In the furious coverage about the plagiarized portions of Melania Trump’s speech last night there has been a great deal of speculation- did she “write” it herself? Were professional speechwriters employed? Who, in short, made this massive fuckup?
I think that one glaringly obvious culprit may be being ignored, and the implications for the race are even larger if I’m right.
Let’s look at what we know-
Last night Melania Trump delivered a speech in which several paragraphs were clearly directly lifted from Michelle Obama’s 2008 Convention speech.
Before the speech was given, she claimed that she wrote it with “as little help as possible.”
We also now know that a speech WAS written for her, but it did not resemble the one that was delivered.
xTrump campaign asked Matt Scully, John McConnell to draft Melania speech. They did. Speech Monday bore almost no resemblance to the draft.
— Dan Balz (@danbalz) July 19, 2016What happened to that draft? Who had the arrogance to change the speech from what the professional speechwriters crafted for her? Who was stupid enough, or arrogant enough- or both- to think they could plagiarize the First Lady’s speech without repercussions?
Does anyone fit the bill better than Donald J. Trump himself?
Doesn’t it almost make the most sense to assume that he is the one who looked at that draft, decided “I can do better than these professionals because I have a good brain and listen to the voices in my head”, and rewrote the speech for his wife, including stealing the lines about hard work and values?
To me it seems like this was either sabotage or breathtaking arrogance and stupidity. Who does that sound like to you?
If it were to come out that this plagiarism scandal comes not from the candidate’s spouse or some staffer but from the candidate himself, might it be a little more significant?