What will happen at the Republican Convention?

[pgwenthold]

Now we are hearing that, despite claims, Melania Trump never actually graduated from college. She dropped out after one year.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/melania-trump-college-claims_us_578dd95ce4b0c53d5cfac0dc

See her biography section of HER web page

"After obtaining a degree in design and architecture at University in Slovenia, "

Seriously, these people live in an alternate reality, where wishing something happened apparently makes it true.

I have to admit, people claiming to have degrees they did not earn sets me off. Because I DID earn my degree...

 

[timhau]

I have not heard her speak enough yet to make solid inferences, but my feel was she was not using words she would normally use, so even if she had not plagiarized it, it was obvious she did not write any of it. There was literally no emotion in her speech: just spitting back words on a prompter.

How's her English generally? I'm not out to defend the Trumps, but it can be pretty hard to convincingly deliver emotions in a non-native language.

 

[Stacko]

Steve King is a horrible excuse for a human being. This needs more spotlight than the plagiarism.

US Rep. Steve King (R-IA) thinks that white people have contributed more to civilization than any other race. And he said it on national cable news.

...

So a sitting member of Congress is literally saying that white people are superior than people of other races on national television.

 

[Stacko]

How's her English generally? I'm not out to defend the Trumps, but it can be pretty hard to convincingly deliver emotions in a non-native language.

In interviews when she's not reading a prepared speech everyone says she does just like everyone else. I saw a few people that interviewed her take to twitter to say that she didn't sound like herself. Might have been nerves delivering a speech in your non-native language on prime time TV or she was very focused on reading and not concentrating on delivery.

 

[Puppycow]

I'm sure her degree is just as real as a diploma from Trump University.

 

[varwoche]

According to Trump's personal valet -- Chris Christie that is -- it wasn't plagiarism because...

93 percent of the speech is completely different than Michelle Obama’s speech.

 

[Meadmaker]

Apparently the Trump campaign is denying that it was plagiarized, which is even funnier than the fact that it was plagiarized in the first place.

They apparently never read the advice that the cover up is often worse than the crime.

My advice to them would be to put Melania back on stage tonight, have her apologize to Michelle Obama for using parts of her speech, let people know that the speech writer has been sacked, and then throw in something to the effect of "although we both speak of the value of hard work, it is Donald Trump and the Republican Party that will put those values in place in our government.

Will they do anything remotely like that? No way. They would have to admit to a mistake.

These little things are, well, little, in the grand scheme of things, but I'm reminded that if Al Gore hadn't said "I accompanied President Clinton to Texas", he would probably be an ex-President right now. People get to see the character of the candidate and the people surrounding him by watching them during these little episodes. Right now, they are seeing a group of people denying reality, passing the buck, and blaming their enemies for their failures.

I'm getting more and more confident that Donald Trump will never be president.

 

[Stacko]

They apparently never read the advice that the cover up is often worse than the crime.

My advice to them would be to put Melania back on stage tonight, have her apologize to Michelle Obama for using parts of her speech, let people know that the speech writer has been sacked, and then throw in something to the effect of "although we both speak of the value of hard work, it is Donald Trump and the Republican Party that will put those values in place in our government.

Will they do anything remotely like that? No way. They would have to admit to a mistake.

These little things are, well, little, in the grand scheme of things, but I'm reminded that if Al Gore hadn't said "I accompanied President Clinton to Texas", he would probably be an ex-President right now. People get to see the character of the candidate and the people surrounding him by watching them during these little episodes. Right now, they are seeing a group of people denying reality, passing the buck, and blaming their enemies for their failures.

I'm getting more and more confident that Donald Trump will never be president.

Can they fire the person that wrote the speech? The longer this goes on without a head rolling; the more the answer appears to be no.

 

[NoahFence]

Can they fire the person that wrote the speech? The longer this goes on without a head rolling; the more the answer appears to be no.

They can, but they won't.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/19/politics/melania-trump-michelle-obama-speech/index.html

It's pretty clear why.

 

[Stacko]

They can, but they won't.

You can't fire the candidate, his wife or their family and Paul Manafort is the only employee of the campaign that didn't have to sign an NDA.

 

[Denver]

They can, but they won't.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/19/politics/melania-trump-michelle-obama-speech/index.html

It's pretty clear why.

Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said Tuesday that whoever is responsible for writing the should be fired. "Whoever was the staff person who wrote this speech should be held accountable and should be fired".

At the campaign last night, Lewandowski was interviewed a bit and said he still supported the campaign 100%. I think his comments above though were a nice little dig and i-told-you-so directed at his replacement.

 

[Puppycow]

So is there a generally accepted standard for what counts as plagiarism?

They are outright denying that there was any plagiarism.

Like, a certain number of words in a row that coincide? Something like that?
It seems highly unlikely to me that the two speeches would coincide like that by accident.

http://www.vox.com/2016/7/19/12222276/melania-trump-plagarism-clinton-rnc

Manafort painted it as absurd that Melania would attempt to plagiarize her remarks given the size of her audience and how many people she knows she would reach.

"She was speaking in front of a crowd of 35 million people last night; she knew that," Manafort said. "To think that she would be cribbing Michelle Obama’s words is crazy."

My parents impressed on me the values: that you work hard for what you want in life. That your word is your bond and you do what you say and keep your promise. That you treat people with respect. They taught me to show the values and morals in my daily life. That is the lesson that I continue to pass along to our son.

And we need to pass those lessons on to the many generations to follow. [Cheering] Because we want our children in this nation to know that the only limit to your achievements is the strength of your dreams and your willingness to work for them.

And here are the two very similar paragraphs from Michelle Obama’s 2008 speech:

And Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values: that you work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond and you do what you say you're going to do; that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don't know them, and even if you don't agree with them.

And Barack and I set out to build lives guided by these values and pass them on to the next generation. Because we want our children — and all children in this nation — to know that the only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work for them.

 

[KatieG]

This so good. It's all over my FB feed but could only get here via Rolling Stone

http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/watch-stephen-colberts-extravagant-rnc-musical-tribute-w429792

 

[Denver]

It's not just the plagiarism, per se, of course. It's bad enough copying from someone you admire without noting it. Here we have the hypocrisy of an organization demonizing the words of the 'enemy' and then sneaky-using them for their own purposes.

But I don't think this is going to amount to much. It's just the convention. Plenty of time to bury it before anything matters. And it's just Melania, who isn't really the focus anyway.

 

[Biscuit]

Now they are trying to blame the Hillary campaign because they are the ones who pointed out the plagiarism.... even though they weren't and even though pointing out a YUGE mistake doesn't make you responsible for the mistake.

They won't apologize or admit anything was wrong.

 

[Denver]

Also from the CNN article:

Two sources said that Donald Trump is furious over the episode.

Think he'll hold his tongue?

 

[Biscuit]

Trump spokeswoman says plagiarism is fine so long as it's about values.

 

[Stacko]

Trump spokeswoman says plagiarism is fine so long as it's about values.

She also said they were going to stay on message. Donald is furious so that's going out the window as he goes into an impromptu rage spiral and he'll deliver another strange stream of consciousness. Does he pre-empt a speaker on stage or just do it by calling Faux News?

 

[Ladewig]

Once again, Trump and Clinton are playing two different games. In the game that Clinton, and past presidential candidates, play, plagiarism is a big deal and one loses points. In the game Trump is playing plagiarism is nothing (at least when Team Trump is caught doing it).

Running for president in the 21st century no longer requires consistency, attention to detail, attention to logic, or shame. Folks on this board think stealing another person's words is a big deal. Folks who like Trump think it is evidence of media bias.

 

[Trebuchet]

Now they are trying to blame the Hillary campaign because they are the ones who pointed out the plagiarism.... even though they weren't and even though pointing out a YUGE mistake doesn't make you responsible for the mistake.

They won't apologize or admit anything was wrong.

Manafort is whining about the Dems playing politics with a political speech at a political convention. The mind boggles.