The Internet has found a video that claims President Obama plagiarized
The biggest news coming out of the first night of the Republican National Convention was Melania Trump’s keynote speech. Not because it was heartwarming, but because the wife of Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, seemingly borrowed parts of it from Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democratic National Convention address.
Melania was bashed on Twitter but, several supporters came to her defense by claiming that President Barack Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden have pulled similar stunts in the past. Posted to Twitter on Tuesday, a video of two of Obama’s speeches showed then then-presidential candidate in 2007 purportedly “stealing” a few lines from a 2006 Deval Patrick speech and a 2003 John Edwards speech, respectively.
“I could never vote for a man who’s wife plagiarized a speech” pic.twitter.com/XlsOyQ9EPN
— Spacey Porzingis (@_TheCivilRight) July 19, 2016
However, it was later revealed that President Obama said Patrick allowed him to use parts of his speech, but forgot to give credit. “I was on the stump, and he had suggested that we use these lines. I thought they were good lines,” Obama said, according to CBS News.
Others pointed out that Joe Biden once sparked a scandal when he lifted a large part of a speech made by the British Labor Party Politician Neil Kinnock made in May 1987, repurposing it for his presidential campaign several months later.
The original speech said:
Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Was it because our predecessors were thick? Does anybody really think that they didn’t get what we had because they didn’t have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment? Of course not. It was because there was no platform upon which they could stand.”
And Joe Biden’s modification:
“Why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go a university? Why is it that my wife… is the first in her family to ever go to college? Is it because our fathers and mothers were not bright? …Is it because they didn’t work hard? My ancestors who worked in the coal mines of northeast Pennsylvania and would come after 12 hours and play football for four hours? It’s because they didn’t have a platform on which to stand.”
Via Complex
Related:
-
President Obama Jokes About Donald Trump on the ‘Tonight Show’ [VIDEO]
-
Donald Trump Bashes President Obama for Watching Star Wars [VIDEO]
-
David Spade Bashes President Obama Reality TV Show Appearances
What do you think? Share with us your thoughts in the comments below.