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| Like Melania Trump, I cheated on my homework. Look at me now Like Melania Trump, I cheated on my homework. Look at me now | |
| (4 months later) | |
| In junior high school, my friends and I – all in the gifted and talented classes, mind you – spent most lunch periods copying each other’s homework. That’s right, the alleged best and brightest young students in Merced, California, didn’t even bother to hand in honest work. The subject didn’t matter – it could have been US history, algebra, or science. All was fair game for dishonesty. | In junior high school, my friends and I – all in the gifted and talented classes, mind you – spent most lunch periods copying each other’s homework. That’s right, the alleged best and brightest young students in Merced, California, didn’t even bother to hand in honest work. The subject didn’t matter – it could have been US history, algebra, or science. All was fair game for dishonesty. |
| We weren’t stupid. We were just lazy, bratty children in a small town, and like, who cares? It’s incredible that no teacher ever caught us huddled up on the benches near the softball field exchanging papers or realized all of our work was eerily similar. | We weren’t stupid. We were just lazy, bratty children in a small town, and like, who cares? It’s incredible that no teacher ever caught us huddled up on the benches near the softball field exchanging papers or realized all of our work was eerily similar. |
| I empathize with Donald Trump’s wife, Melania, who has been accused of plagiarizing portions of first lady Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democratic convention speech. Maybe copying the answers for a take-home quiz isn’t nearly as shocking as apparently thieving an entire passage from a well-known speech by a high-profile political figure, but it’s generally in the same ballpark, I think. Just like Melania appears to have swiped whole phrases and ideas from an accomplished public speaker and intellectual, I almost exclusively cheated off of the smartest kids in class. I’m not cribbing answers off Jimmy in remedial English. No, I’m copying from the guy or gal already getting junk mail from Harvard and spending their free time slinging soup to war veterans. | I empathize with Donald Trump’s wife, Melania, who has been accused of plagiarizing portions of first lady Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democratic convention speech. Maybe copying the answers for a take-home quiz isn’t nearly as shocking as apparently thieving an entire passage from a well-known speech by a high-profile political figure, but it’s generally in the same ballpark, I think. Just like Melania appears to have swiped whole phrases and ideas from an accomplished public speaker and intellectual, I almost exclusively cheated off of the smartest kids in class. I’m not cribbing answers off Jimmy in remedial English. No, I’m copying from the guy or gal already getting junk mail from Harvard and spending their free time slinging soup to war veterans. |
| Say what you please about Melania’s Speechgazi (Speechgate? Speechtastrophe? MicHELLe-on-Earth?) controversy, but at least she’s not stupid enough to borrow from George W Bush. Really, her biggest mistake was not stealing from an older address. You think anyone would know if she swiped a paragraph or two from Mamie Eisenhower? Ida McKinley? Jane Means Pierce? There’s over 200 years of first lady speeches to choose from. Why pick one so recent? At least find someone dead. | Say what you please about Melania’s Speechgazi (Speechgate? Speechtastrophe? MicHELLe-on-Earth?) controversy, but at least she’s not stupid enough to borrow from George W Bush. Really, her biggest mistake was not stealing from an older address. You think anyone would know if she swiped a paragraph or two from Mamie Eisenhower? Ida McKinley? Jane Means Pierce? There’s over 200 years of first lady speeches to choose from. Why pick one so recent? At least find someone dead. |
| Cheating is just part of life. How many among us haven’t peeked at a classmate’s exam, skimmed a few extra dollars from the bank in Monopoly, or popped a couple cashews in our mouths in the nut aisle in the grocery store? I stole my mom’s recipe for corn bread. Big deal. Arrest me, mom. I dare you. It’s not like you invented corn bread. In a campaign founded on deceit and incompetence, this might be the least galling thing Trump and company have done. | Cheating is just part of life. How many among us haven’t peeked at a classmate’s exam, skimmed a few extra dollars from the bank in Monopoly, or popped a couple cashews in our mouths in the nut aisle in the grocery store? I stole my mom’s recipe for corn bread. Big deal. Arrest me, mom. I dare you. It’s not like you invented corn bread. In a campaign founded on deceit and incompetence, this might be the least galling thing Trump and company have done. |
| Now, I should probably address the fact that the Trump campaign alleges that Melania didn’t plagiarize Michelle Obama, but that this entire row has been orchestrated by the mainstream media to smear a good woman. Perhaps that’s the case. Maybe it was all just a terrible coincidence. Maybe Hillary Clinton used her mutant telepathic powers to plant the words in Melania’s supple, pliable brain, thereby sabotaging her moment of triumph. | Now, I should probably address the fact that the Trump campaign alleges that Melania didn’t plagiarize Michelle Obama, but that this entire row has been orchestrated by the mainstream media to smear a good woman. Perhaps that’s the case. Maybe it was all just a terrible coincidence. Maybe Hillary Clinton used her mutant telepathic powers to plant the words in Melania’s supple, pliable brain, thereby sabotaging her moment of triumph. |
| As absurd as that sounds, I’m sure Alex Jones of InfoWars fame is secretly cooking up a theory just like it. Such is the nature of our modern political discourse. It’s more effective to flatly deny every single allegation of wrongdoing and pin the blame on the opposition than to apologize like a normal person would when caught doing something inappropriate. If someone hacked into Melania Trump’s iPhone and found that she set up a reminder to “steal M Obama speech” for two days ago, every Trump proxy on the planet would line up like seals in heat to claim that George Soros, Kim Kardashian, the ghost of Osama bin Laden, and the Illuminati all conspired to frame her. New Jersey governor Chris Christie even told the Today Show that there’s no way Melania could have stolen Michelle’s speech because “93%” of it was totally different. To be fair, I only copied three to five questions per homework assignment, so I think Governor Christie has a point. I mean, you wouldn’t kill someone for selling loose cigarettes, would you? There are degrees of sin, folks. Let’s not rush to condemn someone for a little light thievery. Instead, let’s focus on the Republican argument that this is a kooky misunderstanding. | As absurd as that sounds, I’m sure Alex Jones of InfoWars fame is secretly cooking up a theory just like it. Such is the nature of our modern political discourse. It’s more effective to flatly deny every single allegation of wrongdoing and pin the blame on the opposition than to apologize like a normal person would when caught doing something inappropriate. If someone hacked into Melania Trump’s iPhone and found that she set up a reminder to “steal M Obama speech” for two days ago, every Trump proxy on the planet would line up like seals in heat to claim that George Soros, Kim Kardashian, the ghost of Osama bin Laden, and the Illuminati all conspired to frame her. New Jersey governor Chris Christie even told the Today Show that there’s no way Melania could have stolen Michelle’s speech because “93%” of it was totally different. To be fair, I only copied three to five questions per homework assignment, so I think Governor Christie has a point. I mean, you wouldn’t kill someone for selling loose cigarettes, would you? There are degrees of sin, folks. Let’s not rush to condemn someone for a little light thievery. Instead, let’s focus on the Republican argument that this is a kooky misunderstanding. |
| The Republican convention has, thus far, been a puerile, empty spectacle featuring washed-up actors, reality TV stars, and belligerent, shameless politicians. In other words, it’s only a few CGI monsters away from being the most boring Sharknado sequel in history. (By the way, wouldn’t it be hilarious if I ended up accidentally stealing that Sharknado joke from someone else?) In the midst of planning this inane rollercoaster ride to hell, Melania Trump must have been quite busy, surely. Maybe she even watched a few old conventions on C-Span to prep herself. Her husband – the narcissistic, brainless purveyor of tedious board games – probably didn’t pay her much mind in the week before the event. He probably pawned her off on some underpaid staffer too terrified of being fired to speak more than two words at a time. “Sort it out, babe,” he might say while lighting a cigar indoors. | The Republican convention has, thus far, been a puerile, empty spectacle featuring washed-up actors, reality TV stars, and belligerent, shameless politicians. In other words, it’s only a few CGI monsters away from being the most boring Sharknado sequel in history. (By the way, wouldn’t it be hilarious if I ended up accidentally stealing that Sharknado joke from someone else?) In the midst of planning this inane rollercoaster ride to hell, Melania Trump must have been quite busy, surely. Maybe she even watched a few old conventions on C-Span to prep herself. Her husband – the narcissistic, brainless purveyor of tedious board games – probably didn’t pay her much mind in the week before the event. He probably pawned her off on some underpaid staffer too terrified of being fired to speak more than two words at a time. “Sort it out, babe,” he might say while lighting a cigar indoors. |
| In a panic, the mind wanders; it regurgitates whatever you’ve put inside of it and repackages it as an original thought as a defense mechanism against writer’s block. Creative people think alike, you know. We’re all just out there in the trenches trying to make a buck – Jonah Lehrer, James Frey, Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair. There are only so many words you can use. There’s only so much time in the day. At least that’s what I told myself while furiously scribbling down answers to my chemistry homework before the lunch period ended and I had to hand it in. Now, look at me. I’m a writer for a fantastic media organisation. I guess it paid off. | In a panic, the mind wanders; it regurgitates whatever you’ve put inside of it and repackages it as an original thought as a defense mechanism against writer’s block. Creative people think alike, you know. We’re all just out there in the trenches trying to make a buck – Jonah Lehrer, James Frey, Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair. There are only so many words you can use. There’s only so much time in the day. At least that’s what I told myself while furiously scribbling down answers to my chemistry homework before the lunch period ended and I had to hand it in. Now, look at me. I’m a writer for a fantastic media organisation. I guess it paid off. |