In an exclusive live interview on TODAY, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie dismisses claims that Melania Trump’s speech at the Republican Convention Monday night was plagiarized from a 2008 speech by Michelle Obama, saying “that sounded like her to me last night”.
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“This is once again an example of when a woman threatens Hillary Clinton, she seeks to demean her and take her down”, said Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort on CNN. In a matter of hours, several revisions and amendments to the denial were added. During the speech, Trump suddenly appeared at the back of the auditorium, stealing the limelight and trying to silence the deviation on the podium like Joe Stalin emerging from the shadows of his box at the Bolshoi during the performance of a politically suspect ballet. No, she had speechwriters.
“I thought her speech was wonderful”, said Sarah Brown, an Alliance resident and delegate representing Ohio’s 13th Congressional District, which includes parts of Mahoning, Trumbull, Portage, Stark and Summit counties.
It is doubtful that anyone beyond the media (or the Trump campaign) cares much about this scandalous affront to intellectual property (cough, cough). Ever. The one time they really needed to say something truthful, it didn’t seem to enter their minds. Here’s another: “Always tell the truth as soon as possible”. So are we looking at a First Lady that doesn’t recognize that what she’s taking was exactly what she was getting, and that was an extraction from Mrs. Obama’s speech? Having no previous experience in politics, and no credible resume as a writer, she was nevertheless entrusted with a vital piece of work because she was a loyalist who had served the Trumps well over the years.
End of story. As you know, this isn’t the way things went and an entire day of news coverage (and now this column) was devoted to the plagiarism followed by the deception. Well, when you’re Paul Manafort, who made his fortune consulting with global arms dealers, African warlords and all manner of despots and dictators like the Philippines’ Ferdinand Marcos, you learn it is never a good idea to admit to mistakes. Sometimes they screw up.
Trump himself praised McIver. Working closely with her staff, Obama filled the speech with personal details created to illuminate what she called her “improbable journey” while offering a vivid take on working-class Americans and her desire for a fairer, more tolerant society.
Melania is an immigrant and a retired model. That said, there are means by which communicators safeguard against these kinds of blunders, making the intent nearly irrelevant to the fact it was allowed to happen in the first place.
So she instead chose to work with a woman who was a staff writer inside the Trump organization, who didn’t work for the campaign, with whom she felt comfortable.
After months of rough treatment that wounded her confidence and caused her to fear that she was damaging Barack Obama’s chances, the convention speech represented her resurrection. She just doesn’t understand the rules about “borrowing” others’ words.
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Instead, in a preposterous defiance of what our eyes and ears had proven, Monafort blamed Melania and Hillary Clinton for the error in one fell swoop.
