There’s an oh-so-helpful pie fight diary on the wreck list that claims Senator Sanders has been invited to “give the opening speech” at the Women’s March Convention. Other comments to the diary claim it is the “keynote address” he was invited to give.
I took this at face value and opined in comments that this was wrong. The opening speech and keynote address should clearly be delivered by women. But I also opined that there’s nothing wrong with Sanders filling a speaking slot at some other point. At least some folks in that pie fight agreed with that.
But on following the links to the announcement, I can’t find anything that says Sanders was actually invited to give either the opening speech or the keynote address. The speaker page on the website shows 37 women and two men including Sanders. It does not say what time-slot he has. The twitter announcement:
only says Sanders will “join us” at the convention.
And the USA Today article linked in comments only says he is speaking on opening night, not that he has either position of honor in the speaking order.
If there is some direct evidence that he was invited to either give the opening speech or the keynote address I’d like to see it. Otherwise I think we’re again due for some self-reflection around here as to what knee-jerk reactions we have and how we jump to possibly wrong conclusions. Also some self-reflection on whether falling for pie fight bait is useful or productive. We need unity. But there seem to be a lot of people who are dead-set on preventing unity.