I have a simple cure for the outbreak of plagiarism infecting the Republican Convention. Politicians, family and hangers on: Write Your Own Speeches! Then, subject them to the various web sites that catch famous phrases that may have seeped into your brain. Or, if you don't want to spend the time or the effort to craft your speech, at least attribute the words to the person who actually came up with them.
Peggy Noonan leaped from obscurity for delivering to Ronald Reagan the famous "touch the face of God" line in his Challenger disaster speech. "Faulty o-rings" would have left us infinitely more shaken and sad. Did you know that she lifted the phrase from a poem written by John Gillespie Magee, a pilot who died at 19 during WWII? (Yes, I googled that.)
See what I mean about attribution?
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