intentional sabotage from veteran speech writers.

If I am not mistaken at least one of them was a speech writer for Ronald Reagan, right? It's not like they didn't know this wouldn't get caught. It just seems so obvious--like they were not even trying to cover their tracks.

I mean, it would appear more accidental if they went back 40-50 years ago and stole from a speech at another convention, or hell--stole from a speech from someone in a foreign country, or some female spouse of a male Congress member who was a back bencher. No, they specifically chose the most obvious person.

I can't shake the feeling that this was deliberate sabotage, and that they wanted to get caught. This was likely a giant middle finger to Donald Trump, his entire family, and his entire campaign.

And to add another layer, whoever did this knew it would discovered and they would be caught. Which means they have friends who will be expected to be thankful.

It was the same shenanigans with the initial logo, the knives are out - I love watching Repugs fuck each other.

Whomever wrote the speech literally had her mouth the words, "He will never, ever, give up. And most importantly, he will never, ever, let you down."

That is just openly mocking Donald Trump.

Vox Story

People need to remember that the Republican Party is famous for its dirty politics. Doing this to a candidates wife in such a public way is hugely dirty.

Think about all the people inside the Republican establishment that he has insulted and humiliated. Think about the people they've had to bring in to work on his campaign who almost certainly had affection toward some of those people. The humiliation of the Bush family, the insults against John McCain, and all the others. Hell, even the open public shaming of Chris Christy.

Literally, there are so many people who could be gunning for Donald Trump... whose to say that this was one rogue operative? There is a group of Republicans out there right now who are positively gleeful that this happened, whether or not they had anything to do with it. They knew this would be the major story heading out of the first day.

We have to believe that right now every other speech written has to be suspect.

His campaign has no money. His kids are running the show. Plagiarism is a so amateurish, especially for a huge national rollout like this. It would come as no surprise to learn the either Trump himself, or one of his creepy kids, actually recycled Michelle Obama's 2008 Convention Speech thinking that it would be a cheap shot to poke at the president.

I believe one of them worked for Ronald Reagan. They were both veteran speechwriters. I forget their names.

She claimed that she wrote it herself, with a "little help" from them. However, the truth is that they likely wrote every word, she likely read over it, made some minor suggestions, they edited it accordingly, and then pushed her out the door with it. Speeches like this--along with speeches for things like State of the Union Addresses--are pretty much 100% professionally written, usually by more than one speechwriter.

Personally I was shocked at all the articles Ms Trump used (correctly) since her normal English is pretty bad -- especially for someone married for 18 years to an extremely rich man who could have afforded to get her the best English instruction that money can buy.

Was that intentional also? There are so many own goals in their organization that it defies probability. Can a presidential campaign be as clueless as this? Well, there was the moment that Trump realized that "winning the primaries" did not necessarily mean winning the delegates?

I think that there a lot of "unknown unknowns" for Trump's 70-person campaign staff . . .

and work on her pronunciation with a voice coach.

A professionally written speech would have had a punchy, memorable line to be clipped out for TV later. And an obvious theme. That was a rambly, amateurish mess. I'm guessing whatsherface, Trump's up-jumped secretary, wrote it, and went to previous speeches by first ladies for inspiration.

I'm sure it had a going over by professionals and some last-minute edits. There were parts where Melania obviously stumbled like the words in front of her were unfamiliar precisely at points where, with practice, she'd have had emphasis. In particular she paused before the word "god" enough times that it was obvious that the religious stuff was added really late, or she's really uncomfortable with it, or both.

All politicians and their families say they wrote their speeches. However, in big moments like this most everything they say is almost 100% written by someone else... and not just one person, but usually many people.

They are basically giant flesh puppets. That's the way politics works at this high of a level. People get paid lots of money to write these speeches and make them sound good.

He regularly steals the message of other candidates. She's probably furious with him right now.

me thinks the Don himself helped write Melania's speech.

... Where I swear I heard General Flynn, who was already struggling with the teleprompter, shout something like, "And when terrorists strike after our next President takes office, she's not gonna take it!"

Definitely not an accurate quote on my part, though.