Of Course Melanie Trump Plagiarized Part of Her Speech

Plagiarism is taking someone else's words and passing them off as your own without giving credit. There is no doubt that two paragraphs of Melanie Trump's GOP Convention speech were remarkably similar to a speech given by Michelle Obama in 2008. Speaking as an English teacher who is professionally attuned to issues of language choice, I will argue that Melanie Trump - or her speechwriter - plagiarized those two pargraphs.

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 from Michelle Obama in 2008.

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.

The more interesting thing to me is the inconsistency of the Trump campaign's reporting about the writing of the speech. Melanie Trump told Matt Lauer that she only practiced the speech once because she "mostly wrote it" herself, and so she knows it so well. However, info from Trump's people indicated that several speechwriters had worked with her over several weeks on the speech. So which is it? And, if that speech was "several weeks'" worth of work, then someone needs to lose a job because that was really not an impressive bit of rhetoric.

Of course, the justifications and the dismissals are becoming silly at this point. Trump sycophant Chris Christie - who looks more like a dupe every day - told the Today Show that the speech wasn't plagiarized "when 93% of the speech is original." Like that makes sense. Uh, Chris, people aren't taking exception to the parts that weren't copied. But if you note that 93% is original, then you are conceding that 7% wasn't. And those were not just "common words" and ideas. When arranged in the same order and used in the same context, we call that plagiarism.

In reality, I think this is simply a matter of a woman tasked with a "HUGE" speech to give, and she "researched" it by watching previous speeches of prospective First Ladies. It wasn't malicious or intentional - I don't think she really understood the rules in that regard. She watched Michelle's specch and she used some parts that she thought would work well with her message. It won't matter to GOP voters at this point, but similar situations have derailed political careers. I think it's all just a bit sad. And, I am much more worried about the idea of a First Lady with this in her past.