Making America smirk again
“Values that you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond and you do what you say.”
Michelle Obama (2008), Melania Trump (last week)
In August of 2008, America was formally introduced to future First Lady Michelle Obama.
She wowed the audience at the Democratic National Convention, with a positive message about herself and her husband.
“Because we want our children in this nation to know that the only limit to your achievements is the strength of your dreams and your willingness to work for them,” she said.
That was the last time I thought I’d hear those words.
I was wrong.
Last Monday night, while much of America was formally introduced to Melania Trump, she said very much the same thing.
Within hours, word got out that parts of Mrs. Trump’s speech, which had supposedly been carefully designed to humanize her presidential candidate husband, hadn’t had its desired effect.
Instead, it became a full-fledged controversy.
While Mrs. Obama’s speech had produced glowing reviews, Mrs. Trump’s speech generated a mini-firestorm.
This is not about plagiarism.
It’s about an amateurish presidential campaign that’s so overconfident, that it can’t get out of its own way.
I watched overnight as Trump surrogates and members of his campaign staff tried to ignore the obvious. They denied that parts of Michelle Obama’s speech resembled parts of Melania Trump’s.
By the following morning, Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, even blamed Hillary Clinton for the flap.
“To think that she would be cribbing Michelle Obama’s words is crazy. This is once again an example of when a woman threatens Hillary Clinton, how she seeks out to demean her and take her down,” said Manafort on CNN.
There was no proof that Hillary Clinton had anything to do with the self-inflicted error that had drowned out anything that had happened during the previous night of the Republican Convention.
The entire matter may have died of its own weight, if somebody from Trump’s staff would have admitted that the passages in question had been really something of an homage paid to Michelle Obama.
Instead, by mid-morning the following day, Huffingtonpost.com ran an article that listed the numerous, and ridiculous attempts to sidetrack the whole thing.
While a Canadian physicist had theorized that the chances that the passage of the two speeches would coincide, and in the same word order, would be one in 87 billion, campaign blowhard Chris Christie did his own math.
“Ninety-three percent of the speech is completely different from Michelle Obama’s speech,” Christie said on NBC. “They expressed some common thoughts.”
Christie, though, may have been in a hurry.
He was preparing to “prosecute” Hillary Clinton later that night when he joined his fellow Republicans in chanting to “Lock Her Up!”
Ah yes. “Crooked” Hillary.
That’s rich.
By calling Hillary Clinton “Crooked,” Trump and his supporters are walking a fine line, wearing snowshoes if they can’t keep their own stories straight.
On night two of the Republican convention there were hopes that “Speechgate” could have been pushed aside.
Christie “prosecuted,” and speaker-after-speaker brought delegates to fits of delirium with the mere mention of Hillary in pinstripes.
I’m glad nobody said, “Get a rope. Let’s string her up.”
By Wednesday morning, though, there was more intrigue about Melania’s speech. And more hints the Trump campaign isn’t ready for primetime.
Manafort appeared and vigorously complained that he wanted to move on from the speech kerfuffle.
Too late, Trump, himself, tweeted that he was curiously basking in the glow of the speech-grafting mess.
“Good news is Melania’s speech got more publicity than any in the history of politics especially if you believe that all press is good press,” Trump tweeted.
But there was more. A campaign staffer admitted that Melania Trump had suggested that the passages in question be included in her speech.
She’d written them down, and sent them to the speechwriter.
But here’s the part that makes it all so amusing – but certainly not to Republicans.
The reason Melania used Michelle Obama’s words?
She greatly admires her.
Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. Email him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net