John Heilemann came up with a strange way to defend Joe Biden and Barack Obama, and to attack Melania Trump, for the plagiarism in speeches each of them gave.
On today’s Morning Joe, Heilemann argued that Biden and Obama’s plagiarism wasn’t as bad, because they ripped off fellow liberals: Neil Kinnock and Deval Patrick, respectively. In contrast, passages in Melania’s speech came from a 2008 Michelle Obama speech. Per Heilemann, that made Melania, or the person who prepared those passages for her, a “moronic plagiarist.” Heilemann omits one important thing: Melania is the wife of the candidate, for whom English is not even her second language. In contrast, at the time they gave their plagiarized speeches, Biden and Obama were presidential candidates themselves. They were almost certainly directly involved in the plagiarism.
Heilemann- Melania Plagiarism Worse Than Biden’s, Obama’s Cause They Ripped Off Fellow Liberals from Mark Finkelstein on Vimeo.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: So it’s worth remembering that in 2008 Hillary Clinton’s campaign accused Barack Obama of plagiarizing then Massachusetts Governor Duval Patrick during a speech in Milwaukee. Obama said he should have credited it to him. And in 1987, remember this, Senator Joe Biden plagiarized a speech by British Labor party leader Neil Kinnock, leading to more revelations –JOE SCARBOROUGH: But it was a good speech. Seriously, if I were going to plagiarize a speech it would have been Neil Kinnock’s speech.MIKA: What frustrates me is Melania’s story and Melania in her own words is very effective. I think a lot of that was, obviously. She speaks multiple languages. She could have done so much with it and some jerk put in a speech from Michelle Obama’s 2008. How does that happen?JOHN HEILEMANN: Can I just, can I put out the reason that this person is going to need to be fired, because they’re too stupid to be employed. For Joe Biden to plagiarize Neil Kinnock is wrong. But Joe Biden is a Democrat, Neil Kinnock is a Labor party politician.JOE SCARBOROUGH: Right.HEILEMANN: The same thing’s true with Barack Obama and Deval Patrick. Somebody got it in their mind when they were under pressure, stressed out, trying to get this speech together for her to cut and paste Michelle Obama’s speech at the Trump campaign! What are–I mean, it’s one thing to be a plagiarist, it’s another thing to be a moronic plagiarist.
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