19 July 2016

Last night in Cleveland, Rudy and Gen. Flynn howled at the moon

The moon was full, the speakers were full of it, and boy, oh boy, oh boy, did attack dogs Rudy Giuliani and Gen. Michael Flynn howl like lunatics when they spoke to the Republican National Convention. It was an unreality show, the likes of which the party of Abe and Ike never has seen before and, one hopes, never will see again.

Giuliani railed against “Islamic terrorism,” his decibel level so high that 100 miles away in Toledo, the dead awoke. On Twitter, Dave Itzkoff inserted Rudy’s mug into Edward Munch’s Der Schrei der Natur, but still failed to do full justice to the occasion.

Flynn, the retired three-star whose trial balloon as Trump’s running mate thudded like lead on concrete, denounced Hillary Clinton as a crook, led the crowd in a chant of “Lock her up,” and made himself the leading nominee for this election’s Gen. James Mattoon Scott award.

Sen. Joni Ernst, the Iowa pig castrater, and retired national guard Lt. Colonel, claimed the FBI says ISIS is active in all 50 states. That’s probably true: the internet reaches everywhere.

Rep. Ryan Zinke, who spoke last, and who spoke to the most empty seats, did not corroborate her claim. Neither did he try to lead chants, a wise decision for which I commend him. Compared to Flynn, et al, he delivered rather bland comments, and of course reminded everyone that once he was a Navy SEAL, then withdrew to allow the pastor of the day, a blond woman in a red dress, to lead — and lead, and lead, and lead — the crowd in prayer.

The person for whom a prayer should be said this morning is Melania Trump, Donald’s wife. Not a native speaker of English, she trusted the people writing her speech. Unfortunately, they appear to have misappropriated some of the speech that Michelle Obama delivered to the Democratic National Convention eight years ago. Quite clearly, those speechwriters didn’t run the final draft through a plagiarism checker. I’d fire them.

 Updated at 15:17:26 MDT.  That Melania’s speech contained unattributed material from Michelle Obama’s speech now is beyond doubt. But who is responsible remains a mystery. Emerging reports point fingers at Mrs. Trump. The only thing that’s seems perfectly clear is that no one was smart enough to run the final draft through a plagiarism checker. And the Trump campaign’s response to the mess? “Plagiarism? What plagiarism? We didn’t plagiarize, we won’t plagiarize again, Hillary Clinton made us do it, and whatever the facts, the strong never apologize.”