Amateur Melania Trump/Michelle Obama Plagiarism Job Ends Amateur First Night of RNC
A portion of Melania Trump's speech is identical to a portion of the speech Michelle Obama gave at the 2008 convention.


Melania Trump, wife of Donald Trump, wooed mainstream political pundits with her primetime speech, based on their fawning on the cable news networks and social media. Then she was followed by more speeches. By the time Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) spoke, the convention floor appeared mostly empty.
And now, as the night comes to an end, accusations are surfacing that a portion of Melania Trump's was plagiarized from Michelle Obama's 2008 speech at the Democratic National Convention.
Melania's lines:
From a young age, my parents impressed on me the values that you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond, and you do what you say and keep your promise, that you treat people with respect.
Michelle's lines:
Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values, like you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond, that you do what you say you're going ot do, that you treat people with dignity and respect even if you don't know them and even if you don't agree with them.
Watch a clip splicing both the relevant portions of both speeches below, including a further bit about passing said values down through the generations, courtesy Yair Rosenberg, through whom I first saw this story:
Melania Trump plagiarized Michelle Obama tonight, and here's the video to prove it: pic.twitter.com/gCDeJL04zY
— (((Yair Rosenberg))) (@Yair_Rosenberg) July 19, 2016
I'd expect it to get more play in RNC coverage in the morning, barring a tweet storm from Donald Trump tonight.
Flashback: "Just words"
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
Plagiarism or meta trolling?
If it's trolling it's absolutely genius. I genuinely wish more politicos would try this, even if it's blatant, even if it's cribbed from pop culture (eg, West Wing). It would serve a valuable public service if it was exposed.
Namely, that most (not all) politicians are con artists looking to acquire power, and that most voters are low-info idiots making decisions based on the feels. Rub their noses in it and maybe they wake up.
The first presidential candidate that regurgitates Obama's famous red-state/blue-state horseshit, verbatim and in it's entirety, has my vote.
It would be amazing... but probaby too good to be true here. However, if video surfaced tomorrow of a pretty speech nod to "watch this, I'm going to show how empty and meaningless the first lady's words are!"... THAT might change my mind about trump... maybe.
These "plagiarism" accusations really have to stop. Has anyone stopped to consider the serious harm they cause to civil discourse? Fortunately, the former German defense minister's allegedly inappropriate borrowings have not stopped him from being appointed Distinguished Statesman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington,
http://www.worldcrunch.com/eye...../c5s11132/
but he was forced to resign from his post in Germany in "disgrace." How much good did that do for Europe and the world?
In academics, we know exactly how to deal with individuals who go around making such accusations, especially if they cross the line. For one example, see the documentation of America's leading criminal "satire" case at:
http://raphaelgolbtrial.wordpress.com/
Herman Cain was the king of this.
Unpossible.
Only Obamamites are the smart set.
My co-worker's step-sister made $14200 the previous week. she gets paid on the laptop and moved in a $557000 condo. All she did was get blessed and apply the guide leaked on this web site.. Go Here.... http://www.trends88.com
Haters gonna hate.
What happened to your theory about the secret vp pick? *siv us aways wrong
Ivanka put the kibosh on that in a misguided attempt to mend fences with the establishment. You don't mend fences with their kind , you light a brush fire and burn them out of their place.
Everything about this campaign is a failure of the epic variety. It will go down in flames as the worst in history.
Down In Flames
I think youtube got another takedown on anything Peter Laughner might ever have had a hand in, not released on an official record. His estate is pure evil. He's been dead since 1977.
Too young to remember Mondale, or just historically illiterate?
Or for that matter McGovern.
Or in the interest of bipartisanship, Goldwater.
"It will go down in flames as the worst in history."
LOL, yep, he's too young to remember Mondale.
This is the picture of a campaign going down in flames:
http://uspoliticsguide.com/ima.....al-map.gif
Do onto others.....
HOLY SHIT I'M PLAGARIZING
Nope. 3 words is cool.
It's not music.
Why didn't the progs have a hissy fit when Reagan plagiarized the bit about slipping the surly bonds of earth and touching the face of God In his big eulogy of the Challenger disaster?
yes
Onto? You're not plagiarizing. You're paraphrasing.
I want Moynihan's opinion and I want it NOW. Spend what it takes, Kochsuckers
if every person saying something in a political setting were to be accused of plagiarism, then the last original thing said was about the time of the Gettysburg Address.
Wrong.
The last original thing said was about four score and seven years ago.
Or maybe it was on the Ides of March. I'm not really sure.
When it comes to my words you can trust, but verify.
C'mon no one every said "my word is my bond" before Michelle and you know it...
This is another example of the campaign's incompetence.
Your team can't get small inconsequential shit like this right, but you want to run the largest military in the world?!
Yep. It's a joke. Trump is a joke.
troll fail....fuck off tim.
Suck my balls, Tulpa.
I want to have your babies
That's going to be.. Oh well...
Pics please.
You're so right, friend.
I'm going to go remind my wife that she's part of my team. And if she doesn't get it together, she's going to get a taste of the back of my hand.
And THAT'S presidential.
It's not incompetence, it's deliberate. Trump doesn't want to be president. He wants the vainglory of making a credible run, fostering a cult of personality, and enlarging his brand before ultimately bowing out to his preferred candidate, HRC. If he's trolling anyone it's his idiot voters who take his campaign's every lie, flub, and miscue?even its tactically nonsensical silences?as literal gospel.
Yup, it's pathetic.
I think you're giving Trump way too much credit. He's just retarded, not a nefarious genius. I can believe Bush was an evil genius faking it, but Trump is on record being retarded almost his entire life.
"work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond, and you do what you say and keep your promise, that you treat people with respect."
THESE WORDS CAN NEVER BE SAID AGAIN
Not w/o proper attribution to the original author, Michelle Obama.
They probably both hired the same speech writer. It's like the script from bring it on.
Read her senior thesis at Princeton, and then tell me that she wrote that.
She obviously invented the concepts of hard work and keeping your word, as demonstrated by her and her husband's history.
and the media wonders why it looks up at used car salesmen on the credibility ladder. I wonder if anyone asked if Joe Biden approves.
Oh, FFS.
Plagiarist!
IKR!!
** See, I just did it again.
Brittany Spears is filing a lawsuit against you as we speak.
No one should ever speak again. Just in case. Plagiarism lurks around every co- dammit!
If people are going to claim that use of cliches are plagiarism, I fear for the financial future of Hall and Oates.
Cage The Elephant should be very concerned.
Wait... do you all think thus was good?!?! Do you think trump is going to win?!?!?! If so, you think that's a good thing?!?!?!
What the motherfucking fuck?
YES
YES
YES
And that's why you're both awful and delusional.
Amateur.... That sounds like plagiarism .
Is it just a coincidence that every person I've met that hates Trump thinks Trump will get crushed, yet some of Trump's supporters think he will lose?
Is it a coincidence that most of the people you meet are Japanese? Yeah, probably.
But I could be wrong. I got a C- in science.
Mostly talk politics with Brits. The Japanese wouldn't dare break the Wa.
BTW, what's for dinner?
Hot dogs.
*hangs head in shame*
I had a month's worth of groceries in my cart at Costco today, but they only had 6 checkstands open. The lines were almost an hour long. So I just abandoned my cart. I hope those crab legs and prime rib eyes found their way back to the ice.
So... hot dogs from the snack bar.
Just ate a dog with guacamole and spicy mustard. Dinner has to be something with pork and cabbage. Thinking ginger pork. Vacation time for me (7 weeks suckas!) so I'm the cook. Ideas appreciated.
7 weeks where? Ingredients matter.
Looking at Hokkaido. But in country regardless.
This might be too basic for you:
http://www.seriouseats.com/201.....ecipe.html
But I love it. Hakata ramen with miso, corn, and pork belly. Mmmmm
(Files away for a colder day....)
There are little ramen shops all around that can make that infinitely better than I ever could. Got my culinary skills from the Mexican cooks in my bar tending days. Philly cheese steak etc... If you can make that, I tip my hat to you. ???
Hot dogs?
Don't they make those from all the carnitas cuts Chipotle refuses to serve to their customers and Purina can't legally use for dogs?
Completely different supply chain. Chipotle carnitas is made from shredded Chinese newspaper and composted apple cores. Purina has much higher standards.
"Chipotle carnitas is made from shredded Chinese newspaper and composted apple cores."
But at least it's, like, GMO-free maaaaaaaaaaan!
A month's worth of groceries abandoned? Way to live up the stereotypes of libertarians. I hope you haven't been working your orphans too hard and they still have some of that winter fat to live off of.
A month's worth of stuff I can only get at Costco. When you go there, you really don't want to go back for several weeks.
I live walking distance from Ralph's (Kroger), but they don't have 25 lbs. of Cheeze-its at a price I'm willing to pay.
Who wants Cheeze-Its anyway?
Maybe her husband could plagiarize a good speech too.
yeah, but Melania actually meant it.
THIS IS SHAMEFUL!! MICHELLE OBAMAMA WAS THE FIRSTEST AND ONLY PERSON TO EVER SAY THOSE THINGS. PLUS HER HUBBYS TEAM OF SPEECHWRITERS WORKED EXTRA HARD POLISHING THOSE PLATITUDES
Trump, Trump, Trump... Who fucking gives a shit if his wife can't find a speechwriter who can't crib from the opposition party? I heard that she spent weeks composing it. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! What a fucking Slovenian dumbass. At least Trump can ad-lib his horseshit.
Ad-libbing implies a motif or general outline or even just a hemisphere in which the subject exists. His ad-libbing involves neurons firing haphazardly, some of them responsible for producing words from that yammering gob of his, and then they tumbles out in bizarre, disjointed concatenations, and for some reason people read into them like Bible codes.
I love how you added in her birth country as an implication that she was a lesser human being. I can never tell if you're the most advanced troll here, or the biggest tool ever.
Oh, for fucks sake.
Facebook is all fucked up with this bullshit.
If hating Trump is wrong, a lot of people don't want to be right.
They're giving her too much credit if they think she can write her own speeches.
Barack Obama gets in trouble when he goes off on his own and doesn't say what his speechwriter wrote.
You didn't build that!
If Obama doesn't dare write his own crap, why would Melanoma?
Calling Melania melanoma is beneath you, Kunt.
I noticed that Mike M was using Obama instead of the other name in several comments. There is hope.
Ixnay on the other name. We've been working on that for months.
But there's so much room beneath me!
AND I was defending her.
Tell me, have you ever referred to Michelle as MOO-chelle?
I saw you referred to Lie-awatha down below.
Is it racism if she lied about being an Indian Native American first?
Asking for a friend...
Melanoma doesn't write her own speeches any more than she cleans her own house(s).
They'll blame her speechwriter for plagiarizing it.
If you were a speechwriter who thoroughly hated Trump, you might set Melanoma up like this.
My guess is that this will be the line the Trump campaign uses tomorrow morning.
Incidentally, isn't it entirely possible that Melanoma used the same speechwriter that Michelle Obama used?
That might explain it as well.
its not uncommon for either side to use the same advisors, didn't Rove work for Clinton before he worked for Bush?
its not uncommon for either side to use the same advisors, didn't Rove work for Clinton before he worked for Bush?
Remember when the democrats got all hysterical over Obama plagiarizing you dint buil dat from Liawatha?
Me neither.
Obama was speaking from the hip, though. He was copying Dances with Lies because he'd heard her say it at fundraisers for so long.
He really did plagiarize that.
Melanoma wasn't speaking from the hip. She wasn't freelancing up there.
Somebody wrote that speech for her just like somebody made her that dress. She doesn't do ready to wear, and she doesn't writer her own speeches.
Accusing Melanoma of plagiarism is like accusing her of scrubbing her own floors--it's ridiculous.
Why would she write her own speeches?
I bet she doesn't doesn't do the tune-ups on her own limo either. Can you imagine her down there with a wrench and a timing light?
Hmmm, I think there is a thought in there, struggling to get out, like a weak baby chick born without an egg tooth. Too bad.
Guys,
I'm a political junkie, but even I couldn't stand the heaps and heaps of bullshit. I turned into the excellent HBO series "on the night of..."
What Benghazi-related accusations were thrown and what did I miss?
God, give me a fucking break. I hope Drumpf and the whole RNC apparat go down the fucking tubes but this is goddamn ridiculous.
B B BUT THE STAR OF DAVID
NEO NAZIS
It really has made loathing Trump, the easiest job in the world, look hard to do when this is the shit they come up with.
I'd still vote against the old Republican coalition of hard-hats and farm workers that was prevalent in the 70s, but for fuck's sake at least you could respect it. Who can get behind the modern Republican coalition of bigots, assholes, and morons?
They're not commies, race murderer sympathizers, and closet corporatists like the Dems.
Few people here would be the easy answer, but then again that's never stopped you from pretending this is a Fox News message board so why let it start dissuading you now. It's not like facts have ever stopped you before.
THIS IS OBAMA'S FAULT. MICHELLE OBAMA GOT IN A TIME MACHINE NEXT TO THE FAST AND FURIOUS BAZOOKA GUNS, TIME TRAVELLED TO MELANIA'S SPEECH, TRAVELLED BACK IN TIME TO 2008 AND THEN GAVE MELANIA'S SPEECH. THOSE OBAMASAS SURE ARE SNEAKY!
Time for your Thorazine, Mr. Sziznaff. Here are your pills... and here's your water.
I don't think a speechwriter could make a mistake like this. It's highly unlikely.
I suspect somebody did something really, really mean to Melanoma. If it comes out that she was set up, it's gonna backfire big time.
If you wanted to create sympathy for Trump, you could hardly come up with something better than exposing someone who purposely set his wife up to look like an idiot. If that's what happened, women all over the country are going to start feeling sorry for her.
If that's what happened, you might even see Hazel come here and start saying nice things about Trump, his lovely wife Melanoma, and their scientific miracle of a demon-child.
Joe Biden was unavailable for comment.
A new internet sensation - michellerolled.
We are comparing ghostwritten first lady speeches. This is dumber than the twitter fights between the front-runners' interns
I thought the alt text was swell.
What? No article about how Melania's speech sounded exactly like a penis?
Not exactly the same, but close, from 2001.
"my father taught me some simple rules: show up on time, treat people with respect, put in an honest day's work, and your word is your bond."
http://www.radillolaw.com/raising-the-bar
I'm not sure if Michelle' speechwriter was smart enough to rephrase either Radillo or whatever common source they're using, or if they're both drawing from the same well of cliche. Agreed that Melania's speechwriter should have been smart enough to paraphrase again, unless they're actually trolling in which case - well done!
Sabotage
This seems pretty stupid given that what both of them are saying is about as bland of political rhetoric as one could reasonably expect, arranged in a way that most people would accept as being logically flowing from one idea to the next.
Maybe it was lifted, maybe it wasn't, but out of no doubt tens of thousands if not millions of political speeches there are going to be tons of references that could be considered lifted from other works. It's simply not possible that there wouldn't be striking similarities since all of them are trying to cement themselves with your 'everyman'. I'm surprised there wasn't a reference of her putting her pants on one leg at a time or something equally droll.
Weren't most of us taught this? Watch any John Wayne movie and you will get this same speech. Unless you can prove she actually copied the speech there is nothing uncommon or original in either persons speech. its really a typical political bs speech so let the finger pointing games begin.
False! I didn't hear any Wookie grunts.
i was watching two different networks right after the speech controversy broke. they were going out of their way to give melania a pass, and simply thought it was some speechwriter who shouldn't be employed by morning. they practically gave trump a pass, but instead of firing someone, his campaign manager comes out and says it's hillary's fault. this was the easiest problem he'll ever have to deal with, and he comes up with it being hillary's fault.
WAIT!
You mean professional politicians and backroom operatives aren't scripting and micromanaging every aspect of this show?
Why, that's ... that's ...
...refreshing.
I am pretty sure you could find a thousand uncited references for Obama's speech, but the internets don't currently go past yesterday.
Start working at home with Google! It's by-far the best job I've had. Last Wednesday I got a brand new BMW since getting a check for $6474 this - 4 weeks past. I began this 8-months ago and immediately was bringing home at least $77 per hour. I work through this link, go to tech tab for work detail.
----------------------> http://www.CenterPay70.com
uptil I saw the check which had said $6115 , I didn't believe that...my... cousin woz actually erning money parttime on their apple laptop. . there uncle had bean doing this for less than nine months and a short time ago cleared the loans on there apartment and got a top of the range Mini Cooper
+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+ http://www.factoryofincome.com
I'm sorry. The highlighted parts are just such basic platitudes that I wonder if there was any plagiarism at all, instead of just politicians (or their proxies in the form of their spouses) echoing words they think people want to hear.
If we were to analyze Laura Bush or Barbara Bush or Nancy Reagan or Rosylnn Carter speeches, would we find any sentences that Michelle Obama repeated whether intentionally or inadvertently?
If we analyzed high-school valedictory speeches, how many would show signs of plagiarism despite a near certainty that the various students never saw or read the other speeches?
Fake Scandal.
Huh, I'd never thought I'd use those words sincerely.
We can even create playlists of them so it will be very easy to find our videos which we like. We can also download those videos and can watch them offline. Showbox for pc