ “Good Morning America” that Melania Trump’s speech represents her views and opinions, while describing the process of writing as a collaboration. …
"In writing her beautiful speech, Melania's team of writers took notes on her life’s inspirations, and in some instances included fragments that reflected her own thinking.
And some apparently reflected other people’s thinking. Like, perhaps, the life story of an African-American family that Trump’s surrogates spent much of the evening attacking and devaluing, before taking what they wanted from the Obama story and claiming it as their own.
Tuesday, Jul 19, 2016 · 2:35:15 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
In this morning’s press conference, Manafort, identified the real villain in all this:
This is what happens when Hillary Clinton is threatened by a female, the first thing she does is try to destroy the person
So, did Hillary tip off the press to the plagiarism? Did she sneak the passages into Melania’s speech? Did she send it by private email from Benghazi?
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Honestly, what’s far more disturbing than anything in Melania’s speech is the Trump campaign’s reaction. As with every mistake, every stumble, every outright lie, the Trump campaign hasn’t reacted by making a quick admission of guilt or providing a simple apology. Instead, Trump’s surrogates have attacked the media, attacked Democrats, and inexplicably attacked Hillary Clinton.
This isn’t the only example. It’s not even the only example this week.
But it’s an example that’s highly visible and emblematic of Trump’s inability to own up to a mistake, no matter how blatant.
How about, just this once, they admit a mistake? For a party that claims to be about personal responsibility, why won’t they show just a little?