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Plagiarism Happened Last Night

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I don’t know how parts of Michelle Obama’s  2008 DNC convention speech got into Melania Trump’s speech at last night’s GOP convention in Cleveland.  Maybe she deliberately stole Obama’s words.  Maybe she looked at Obama’s speech, drew some ideas and phrases from it, and was sloppy in her use of them.  I am guessing a speechwriter is to blame.  The fact that the Trump campaign has said that Melania spent 5-6 weeks working on this speech with a speechwriter does not help matters.
Whatever the case, I think most of us agree that plagiarism happened last night.
The only exception is the Trump campaign.  Here is campaign manager Paul Manafort:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfJz7rHVnts&w=560&h=315]

I think its fair to say that Manofort and the Trump campaign deny that plagiarism happened last night.

But plagiarism DID happen last night. The evidence is all over the news today.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcbiGsDMmCM&w=560&h=315]

This is partly why I signed Historians Against Trump.

Things in the past happened.

Historians use available evidence to inform the public that things in the past happened.

Historians make sure the evidence that proves that something happened in the past is not ignored.

As Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob argued in their book Telling the Truth About History:  “something happened out there…and we have the ability, if we have the faith, to learn what that something is.”

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Comments

  2. Tom Van Dyke says

    Fair’s fair, I suppose. It’ll be Hillary’s turn soon enough to answer for Bill’s crimes against the republic and against humanity.
    Melania is rather a petty criminal.

  4. Tom Van Dyke (@DykeVanTom) says

    This is partly why I signed Historians Against Trump.
    So it goes.

    Howard Wolfson, the Clinton campaign’s communications director, today accused Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) of committing “plagiarism” in a speech in Milwaukee on Saturday night.
    Wolfson made the explosive charge in an interview with Politico after suggesting as much in a conference call with reporters.
    Obama closely echoed a passage from a speech that Deval Patrick, now the Massachusetts governor, used at a campaign rally when he was running for that office in 2006.
    The Clinton campaign circulated a pair of YouTube links of the two speeches on Sunday.
    Here’s Patrick at a rally for his gubernatorial campaign on Oct. 15, 2006, during the final stretch of his successful campaign against then-Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey (R):
    “But her dismissive point, and I hear it a lot from her staff, is that all I have to offer is words — just words. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, [applause and cheers] that all men are created equal.’ [Sustained applause and cheers.] Just words – just words! ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself.’ Just words! ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.’ Just words! ‘I have a dream.’ Just words!”
    Here’s Obama on Saturday night at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin’s Founders Day Gala in Milwaukee:
    “Don’t tell me words don’t matter! ‘I have a dream.’ Just words. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ Just words! [Applause.] ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself.’ Just words — just speeches!”
    Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2008/02/clinton-aide-accuses-obama-of-plagiarism-008570#ixzz4EsUXPCbp