Donald Trump’s campaign issued a letter from a staffer on Wednesday morning, admitting to having inadvertently plagiarized part of Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democratic convention speech. Had this come Monday evening or Tuesday morning, America would have spent the last 24 hours talking about some other part of the convention. But that’s not what happened.

Which is why this tweet from Trump is baffling. Or, better: Incorrect.

It is incorrect to say that Melania Trump’s convention speech has “got more publicity than any in the history of politics,” given that speeches like, say, the Gettyburg Address exist. Find me 50,000 middle school students who have memorized Melania’s speech, and I’ll consider the contest a little closer.

It has gotten a ton of publicity, of course, because of the plagiarism — which is why it is also incorrect to say that “all press is good press,” in the current context. Clearly Trump has believed this adage for some time, having enjoyed decades of biting and flattering coverage in the New York tabloids, coverage that he often initiated, good and bad. It is not true this week.

The point of the Republican convention was simple. Party chair Reince Priebus laid it out in an interview with The Post this week.

“I think as people get to see the person that some of us have gotten to know, that’s going to help him in the general election, because I think people actually want to like him,” Priebus said. “They’re intrigued by him. They’re interested in him. And him becoming likable will make him unstoppable.”

One way the party planned to do that was to feature speeches from Trump’s family, including Melania. On Tuesday night for example, the second night of the convention, Donald Trump Jr. gave a well-received speech, talking about his relationship with his father. According to data from Facebook, a lot of people were talking about the convention on the social networking site. “In the last 24 hours, 14.6 million people in the U.S. generated 52.4 million likes, posts, comments and shares related to the convention and the candidates,” Facebook reported.

But: “Top content continues to be related to Melania Trump’s Monday night speech.”

That is not because of the content of the speech, which, unlike Donald Jr.’s, was not particularly interesting. It is because Melania used part of Michelle Obama’s speech. That’s it.

Here’s what people have been most interested in searching for on Google in the United States since Monday. From shortly after Melania’s speech, the most popular subject has been Melania Trump. She spoke the same night as Rudy Giuliani, who delivered a barn-burner. But notice that search interest for Giuliani dropped off quickly — and searches for “plagiarism” nearly matched his peak!

Read more at WashingtonPost.com