Probably the hottest story to come out of the Republican National Convention thus far is ‘the whole Melania Trump copied Michelle Obama’s speech‘ fiasco. Well, it’s not really a fiasco for us, because it’s giving us boatloads of #Content. Really, the only person it’s not good for is Melania Trump. Her husband doesn’t even seem to give a shit.
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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 20, 2016
Using the logic Trump’s spewing here, the Washingtonian decided to continue to give him some publicity by running Melania’s speech through Turnitin to see how much of it was plagiarized. And the results are pretty conclusive.
“But it could just be a coincidence. Most of the words she copied are ‘is’ and ‘the’.” Yes, but also, no. The odds that her speech writer just happened to come up with the same phrases, in the same order, for near identically-themed speeches is are so large, I’m afraid just make a hyperbolic analogy that doesn’t do it justice. So I’ll let professor Bob Rutledge from The Hill do it for me.
1 in 87 billion. With a ‘B’ and 9 zeroes. So, arguably, there is nearly a 0% chance that her speech writer didn’t know what she was doing. And, honestly, I’m not even sure if Melania Trump actually cares. She’s just a foxy mama along for the ride while her husband trots himself to the White House. Trump’s not even firing her speechwriter. They’re just out here trying to become the leaders of the Free World and also be able to slap pelvises on the front lawn of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. If you gotta steal from anyone, may as well be the people currently doing it.
[h/t Coed]