Obama had received his permission and encouragement to use that. Plagiarism implies without consent or credit. They were good friends who collaborated frequently. Anyway, I think this whole thing is pretty silly and is very minor in the big scheme of things. People shouldn't be giving Melina a hard time. Or Trump on this either. It really more for comedy purposes than anything else.
No, aside from the plagiarism: Melania lied and said she basically wrote the speech herself. The Trump campaign lied and said the beautiful speech reflected Melania's life experience. The Trump campaign peddled Democratic content as Republican content. The Trump campaign failed to avoid this totally gratuitous s***storm by mere incompetence.
I am not saying any of those are untrue, but this stuff about telling these kinds of lies are not really what I am concerned about. Afterall, I am going to vote for Hillary who is obviously a liar. So honesty isn't the issue here in this campaign. This isn't game-changing in any way. And I don't care about Melania Trump. What I do care about is the direction of the country and making sure we don't put a president who is going to ruin the economy and recklessly cut taxes that will lead us into another recession and/or deeper deficits.
There is so much good stuff in here! From The Hill: July 19, 2016, 02:23 pm GOP to Trump: Fire somebody By Scott Wong and Cristina Marcos CLEVELAND — The Donald Trump campaign should take action against whoever is responsible for the similarities between Melania Trump’s address at the Republican National Convention and Michelle Obama’s convention speech in 2008, some Republicans gathered here said Tuesday. Trump’s ex-campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, on CNN called for his one-time rival Paul Manafort to resign if he was the last person to sign off on Trump’s primetime speech. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said the speechwriter should probably be fired. And Donald Trump’s presidential rival-turned-surrogate Ben Carson said the author of the speech should have to undergo some kind of media training. Trump allies have said the plagiarism allegations are much ado about nothing. But the growing controversy has marred what initially had been a well-received speech from Melania Trump, who until Monday night had largely limited her appearances on the campaign trail. Stories about the plagiarism claims dominated news coverage Monday night and Tuesday, stepping on the Trump campaign’s Day One theme of the GOP gathering — law and order — and serving as another unwanted distraction during a pivotal week for the party’s standard-bearer. Conservative Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), a Trump supporter, called the incident “unfortunate” and said whoever wrote the speech should take the fall. “You can’t lift passages,” DeSantis said Tuesday during an interview with The Hill on the convention floor. “It’s not what you want to happen, obviously, so there was a breakdown somewhere. ... But you shouldn’t try to say, ‘Oh, who cares.’ You shouldn’t do that. Just be honest with it and say it was a mistake and figure out a way to correct it.” A paragraph in Melania Trump’s address closely resembled one in Michelle Obama’s address in Denver eight years ago. But Trump campaign officials vehemently reject claims the section was plagiarized and have made clear that no one would be fired over the incident. The campaign also has not identified who wrote the roughly 15-minute address. “There was no cribbing from Michelle Obama’s speech,” Manafort said on CNN’s “New Day” on Tuesday. “These were common words and values, that she cares about her family and things like that. She was speaking in front of 35 million people last night. She knew that. To think she would be cribbing Michelle Obama’s words is crazy.” Priebus tried to downplay the controversy Tuesday morning, calling it a slight “distraction.” Yet the RNC chairman said he would “probably” fire the staffer responsible for the sections of Melania Trump’s speech that appear plagiarized. "I don't blame her," Priebus said at a Bloomberg Politics breakfast with reporters in Cleveland on Tuesday. "Some of these things are pretty common types of themes." Lewandowski, the former campaign manager who was fired by Donald Trump last month, said that whoever gave the green light for Trump’s speech should resign. He specifically suggested it is Manafort, his replacement, who should take the fall. “Whoever signed off with the final sign off that allowed this to go forward should be held accountable,” Lewandowski said on CNN, where he is now a paid contributor. He is also chairman of the New Hampshire GOP delegation. “I think if it was Paul Manafort, he would do the right thing and resign,” Lewandowski continued. “If he was the last person who saw this happen and has brought this on the candidate’s wife, I think he would resign because I think that’s the type of person he would be.” Melania Trump’s polished delivery Monday night was sandwiched between fiery addresses from former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. While Giuliani and Flynn played to the base, Trump called for unity in a bid to soften the image of her tough-talking husband. A Slovenian-born immigrant, Trump pledged that her husband “intends to represent all the people, not just some of the people.” She proceeded to tick off a list of groups Trump has alienated during the GOP primary, like Muslims he’s proposed to ban from entering the country, as well as Hispanics. A Gallup poll released before Trump's primetime address on the first night of the GOP convention showed that she already had the worst favorable ratings of any potential first lady in the firm’s polling over the last two decades, while many other members of the public had yet to form an impression of her. Donald Trump surrogates gathered in Cleveland argued that voters weren’t paying much attention to what they view as a fake controversy ginned up by the media. “It was 15 minutes long and less than a minute was similar to Michelle’s speech so it’s not really an issue with me,” Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.), an early Trump backer, told The Hill. “When talking about loyalty to family, there are only so many ways to say it. Most have already been said by someone.” Jonathan Easley contributed. http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/288360-gop-to-trump-fire-somebody
Yep, let's get the person who is responsible for writing speeches for the next leader of the free world some basic "media training" STAT!
And now you know what Obama supporters have been dealing with for the past 8 years. Welcome to the club.
More good stuff from The Hill! July 19, 2016, 04:16 pm Experts: ‘One in a trillion’ chance Melania Trump speech wasn’t plagiarism By Peter Schroeder CLEVELAND — Experts that hunt out plagiarism professionally say there is basically no chance that Melania Trump’s speech Monday night did not steal lines from a 2008 Michelle Obama speech. Turnitin, a California-based company, uses a computer algorithm to automatically vet submitted writing for any matches that could amount to plagiarism. Following the controversy Monday, the company used that tool to analyze Trump’s Republican National Convention speech. The Trump campaign has maintained that there was no plagiarism in the remarks, and other Republicans have argued it amounted to common themes and some similar words. But several phrases in Trump’s speech are identical to ones uttered by Obama, and the plagiarism experts are beyond skeptical that it was a coincidence. Chris Harrick, Turnitin vice president of marketing, told The Hill on Tuesday that six percent of Trump’s speech was determined to have language that matched with other existing text. All six percent came from Obama’s 2008 speech to the Democratic National Convention. Harrick noted that the company does not play “judge and jury” on whether something was plagiarized, but the odds Trump’s speech did not include plagiarized content are effectively a mathematical impossibility. According to Turnitin, there is a one in 1 trillion chance that two writers would write the same 16-word sequence by coincidence. The longest matching sequence of words between the Trump and Obama speeches was 23 words. For comparison, the odds of winning the record $1.5 billion Powerball jackpot in January was one in 292 million. In other words, it was 3,424 times more likely that a given ticket could win that lottery than that the two speeches' similarities were by coincidence. "We cannot say for sure that Melania Trump’s 2016 speech plagiarizes Michelle Obama’s 2008 address. But, by comparing the text of the two speeches, we do see some significant and disconcerting issues," the company wrote in a blog post. The controversy over Melania’s speech has dominated the second day of the GOP convention, as press and politicians alike have tried to determine what happened — if anything — and how. Inadvertent plagiarism does exist, and it occurs when someone repeats text they read from elsewhere without realizing it. But Turnitin said it did not appear that the Trump plagiarism was accidental. “More than just the copying of words, a comparison of Melania’s and Michelle’s speeches follows the same sequence of thoughts and ideas,” the company wrote. “To an educator, this belies intent.” Turnitin is primarily used by high schools and colleges to detect cases of plagiarism in student papers, but Harrick said other industries occasionally use it to vet high-profile projects, like corporate research or grant applications — “any real high stakes piece that has to be vetted.” It’s used less rarely for political purposes, but Harrick said the outsized attention on Trump’s speech spurred them to analyze the remarks. “This is a bit of a sideshow, but it’s also the chance to talk about the importance of original writing,” said Harrick. Turnitin’s system is used by most universities in the US, and allows anyone to examine over 60 billion web pages, as well as academic journals and newspapers, for any suspiciously similar text. The whole process takes about 10 seconds. Harrick added that in most cases, people do not plagiarize out of malice or a deliberate attempt to steal language. Instead, it’s usually brought on by pressure. “You have a kid who doesn’t feel like he’s up to the assignment and doesn’t know what to say, or procrastinated and it’s the eleventh hour and they need to get it in,” he said. “Hopefully there’s lessons around this about being responsible and diligent.” http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box...one-in-a-trillion-chance-melania-trump-speech
Putting aside levels of wrongdoing (that is a legit argument), it is funny though how deceit on one side is lambasted and deceit on the other is dismissed or excused.
I'm starting to feel bad for her. Geez- now this is going around: MELANIA TRUMP Verified account @MELANIATRUMP Always trust yourself, think for yourself, act for yourself, speak for yourself. Be yourself! Retweets 3,275 Likes 2,806 6:54 AM - 25 Oct 2012 To be honest, I've quoted before while forgetting to attribute a source- but we also get called out for it on this site, right? But still, they're going to run with this, too.
What is the upside for Trump in what is looking more and more to be the ultimate troll job? Is it all about ego? Is he the ultimate patriot doing everything he can to get Hillary in the WH? What does he do if on election he is leading? Surely, he won't quit once he gets the job and leave Pence as Prez. Is it that or is it people infiltrating his campaign and trying to kill him through a thousand paper cuts? What happened last night was clearly plagiarism and clearly meant to be discovered.
