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Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Trump isn't Going to Handle This Right

As I explained in my earlier piece, the Beltway media is often appallingly mediocre and lazy in their coverage. They play favorites, engage in false equivalence, are more interested in a phony 'evenhandedness' than in refereeing the truth.

There was a lot that was awful about last night's GOP convention. Particularly vile was the attempt to literally call Hillary a murderer and the chants of Hillary for jail.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/rnc-2016-convention-clashes-donald-trump-225761?lo=ap_a1

It showed that what the Trump supporters have is not economic anxiety but fear of brown people.

http://www.vox.com/2016/7/19/12215674/trump-racism-immigrants

But this is the media. They may not hold Trump accountable for fomenting fear of brown people. As for Hillary Clinton, there is very little that her enemies can ever say about her that the media would not on some level feel is 'fair game.'

Consider the number of absurd GOP fake scandals we've seen that the media has credulously promoted.

But plagiarism is something the Beltway gets. They're all writers, editors, or work for editors. So this matters to them.

Trump is usually allowed to just change the subject. But this is different. The Beltway has to see someone punished for this.

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-media-doesnt-get-much-but-they-get.html

And Trump is not going to do it. He's going to do what he always does. Deny there was any plagiarism and blame the media for making an issue of it.

Last night after hours, the Trump campaign said this was something a team of writers did. Again, this won't satisfy the Beltway as you can't punish a team. You can punish an individual.

The media wants someone to be punished. Trump will see punishing someone as knuckling under and being a loser. So it will just go on and on.

"Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort said Melania Trump “hit it out of the park” Monday night with her address to the Republican National Convention, remarks that Manafort said were not plagiarized in any way."

"Soon after Melania Trump finished her 15-minute speech in Cleveland, similarities began to emerge between her speech and the one delivered by first lady Michelle Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver. While not copied word-for-word, the section of Melania Trump’s remarks that focused on morals and integrity contained language that closely mirrored the first lady’s 2008 convention address."

"But Tuesday morning on CNN’s “New Day,” Manafort categorically denied that Melania Trump’s speech had been lifted in any way from remarks by Obama or anyone else."

“I thought Melania Trump hit it out of the park when she talked about her love of family, the feeling of an immigrant that comes to this country and succeeds,” Manafort said. “And I thought that the feeling she has towards her husband and her depiction of the real Donald Trump came through loud and clear.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/melania-trump-speech-michelle-obama-225794#ixzz4ErJtE46R

I actually didn't think it came through that way. On its own terms. her speech didn't convey any new information about her husband or a feeling that we know him better as Ann Romney's did in 2012.

“There's no cribbing of Michelle Obama's speech. These are common words and values that she cares about her family, things like that,” he continued when asked by anchor Chris Cuomo about the plagiarism allegations. “I mean, she was speaking in front of 35 million people last night. She knew that. 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. It's not going to work.”

In a statement released early Tuesday morning, Trump campaign senior communications adviser Jason Miller said “Melania's team of writers took notes on her life’s inspirations, and in some instances included fragments that reflected her own thinking.”

On CNN, Manafort said Melania Trump’s speech relied on “words that are common words” and that “certainly there’s no feeling on her part that she did it.”

“To expect her, to think that she would do something like that, knowing how scrutinized her speech was going to be last night, is just really absurd,” he said.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/melania-trump-speech-michelle-obama-225794#ixzz4ErKEbwde

So Trump will do exactly what he always does. But he doesn't get that this plagiarism thing is different.

Get your popcorn ready. This could be fun.

P.S. The best part of what Manafort says is he's literally throwing Melania under the bus. Trump isn't scapegoating a lowly writer, he's scapegoating his wife. 

2 comments:

  1. Trump should hold those responsible for doing this to him accountable: he should divorce Melania! Lol.

    (Do you suppose he gave her the beat down yesterday?)

    ReplyDelete
  2. P.S. The best part of what Manafort says is he's literally throwing Melania under the bus. Trump isn't scapegoating a lowly writer, he's scapegoating his wife.

    Don't put anything involving concern for other humans past a sociopath.

    ReplyDelete