RNC convention opens with plagiarism accusation, Dems have worst record

Democrats have a long history of plagiarism.

Republicans kicked off their convention in Cleveland last night with a list of speakers addressing the theme, "Make America Safe Again." The event conveyed low energy, possibly because of the subject matter involved, but it was topped with an appearance by Donald Trump and a speech by his wife, Melania.

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) - The Republican Convention in Cleveland is underway, and the first night is finished. There were no major incidents outside the convention as demonstrators were kept out of sight.

Inside the convention hall, a parade of speakers drawn from the general public shared their emotional experiences with the crowd. A pair of soldiers who were in Benghazi and fought to save the staff of the diplomatic mission, spoke about how they were betrayed by Hillary Clinton.

More speakers told of illegal aliens who took their lives of their children, among other topics.

Rudy Giuliani took the stage and asked, " Who would trust Hillary Clinton to protect them? I wouldn't.

Finally, Donald Trump took the stage to introduce Melania Trump who offered a glowing endorsement of her husband.

Unfortunately, a paragraph in her speech appears to be strikingly similar to a speech delivered by Michelle Obama at the Democratic Convention in 2008.

Here are the two paragraphs.

Meliania Trump, "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. They taught and showed me morals in their daily life. That is the lesson that I continue to pass along to our son. And we need to pass those lessons on to many generations to follow 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."

Michelle Obama, "... Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values: that you work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond and you do what you say you're going to 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," Obama said, according to a transcript. "And Barack and I set out to build lives guided by these values, and pass them on to the next generation. Because we want our children - and all children in this nation - to know that the only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work for them."

The Trump campaign emailed a statement Tuesday morning explaining that the paragraph in Melania's speech was heavily influenced by Michelle Obama's speech because it "reflected her own thinking."

If true, then the chief sin here is a failure to give credit to the original source, or to change the words enough as to make the commentary her own.

For a scholar, this would be a serious ethical issue, but not for a politician. Politicians, like all good artists, are cannibals and they are commonly thieving lines from one another. The Democrats are notorious for this practice and that includes Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden as well.

Michelle Obama stole lines of her 2008 speech from Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals." In her speech, she quoted Barack Obama who once spoke about, "the world as it is," and "the world as it should be." The lines came from Alinsky, and it remains unclear if Michelle knew that when she attributed them to her husband.

Barack Obama stole a line from the governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, "Don't tell me words don't matter." He repeated the line in his speech, doubling down on the plagiarism. His campaign never bothered to refute the accusation, or to even offer credit.

Hillary Clinton stole a quote from Bernie Sanders, not to mention several of his policy positions. "No bank can be too big to fail, no executive is too powerful to jail," Clinton claimed. The line was stolen word-for-word from her rival, Sanders.

Joe Biden also stole, this time from overseas. "My ancestors worked in the coal mines," he claimed in 1988, stealing from the British Labour Party's Neal Kinnock. Biden also committed plagiarism while he was in law school.

The point is, the sanctimonious condemnations from the left are hypocritical.

The Republican Convention wasn't going to go off without some controversy erupting. And the next two days will likely bring more. This is simply the nature of the political process in America. It's adversarial and merciless. If there is one blessing, it is that the fears of violence and rioting have not come to pass.

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