Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Fault Lines

    Melania Trump's writer-friend 'fessed up that she was the one who lifted phrases from Michelle Obama's convention speech, claiming it was an innocent mistake.
   Separately, the candidate's chief strategist blamed the media for manufacturing a plagiarism issue.
   The attitude seems to be that if the news media hadn't exposed the issue, it wouldn't be a problem.
   It doesn't work that way, guys. Journalism's job is to expose wrongdoing, and in the communications biz, plagiarism is a cardinal sin.
   Now Melania's helper in writing the speech, Meredith McIver, has admitted to taking two passages from the speech made eight years ago by Michelle Obama when her husband Barack was nominated at the Democratic National Convention. But a comparison of the two texts shows numerous other plagiarized passages.
   An innocent mistake? That's a sophomoric excuse, and if it doesn't work among students, it cannot work at the presidential level.
   As for Trump aide Paul Manafort's attempt to say it's the news media's fault, that doesn't work, either. The issue of plagiarism wasn't manufactured by the press. It really did happen, and was readily and fully documented.
   The candidate himself has spent a lifetime blaming others whenever he is caught doing something he shouldn't. 
   As for lifting key phrases from others and using them himself, this has already happened numerous times. To expect him to change now, after some 50 years of successful buck-passing, is unrealistic.
   Ain't gonna happen.

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