RNC Day 1

Day 1 of the Republican National Convention... not much news from outside the hall (though I can guess it's quite a scene out there).


Meanwhile, inside,

• One of the Duck Dynasty boys spoke with his head wrapped in a pseudo-American flag. (So much for the false outrage about a Muslim woman who wore a flag-patterned hijab.)
• The bereaved mother of a dead soldier accused Hillary Clinton of directly causing her son's death at Benghazi, which has no basis in fact or the House Republicans would have found it in their years of investigations. (There weren't any appearances by the mothers and widows of soldiers killed in Iraq, of course.)
• Washed-up actor Scott Baio refused to apologize for indirectly calling Hillary Clinton a c*#$.
• D-list actor Antonio Sabato (who is Italian, not Latino, in case you were wondering) proclaimed that Barack Obama is a Muslim.
• Rep. Steve King of Iowa asserted that white people are responsible for all the good things in civilization and that "sub-groups" have never contributed much.
• Melania Trump gave an okay speech that turned out to be partly cribbed from Michelle Obama's 2008 convention speech.

At least no one talked to a chair this time around. Though I didn't listen to Rudy Giuliani or Joni Ernst, I admit, so maybe I missed it. Like some of the other speakers, I hear they were basically running a Rally to Restore Fear.

When entering the stage to introduce Melania, Donald Trump was accompanied by the song "We Are the Champions" by Queen, despite the fact that he has been asked (told?) not to use Queen's music by its guitarist and composer, Brian May. Which prompted this graphic on social media:


(Freddie Mercury, Queen's lead singer and arguably the key to their sound and popularity, was both gay and of Iranian descent.)

The Melania plagiarism debacle led to conversations on Twitter, largely among black women, that pointed out how Michelle Obama would have been treated if there were any hint she had copied parts of a speech from another first lady.

Later in the day, I saw this screen snap from a Politico article about Melania's fans among the Republican delegates on the floor of the convention:


Catch that... Melania is elegant "after what's been in the White House" — what, not who. The Obamas and Michelle especially are objects, things, while Melania is not only a human, but is elegant, with grace, poise, and intelligence.

These are the same type of folks who objected to Michelle wearing a sleeveless dress a few years ago, and now have nothing to say about the fact that Melania has posed for paid photographs with a lot more than her sleeves missing.

(And I can't help mentioning that Melania spends part of her time selling and promoting a line of skin care products that contain caviar. How elegant. That may top the towel charms.)

So, in total, quite a spectacle of America at its worst.

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Here's a more thorough summary of Day 1 from The Hill.