CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The controversy over Melania Trump's speech at the Republican National Convention has sparked questions about her background.
Mrs. Trump's education, in particular, is at issue. Her bio on her official website states she graduated with a degree in design and architecture from "University in Slovenia." It's a claim that's been repeated by the Trump campaign and the RNC itself, in the convention's official program.
However, the Slovenian writers of her biography wrote that Trump actually dropped out from the University of Ljubljana after her freshman year. Politico's Julia Ioffe wrote the same thing in a profile of the presumptive Republican nominee's wife that appeared in GQ back in April.
Mrs. Trump's speech on Monday night was generally well received until observers noticed portions appeared to be lifted from Michelle Obama's speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
"These are themes that are personal to her, but they're very personal to a lot of people, depending on the stories of their lives," he said. "Obviously Michelle Obama feels similar sentiments towards her family."
There may be different levels of degree. We think of "graduation" as meaning 4-year degree, but in Europe there are different levels of passing, and different certificates and certifications for different things.
She may very well have passed a stage and gotten a degree of some level in that subject, but not the final licensing degree.
The whole world does not operate on our public school and university system.
And anyway, what difference does it make? She's not running for office. Hillary Clinton claimed to have landed in Kosovo under fire. Didn't.
Hillary Clinton claimed that a videotape caused the Benghazi massacre. Didn't, and she knew it.
Hillary is running for President. Melania isn't running for anything.
