Melania Plagiarizes Michelle

[Tom Sawyer]

But if I were her, I'd expect to be relegated to the Ex-wives club after he loses.

Well ya, it's not like the loss will have been his fault. It was all those other people who didn't step up and be as awesome as he was who were responsible.

 

[blastula]

Given: How common political speeches are, how they have small clusters of people picked to write them, how popular certain punchlines are among particular audiences, etc. I would suspect that speechwriting plagiarism would actually be a fairly common phenomenon, just something that we do not usually notice ourselves. I do not think we should expect speechwriters to come up with their own original lines for every line of a speech either, but that copying and plagiarizing the speeches of others is just going to be part of the norm, by people from every political party, and likely has been for the bulk of history. So there are probably plenty of Democrats (along with their speechwriters) who have done the same thing, and just never been caught on it.

It is not something that should be encouraged by any means, but just something we should recognize as being part of the norm. I do not think these particular instances with Melania's word-for-word speech copying were severe enough that her speechwriter deserves firing, either. It seems pretty clear that some plagiarism did occur, but it was nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to political speechwriting. They were somewhat generic lines that worked well with a crowd, and so we should expect others to use them again at other times, even with different speechwriters, different politicians, and different crowds. Not a big deal.

It is out of the ordinary, it is unethical, it has upended careers when found out. It's standard practice to check against it which is an easy process nowadays.

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The rickroll could be a sign it was deliberate.

Or her speech writer hated Melania.

Or? If deliberate, of course it was to harm somebody.

 

[dismal]

It is out of the ordinary, it is unethical, it has upended careers when found out. It's standard practice to check against it which is an easy process nowadays.

Yes, who among us can forget when Joe Biden and Barack Obama got run out of politics for plagiarizing speeches.

Of course, those were more blatant than this. And Malenia is a model, not in politics.

 

[bilby]

I appreciate that but compared to the rest of the stuff going on it doesn't warrant this much time and outrage.

It was a hack political speech. I'm not really surprised it lifted lines from another political speech. It's what hacks do and is hardly noteworthy.

You've got one of the two major political parties having a convention theme of basically "Make America White Again" right now. Compared to that I don't really care that Melania Trump lifted less than a hundred words from a Michelle Obama speech.

The reason that it's important is that it's a clear demonstration of the incompetence and lack of preparation and ability in the Trump campaign. That sort of thing is working out as a more effective attack strategy against Trump than the racism thing, especially amongst white voters. Clinton has all the minority votes locked up and that's not going to change. Peeling away the support of the white voters who may not think that reestablishing the waning dominance of their uber-race is necessarily a negative blocks Trump's only potential path to victory. Pointing out that Trump is a racist starts getting diminishing returns but pointing out that Trump is an incompetent moron has legs amongst Trump's only real voting bloc.

I doubt it. If you ask Trump voters, they would probably tell you that some of their best friends are incompetent morons.

Well, they would once you explained to them the meaning of the word 'incompetent'. Slowly. A couple of times.

 

[blastula]

It is out of the ordinary, it is unethical, it has upended careers when found out. It's standard practice to check against it which is an easy process nowadays.

Yes, who among us can forget when Joe Biden and Barack Obama got run out of politics for plagiarizing speeches.

You have forgetten that it did end Biden's candidacy. Obama's case was not so clear cut.

Of course, those were more blatant than this. And Malenia is a model, not in politics.

It's just as blatant or more. Malenia is in politics now, and would be even more so as first lady. But it's not really all about her or her alone.

I can just imagine how dismalized the spin would be if Michelle Obama had plagiarized from Laura Bush.

 

[Rhea]

It is out of the ordinary, it is unethical, it has upended careers when found out. It's standard practice to check against it which is an easy process nowadays.

Yes, who among us can forget when Joe Biden and Barack Obama got run out of politics for plagiarizing speeches.

Of course, those were more blatant than this. And Malenia is a model, not in politics.

Biden did drop out of the race at that point, didn't he? And was decades before he returned to the spotlight?

And Obama immediately talked about it - he had shared conversations with Deval, who had given him permission to use the themes.

Melania's issue would have been so easy to say, whoops, she wrote it herself using ideas from other speeches, and we would all have given her a pass. I still give her a pass, actually, but the whole try-to-cover-up business is laughable and shameful. Apparently a person has fallen on a sword. That should have happened sooner, and of course strong vetting would have kept it from happening at all.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Yes, who among us can forget when Joe Biden and Barack Obama got run out of politics for plagiarizing speeches.

Of course, those were more blatant than this. And Malenia is a model, not in politics.

Biden did drop out of the race at that point, didn't he? And was decades before he returned to the spotlight?

And Obama immediately talked about it - he had shared conversations with Deval, who had given him permission to use the themes.

Melania's issue would have been so easy to say, whoops, she wrote it herself using ideas from other speeches, and we would all have given her a pass. I still give her a pass, actually, but the whole try-to-cover-up business is laughable and shameful. Apparently a person has fallen on a sword. That should have happened sooner, and of course strong vetting would have kept it from happening at all.

You know, it's very hard for right wingers to hold their breath until they turn blue about how unfair and hypocritical the big, meanie libruls are if you keep replying to their unresearched Trump talking points with facts and stuff. You're oppressing him here, the same as people used to do with the slaves and that makes you a racist.

 

[laughing dog]

Does any of this really matter in the end? Not really. It will have little, if any, effect on the election outcome. The mild embarrassment for the Republicans of applauding Michelle Obama's words when they come out of Melania Trump's mouth is overshadowed by the hypercritical, shallow and utterly stupid defenses for and deflections of her plagiarism.

 

[Ford]

Melania's issue would have been so easy to say, whoops, she wrote it herself using ideas from other speeches, and we would all have given her a pass. I still give her a pass, actually, but the whole try-to-cover-up business is laughable and shameful. Apparently a person has fallen on a sword. That should have happened sooner, and of course strong vetting would have kept it from happening at all.

It was a stupid mistake, which is surprising because while he may be running an unconventional campaign (to put it mildly) Trump is and has always been good at branding himself. In a gaudy and crass way, but still... You'd think someone with such a keen eye for marketing would have been able to figure out that the wife wasn't ready for prime time. If she's not comfortable (or able) to handle the spotlight, then don't put her in one.

 

[dismal]

Yes, who among us can forget when Joe Biden and Barack Obama got run out of politics for plagiarizing speeches.

You have forgetten that it did end Biden's candidacy. Obama's case was not so clear cut.

I wonder whatever happened to that Biden guy.

You may be right about Obama though. All he did was lift lines from someone else's speech without giving him credit. Totally different.

But, Hillary said Obama is a plagiarist so it must be so:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-i-should-have-credited-lines/

 

[Nice Squirrel]

So, after 10 pages it seems like the net net net net of all this is we all got a reminder we could be looking at a hot Slovenian model the next 4 years instead of Hillary.

You can fap to whatever you want.

 

[RavenSky]

The story that just won't stop giving

Now the Twitterverse is saying that there is no evidence of a "Meredith McIver" on Trump's payroll at least through May 2016 even though other sources say she has been his in-house writer since September 2001... questions being raised as to whether she is another fictional character like John Miller and John Barron.

Some of the funnier tweets have her being the sister of or wife of John Miller or John Barron

 

[blastula]

You have forgetten that it did end Biden's candidacy. Obama's case was not so clear cut.

I wonder whatever happened to that Biden guy.

He didn't quit politics forever. So?

You may be right about Obama though. All he did was lift lines from someone else's speech without giving him credit. Totally different.

But, Hillary said Obama is a plagiarist so it must be so:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-i-should-have-credited-lines/

Interesting that you purport to go by whatever Clinton says. That would be inconsistent of and very like you.

But no, it was plagiarism, because it was on its face. Know who else said it was? Obama. That's in your very own link, genius. The reason it's not as clear cut is because the source was a friend who gave him permission to use it.

Dismal has never met a strawman he couldn't burn down. Good on ya.

 

[Bronzeage]

The story that just won't stop giving

Now the Twitterverse is saying that there is no evidence of a "Meredith McIver" on Trump's payroll at least through May 2016 even though other sources say she has been his in-house writer since September 2001... questions being raised as to whether she is another fictional character like John Miller and John Barron.

Some of the funnier tweets have her being the sister of or wife of John Miller or John Barron

If I were writing for Trump, and if I did, it would be the greatest writing ever, I wouldn't use a name my friends would recognize, and believe me when I say, I have a lot of friends. You would not believe how many friends I have. It's a huge number, really huge.

 

[dismal]

I wonder whatever happened to that Biden guy.

He didn't quit politics forever. So?

You may be right about Obama though. All he did was lift lines from someone else's speech without giving him credit. Totally different.

But, Hillary said Obama is a plagiarist so it must be so:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-i-should-have-credited-lines/

Interesting that you purport to go by whatever Clinton says. That would be inconsistent of and very like you.

But no, it was plagiarism, because it was on its face. Know who else said it was? Obama. That's in your very own link, genius. The reason it's not as clear cut is because the source was a friend who gave him permission to use it.

Dismal has never met a strawman he couldn't burn down. Good on ya.

Actually all we know is that after he got caught he said he had permission to use it.

I guess the lesson there is it's safer to plagarize someone who will back up your excuses after the fact.

 

[blastula]

Actually all we know is that after he got caught he said he had permission to use it.

I guess the lesson there is it's safer to plagarize someone who will back up your excuses after the fact.

It does make more sense to steal from a friend than from your party's epitome of all evil.

 

[RavenSky]

Actually all we know is that after he got caught he said he had permission to use it.

I guess the lesson there is it's safer to plagarize someone who will back up your excuses after the fact.

It does make more sense to steal from a friend than from your party's epitome of all evil.

Of course, what Dismal fails to acknowledge is that Deval Patrick announced immediately that then-Senator Obama had his permission to use the similar phrasing and that it wasn't plagiarism. It was Obama, who true to form bends over backwards to be fair, who said he should have given Patrick credit within the speech itself.

Likewise, Trump Jr "borrowed" lines from F.H. Buckley's article for The American Conservative. Trump Jr also failed to give credit during the speech itself, but had Buckley's permission and Buckley immediately defended Trump Jr to the media.

Did I perhaps miss Dismal's derisive comments about Trump Jr.?