The speechwriter emerges

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So Manfort was lying about the plagiarism?!?

Duh. Chris Cuomo called him on it pretty fabulously on CNN.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The writer said she included some of the phrasing, and those phrases are fairly common. If you insist that's plagiarism then

Barack plagiarized Deval Patrick and Michelle plagiarized Saul Alinsky.

For what I hope is the final time, the Obama speech and the Patrick speech used the same speech-writer, who essentially plagiarized himself. It's not best practice, but it's also not a big issue. In fact, Trump Jr. has the same issue with his speech last night. http://www.vox.com/2016/7/19/12233962/donald-trump-jr-plagiarize

So here's the difference, and it's big: Melania Trump's convention speech copied whole paragraphs from Michelle Obama's convention speech. That's not okay. Don Trump Jr.'s speech was written by a speechwriter who used some of his past material in the speech. You can argue whether that's the height of speechwriting, but there's nothing unethical about it

For another final time, Obama himself admitted he made a mistake by lifting Deval Patrick's speech. Obama's own words. You are the hypercritical one. For you Obama can do no wrong but for this poor lady, she must be plagiarizing even. The writer said she included some of the phrasing. She didn't say she copied whole paragraphs. Again you are being hypercritical and lying. The writer did not even check Michelle's speeches. How can she copy whole paragraphs?

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The writer said she included some of the phrasing, and those phrases are fairly common. If you insist that's plagiarism then

Barack plagiarized Deval Patrick and Michelle plagiarized Saul Alinsky.

For what I hope is the final time, the Obama speech and the Patrick speech used the same speech-writer, who essentially plagiarized himself. It's not best practice, but it's also not a big issue. In fact, Trump Jr. has the same issue with his speech last night. http://www.vox.com/2016/7/19/12233962/donald-trump-jr-plagiarize

So here's the difference, and it's big: Melania Trump's convention speech copied whole paragraphs from Michelle Obama's convention speech. That's not okay. Don Trump Jr.'s speech was written by a speechwriter who used some of his past material in the speech. You can argue whether that's the height of speechwriting, but there's nothing unethical about it

For another final time, Obama himself admitted he made a mistake by lifting Deval Patrick's speech. Obama's own words. You are the hypercritical one. For you Obama can do no wrong but for this poor lady, she must be plagiarizing even. The writer said she included some of the phrasing. She didn't say she copied whole paragraphs. Again you are being hypercritical and lying. The writer did not even check Michelle's speeches. How can she copy whole paragraphs?

I assume that you agree that Donald Trump, Jr. also plagiarized in his speech last night? His transgression was exactly like Obama's.

[Anonymous]

The bottom line here is that the Trump clan:

Ignored professional advice.
Shamelessly stole someone else's work.
Can't admit (even small) mistakes.
Will pin the blame on anonymous supporters, when pressed.

JUST who we need to be in control of this country!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand this excuse? If Melania originally told the speechwriter that she admires these remarks of Mrs. Obama, doesn't that indicate that Melania knew they were Mrs. Obama's words when she spoke them at the convention? How does this help things?

It is even better than that. It sounds like Melania actually read the phrases to the speechwriter over the phone. She obviously knew they were Michelle's words.

But there is the underlying issue that Melania did not graduate from college (Although The Donald has promoted that she has). Maybe she does not know what plagiarism is? [I doubt this - but he let's give her the benefit of the doubt]

Oh sure. You need a college degree to know that when you give a speech on TV, don't copy word for word from the speech of someone who presented on a similar occasion.

Maybe I would buy that if she had just read all of Michelle Obama's speech and sat down.

[Anonymous]

Twitter users are having fun with the idea that "Meredith McIver" doesn't actually exist and is just another one of Donald's alter-egos, like the spokesman "John Barron".

[Anonymous]

LMAO that image is so disturbing!

[Anonymous]

I don't like Trump, but I think everyone should lay off Melania. Wives of nominees are now expected to speak at the conventions. I most certainly couldn't do that. I give her credit for doing it. The people advising her clearly dropped the ball. Move on and leave her alone. Michelle is probably flattered her speech was highly regarded enough to be cribbed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't like Trump, but I think everyone should lay off Melania. Wives of nominees are now expected to speak at the conventions. I most certainly couldn't do that. I give her credit for doing it. The people advising her clearly dropped the ball. Move on and leave her alone. Michelle is probably flattered her speech was highly regarded enough to be cribbed

They certainly did. There really hasn't been much laying into Melania -- it's mostly the response from the Trump campaign that has gotten everyone's attention.

Trump himself is delighted that her speech dominated the airwaves for 24 hours. Any news is good news to him. Not to her, by all reports a private woman.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't like Trump, but I think everyone should lay off Melania. Wives of nominees are now expected to speak at the conventions. I most certainly couldn't do that. I give her credit for doing it. The people advising her clearly dropped the ball. Move on and leave her alone. Michelle is probably flattered her speech was highly regarded enough to be cribbed

This is the explanation for why people have been and still are talking about it. It's Trump and his campaign's response.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/20/the-significance-of-cnns-chris-cuomo-dropping-the-l-word-lying-on-trumps-campaign-chairman/?tid=sm_fb

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't like Trump, but I think everyone should lay off Melania. Wives of nominees are now expected to speak at the conventions. I most certainly couldn't do that. I give her credit for doing it. The people advising her clearly dropped the ball. Move on and leave her alone. Michelle is probably flattered her speech was highly regarded enough to be cribbed

They certainly did. There really hasn't been much laying into Melania -- it's mostly the response from the Trump campaign that has gotten everyone's attention.

Trump himself is delighted that her speech dominated the airwaves for 24 hours. Any news is good news to him. Not to her, by all reports a private woman.

+1 Most of the criticism has been of the ever-shifting narrative from the Official Campaign Sources as to how this happened. I mean, this guy wants to run the whole country, and his Official Campaign Statement is about My Little Pony, and THEN he breaks campaign law by posting an "apology" from someone on the payroll of his private corporation.

This is a dumpster fire of incompetence, which says little about Melania and a lot about Donald.

[Anonymous]

Can we quote the Trump Organization's admiration for the Obamas?

[Anonymous]

Trump can't fire McIver because he needs her to ghostwrite more of his crappy get-rich-quick books.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand this excuse? If Melania originally told the speechwriter that she admires these remarks of Mrs. Obama, doesn't that indicate that Melania knew they were Mrs. Obama's words when she spoke them at the convention? How does this help things?

It is even better than that. It sounds like Melania actually read the phrases to the speechwriter over the phone. She obviously knew they were Michelle's words.

She also told Matt Lauer that she wrote her speech with minimal help from speech writer.

[Anonymous]

The plot thickens: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/meredith-mciver-rnc-speechwriter-melania-trump-donald-trump-allias-a7147081.html