I used to teach college writing courses. If you were my student and you plagiarized a paper, you received an F for the paper, and in some cases, you failed the course. When I would confront a student with the irrefutable evidence that he had stolen the work of another writer, he would back down pretty quickly and admit wrongdoing. Not so the Trump campaign, after Melania's speech so clearly plagiarized Michelle Obama's 2008 speech at the Democratic convention.
The evidence in this case is irrefutable.
But campaign chairman Paul Manafort says, "These were common words and values." Uh-huh. And then somehow he managed to blame Hillary Clinton for the controversy.
Hey, Hillary doesn't have to say anything. As usual, the Trump campaign is doing an excellent job of screwing itself.
Whether Melania plagiarized those words, or it was the crime of her speechwriters - which is the more likely scenario - the campaign should come clean. But we're talking about the Trump campaign - that's pretty unlikely.
Some of the Monday morning quarterbacks on TV said the cover up was worse than the crime. That's true from the standpoint of publicity. They could have made this go away pretty quickly with a confession, and the announcement of a speechwriter's firing.
But I would argue that the crime itself was pretty bad. And a pretty sad commentary on the Trump campaign. The speech didn't lift the words of Nancy Reagan or Laura Bush. They were the words of the spouse of the President - a president the GOP despises. And of course, they never cited their source.
Melania's speech was just the cap of the first night of a Republican convention that was almost impossible to watch. It was a night they hammered Hillary Clinton for being a liar. Anybody get the irony here?
Rudy Giuliani foamed at the mouth like a dog with rabies. We had to listen to Chachi. Why the hell was he there? Antonio Sabato Jr., another, "what's he doing there" speaker, took to the dais. And then there was what he said to ABC News afterwards.
"We had a Muslim president for seven and half years," Sabato Jr. said "I don't believe he is [a Christian]."
All that came hours after the floor flight, in which some anti-Trump delegates gave it the old college try. It didn't get them anywhere, but their efforts were highly embarrassing to the Trump campaign. And they certainly highlighted the divisions in the Republican Party.
But Trump's lapdogs aren't divided. They were out defending Melania's speech the morning after. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a former prosecutor said it was "93 percent" different than Michelle's. Well that makes it ok then.
A few of my college students copied entire papers - in one case, a paper was bought off an internet site. But mostly, they lifted bits and pieces verbatim, without citing their sources. I'd still give them an F. It doesn't matter if you cheat a little or you cheat a lot, you're still a cheater.
Is it any surprise that the Trump campaign is engaged in such amateurish, dishonest behavior? The only surprise is that America hasn't yet given him a failing grade.