Why would anyone plagiarize such banal content anyway?
Has anyone checked with Doris Kearns Goodwin to see what she thinks?
ETA: ^^point being that even professional writers make mistakes. I usually love her writing, and I felt sorry for her when that controversy erupted (long ago, and I don’t remember the details - just remember feeling badly for her).
She looked great and did a good job. None of these people completely write their own speeches. They probably do rough drafts or bounce their ideas off of their speech writers. Somebody’s head should roll for this.
It was such a brilliant move-look at all the free publicity. I mean, it’s all over the news, all over my typically non-political facebook feed, and it’s even here.
There’s no downside to it-none. Nobody is going to indict Melania and throw her in plagarism jail, and it’s all people can talk about.
Yes, this incident is a wonderful conversation starter, especially with our high school and college-age children. We are talking about not only plagiarism, but also intent. I too went to bed thinking she did a good job. However upon waking, I question, not only her integrity, but the sincerity of the feelings behind the words.
Then I went a step further. I am now asking myself if I’m questioning her sincerity due to the act of plagiarism or is it due to some bias of mine against some of the stances from the party. It’s interesting to read tweets from people who spin things so it’s favorable to their political leaning. In my opinion, it’s time for more introspection.
Oh, it’s very insightful that the reaction from the campaign WASN’T to fire a speechwriter, but it was to deny, deny, deny a truth that we all could see with our own eyes.
The nature of the reaction from the campaign is far worse than the original “sin,” IMO.
BTW, anyone note that Colbert/Stewart are back on the scene? And there’s a new word: Trumpiness.
Kearns Goodwin was in good company with Alex Haley and Stephen Ambrose. See my earlier post.
Martin Luther King Jr. plagiarized portions of his dissertation, and President Obama was accussed of the same issue in 2008:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-accused-of-plagiarism-in-speech/
The Trump issue is either a case of very sloppy speech writing or it was done on purpose to dominate the news cycle. People who would never watch any convention are now seeing side to side video of Melania and Michelle saying almost the same words. Both are totally in line with how Trump has run his campaign.
Pathological liars, the whole lot of them.
There is really no question and it’s NOT just some “commons themes” or “often used words” - just watch the videos available all over social media showing both women reciting the same lines in the same order. Actually quite striking what a direct ripoff this was.
Another lesson to be learned from the current situation. If you make a mistake don’t deny it. Don’t blame others who had literally nothing to do with it ( can ANYONE explain why the Trump people think blaming Hillary is a good idea). You are going to make it any worse by ignoring this advice.
^true in academia as well. Students who deny, obfuscate, get belligerent, make excuses, fare far less well than those who take responsibility.
The candidate should pick parts of acceptance speeches from the old timey days so he doesn’t get caught too. What was the speechwriter thinking? What is Mrs. Obama’s speechwriter thinking?
LOL @MotherOfDragons 
So far Mrs. Obama’s speechwriter has said nothing (again, good move).
The speech was (appropriately, or rather, expectedly) banal, but the words and phrases weren’t ‘common’ and were obviously not part of Mrs. Trump’s usual lexicon. I immediately thought the use of the word ‘bond’ was jarring-- and lo and behold-- that’s because it was part of the plagiarized speech. That phrase was rather unique and not common or cliche in its context in Mrs. Obama’s speech imo.
Stealing is rarely in the mix here as most bands do not own their own songs/music.
Queen may not even own the rights to that song, even though they wrote it. I hear the song so much I am pretty sure a licensing company is running the show, not Queen directly.
There is a library of songs from every record label that virtually anyone can purchase the right to use - very famous songs too. There are agencies that have the right to market these songs under collective use rights agreements and license these songs out and owners of the songs (not necessarily the writers of the songs) get a pretty penny for the usage.
However, the original writers of the song can request that a person or group not use the song. In most cases, to avoid a brouhaha the person/group who licensed the song would stop using the song, but the person who paid for the license does not have to stop. However, it rarely has anything to do with stealing and they actually paid for the use of the song.
Remember the TV commercials with the Beatles songs in them a while back. Paul and the band were livid about that because they never wanted their songs to be used commercially, but nothing they could do since it was Michael Jackson who owned the songs and his licensing division licensed the songs out - I believe it was for car commercials.
This also happened with Rush Limbaugh when lots of people accused him of stealing Chrissy Hines and the Pretenders riff from the song Back to Ohio (think that is the name of the song). The rumor was out there that because she had opposite ideology that he was stealing her song’s music without permission. Turns out the band no longer owned the song and it was subsequently licensed out. It also turned out that Hines did not mind cause her Mom liked Limbaugh. It was all made up that song was stolen and the band was mad at Limbaugh.
Could easily be the same made up stuff here with Queen and the use of their song, which they may no longer own anyway.
I think an aspect being missed is aside from the outright plagiarism itself, it’s the added insult of who she plagiarized from. I mean, are there authors who have been caught plagiarizing who did so from authors they and their fans have spent years bashing?
I think what is startling is that any professional campaign organization would never let the candidate’s wife give a speech like that that is so incredibly easy to match up with a previous speech. And not just any speech – it would almost be one thing if they had cribbed, say, a speech from Laura Bush, which could be spun into “Republican values.” But one from the purported “enemy” of all that is American!
I keep thinking that there are myriad campaign professionals - the ones that are typically employed by the candidates by now - yelling at their TVs saying “Hire me! Hire me and I will prevent this sort of thing!” Most of us could not make it through a local election without a major mistake - in choice of vocabulary, campaign finance, unfortunate photographs (e.g. eating a corn dog), etc. That is why candidates hire professionals. These hired guns have a purpose and know what they are doing. Is it time for the Republican candidate to hire a few more of them?