It was supposed to be Donald Trump’s day as the formal nomination to be the candidate for the US presidency was to be his at the Republican convention in Ohio. The members of the GOP were ecstatic at finding a reincarnation of Jacqueline Kennedy in Melania Trump before a plagiarism storm threatened to engulf her hubby’s grand moment. Charged with lifting a couple of sentences about family values from Michelle Obama’s speech at a Democratic convention in 2008, Trump’s campaign managers could only present a weak defence based on the use of “common words and ideas” not quite being plagiarism. Melania’s fault, insiders said, was to borrow from a recent presumptive First Lady’s speech rather than one in time from over 200 years of a tradition of party conventions.
Melania is not alone in facing such charges of thievery of ideas and words. We say, “Let him aim the first barb who has not lifted a word or idea from someone.” Barack Obama, too, might agree. Was he guilty of lifting words from John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr’s speeches and even from the Declaration of Independence? His vice-president, Joe Biden, is also considered a sinner as he had borrowed from Neil Kinnock’s speeches across the Atlantic. This seems a distinct American trait derived from the pressures of constant speech writing by professionals. What it has done in the latest instance is further drag down Donald Trump’s chances, with the NYT declaring that Hillary Clinton has a 76 per cent chance now of winning the presidency.
