The mainstream media has climbed atop the perch of moral self-righteousness to condemn Melania Trump for lifting words, without attribution, from Michelle Obama’s 2008 speech. I have also seen Internet references that accuse Michelle Obama, in that speech, with lifting words from Saul Alinsky. I have no defense to make of those who pass off the work of others as their own. As Michelle’s words were so specific and of significant length to make it hard for Melania’s usage to be dismissed as “coincidence,” I cannot help but wonder what thinking was in the minds of those who witlessly approved of the apparent plagiarism.

But while I am at it, I have a difficult time with the pseudo-moralistic stance of the mainstream “journalists” who condemn Melania – or the Trump campaign officials – for the act of passing off the words of others as their own. Isn’t this what has made the established media what it has become; that young, attractive men and women are hired to speak the thoughts that the corporate-state owners want the rest of us to accept as “truth”? Whose words are more self-serving to the institutional order: Melania’s or those who have, since at least the days of the New York Times – and Pulitzer Prize winning – apologist for Joseph Stalin, Walter Duranty.

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