Well, it didn’t take long.  The very first day of the Republican Convention in Cleveland and there was a controversy.  In truth, it’s a controversy that only could be contrived by a media that is so frightened by the prospect that Donald Trump actually might be elected, that they are grasping at any straw.  Ms. Hillary, a/k/a Madame Defarge, did not have a good week leading up to the GOP Convention.  The small lead she had in the polls slipped away.  Some polls actually had Trump ahead of her.  Say it isn’t so!  The first night of the convention was a continual procession of speakers, each of whom drove home the message that Hillary Clinton is weak, dishonest, reckless, untrustworthy, and likely responsible for the deaths of some good people who she left to swing in the wind, and then lied about.  But the media didn’t contest any of that (How could they?).  No, what became the scandal of the day was the notion that Melania Trump plagiarized part of her speech (really two sentences out of a good 30 minutes of remarks) from, of all people, Michelle Obama.  Really?  Does any thinking person actually believe that Mrs. Trump was looking around for someone to emulate, and chose Michelle Obama?  The whole mess concerns a couple of references.   Melania said,  “From a young age, my parents impressed on me the values that you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond and you do what you say and keep your promise, that you treat people with respect.  They taught and showed me values and morals in their daily life.”  Michelle said in 2008, “And Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values:  like, you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond, that you do what you say you’re going to do, that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don’t know them and even if you don’t agree with them.”  The passages are very similar, but the idea of plagiarism is absurd.  No one could seriously contend that Michelle’s words were original material.  “Work hard” and “tell the truth” are hardly platitudes that we learned at the knees of Barack and Michele Obama.  They are, in fact, part of the Golden Rule.  Treat people with with respect even if you don’t agree with them?  It’s a shame that Il Duce Obama doesn’t practice what Michelle preached.  When Melania Trump was accused of stealing the phrase, “my word is my bond” from Michelle Obama, it occurred to me that I had heard that phrase somewhere before 2008 when Michelle apparently said it.  I say apparently, because I never hear anything said by any Obama.  For eight years now, whenever one of their faces appears on the screen, I change the channel.  I don’t care what they plan to say.  Obama could be coming on to warn us that the Iranian missiles are on the way.  I won’t find out until I see the flash.  I can’t abide either one of them, but I digress.  I did some checking.  The phrase, “My word is my bond” has appeared in literature since at least as far back as 1748, when it appeared in James Heidegger’s The Congress of the Beasts.  In 1762, it appeared in Samuel Foote’s The Comic Theatre: Being a Free Translation of All the Best French Comedies, Volume 4.  “My word is my bond” also appears in an 1840 Nantucket newspaper article entitled, Reflections of a Reformed Drunkard.  These references are too remote, you say?  Well, in 1923, “My Word is My Bond,” from the Latin, “Dictum Meum Pactum,” became the motto of the London Stock Exchange.  Really.  They had a coat of arms and everything.  Now, given the well known Obama disdain for all things British,  I seriously doubt that Michelle stole the motto from the London Stock Exchange.  There are more recent, and more plausible sources of the phrase.  In 1988, rapper Ice-T released the “song” My Word Is Bond.  That little ditty also was made popular by the hip-hop groups House of Pain in 1994 and 5th Ward Boyz in 2003.  The phrase also is the most popular saying among members of something called the Wu-Tang Clan, which in 2003, five years before Michelle Obama’s speech, penned those uplifting words, “That nigga Shamiek just got bust in his head two times, guy.  Word is bond.”  So exactly who has plagiarized whom, boyeee?  Ain’t nobody copped nuthin.’ (please excuse my descent into urban patois, I’m still trying to wrap my head around that last lyric).  The allegation of plagiarism might have some legitimacy if the Democrat party actually stood for any of the things Michelle Obama mentioned in 2008.  “Work hard for what you want in life” from the party of 50 million on food stamps, and free college for everyone?  “Tell the truth” from the party of a President who rarely feels the need to do so, and which offers as its 2016 candidate, a woman who the FBI has documented to be a chronic and habitual liar?  It’s ludicrous. (The adjective, not the rapper).  If this is the best the media can do, then Trump has nothing to fear.  You know?  Now that I think of it, every speech ended with “God bless America.”  Maybe the Republicans plagiarized Irving Berlin, or Kate Smith.