RNC Spox Invokes ‘Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony' to Dismiss Melania Plagiarism https://t.co/2mJqIJBSu3 VIDEO pic.twitter.com/cy16vSF58q
— Mediaite (@Mediaite) July 19, 2016
This is not Pony Princess approved. I'm Twilight Sparkle & do not approve this message ? https://t.co/5DfshRzPJh
— tara strong (@tarastrong) July 19, 2016
But seriously, folks… Did anything in Melania’s speech seem to be describing Donald Trump?
Melania Trump is giving a perfectly good speech for a candidate who does not bear much resemblance to her husband.
— Ramesh Ponnuru (@RameshPonnuru) July 19, 2016
I got to be honest, I kind of wish the guy Melania Trump was describing was running for president …
— Michael Cohen (@speechboy71) July 19, 2016
Olivia Nuzzi, at the Daily Beast, before the scandal broke:
… The purpose of this speech—the purpose of any appearance by a political spouse, but especially Melania—was the show us a kinder, softer side of Trump, the sort of side that only the woman who ostensibly sleeps next to him at night could know. But we did not learn anything new about Donald Trump on Monday night…
“He’s tough when he has to be,” she said, “but he’s also kind and fair and caring. This kindness is not always noted, but it’s there for all to see. That is one reason I fell in love with him.”
Her talk of compassion and loving your neighbor was, of course, divorced from the reality of her husband’s campaign which has been an exercise in flouting the conventions of basic politeness and human decency…
She promised the “values Donald and I will bring to the White House” are “kindness, love, and compassion,” which makes you wonder if they’ve ever talked to each other…
The best, most plutonium-fueled part of Melania's SpeechGate?
They stole the part about the importance of honor and integrity.— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) July 19, 2016
For Politico, Julia Ioffe — who has had her differences with Mrs. Trump before — wrote an excellent pre-speech analysis of “Melania’s Big Audition”:
… The political job in front of Melania would be a challenge even for an agile and willing campaign surrogate, and so far she has been neither. Trump has said that Melania will use the speech to talk about “women’s issues,” which, if a strange fit with today’s convention theme of national safety, is a crucial one for the candidate. Since the rollout of Trump’s bomb-throwing campaign, he’s struggled to win over female voters, and it has been Melania’s occasional job to prove, as the woman who is actually married to and living with Trump, that the Republican nominee is not a monster.
The problem though is that, so far, she hasn’t been very effective at it—and tonight’s appearance should give a signal of whether she’s likely to be an asset in one of his biggest weak spots, or remain another part of Trump’s strange coterie to be deftly managed…