Like the millions who tuned in this week on the first night of the Republican convention in Cleveland to see Melania Trump’s speech, I was dazzled by her beauty, struck by her sincerity, impressed by her fluency in a language not of her native tongue, touched by her obvious love for her husband and family and country, and impressed by her quiet confidence and sense of self.
In a lengthy interview I had seen a few weeks earlier of Melania with Fox News’ Greta van Susteren, it was clear that the former super model—who is formally educated, multilingual, world-traveled, and the embodiment of sophistication—was unpretentious, of a serene temperament, plain-spoken, strong in her convictions and values, and also funny and nice. And also not interested in the spotlight, but more in raising her 10-year-old son Barron with good values and morals.
So it was shocking when I woke up Tuesday morning to read and hear of the gigantic brouhaha about Melania’s alleged “plagiarism.”
Right away, I smelled a rat.
For one thing, it is almost impossible to find anything the leftist media say that is even marginally credible. Most of the lackeys, who pose as journalists, sound more like they’re on the payroll of the Hillary for President campaign or the Democratic National Committee than in the service of the American public.
Remember, these are the people who spent a full year vilifying, insulting, and lying about Donald Trump, fully confident that their viewers and readers would listen to their wisdom, only to be soundly repudiated by the American voting public.
No matter what they said, the voters, figuratively at least, spit in their faces. But in the “culture” of journalism, such repudiation never breeds self-reflection; it only breeds vengeance, and the desire to find something, anything, to take down their nemesis.
Second, it was impossible for me to picture Melania consulting a search engine and looking up the speeches of former First Ladies, finding the words of Michelle Obama, and saying to herself: “Aha…I think I’ll lift a few lines here!”
However, it was eminently plausible for me to picture a professional speechwriter that Melania admitted to Matt Lauer helped her “a little bit” being lazy and unprofessional enough to do just that, to look up former speeches and stick random sentences into the quite brilliant and original piece Melania had written herself—without her knowledge that the excerpts had been lifted!
John Hinderaker of Powerline.com, a site founded by Dartmouth College alumni and, mysteriously to me, not a fan of Mr. Trump, weighed in with an article that damned the craven media. Entitled “Plagiarism? Please,” the writer called Melania’s speech outstanding, and said that so-called lifted sentiments “are so commonplace that they probably could be drawn from any of a hundred speeches. But, is this supposed to be some kind of scandal? One could probably think of a less important issue, but it would take a while. And I wouldn’t think that either Barack Obama or Joe Biden would want to start a conversation about plagiarism.”
Citing an article in the NY Times headlined “Melania Trump’s Speech Bears Striking Similarities to Michelle Obama’s in 2008,” Hinderaker disagrees, writing that, “Michelle Obama’s best-remembered public pronouncement is her statement that `[f]or the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country.’ Why? Because her husband was nominated for president. The heart of Melania Trump’s speech, on the other hand, was not the lines that she may have borrowed from Michelle Obama, but rather this tribute to America, delivered by an immigrant:
`After living and working in Milan and Paris, I arrived in New York City twenty years ago, and I saw both the joys and the hardships of daily life. On July 28th, 2006, I was very proud to become a citizen of the United States—the greatest privilege on planet Earth. I cannot, or will not, take the freedoms this country offers for granted.”