Fourscore and 7 years ago, Trump had a dream

Thank you for giving me the opportunity tonight to talk about plagiarism. This is not a speech I take lightly because the good that men do is oft interred with their bones. And I will not allow this evil to live on.

I do not want anyone to think that just because some words may be in here that I may not have personally written that it means I do not own them. I do. They are mine.

I do not know how long I have held this view, but I know it is less than fourscore and seven years ago. These are times that try men’s souls — and believe me, I have a terrific soul — and I am trying very hard to understand what this kerfuffle is all about.

So Melania ( or more likely some chowderhead) lifted a few words ( OK, maybe a couple of paragraphs) from Michelle Obama’s speech in 2008.

So what? Hath not a Trump eyes? Hath not a Trump ( tiny) hands? Why must the media always have its pound of flesh?

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to defend that which needs no defense, this country may never be great again. As one Trump defender put it, English is not Melania’s native language. It was, in a phrase I just coined, Greek to her.

I have a dream that one day my speeches will not be judged by the exact phrases I may have lifted from somewhere else but by the content of my character, which is great. The greatest, in fact.

This is not the end. This is not even the beginning of the end of this. Indeed, I would call it more the end of the beginning.

But I assure you that I will remember who was with me during this dark time. I will never forget them, even when they wave goodbye and slip the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God. Now that is some classy language.

Listen, I know better than anyone that all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. We enter ( sometimes with rock star effects) and we exit ( sometimes saying hardly a word about our wives). And, yes, one man in his time plays many parts and takes many positions, especially if it is about the Iraq War or abortion.

We must move forward, only forward. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. If we do, we will be like boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. This will not stand.

People ask me if anyone has apologized to Melania for this travesty. I know that many love her, so no, because love means never having to say you are sorry.

I understand the media. I know what they are doing, these nattering nabobs of negativism, as I like to call them. I am under siege. I am buffeted on all sides. Yet today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I am not afraid, as some might be, because the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. And fear is terrible, OK?

I ask, as I conclude, for you to follow some advice that I have given many times and it will serve you well whether you are writing or giving a speech: This above all — to thine own self be true.