I just watched Clint Eastwood’s convention speech again, and it came across a lot better second time around. When I watched it live it had seemed more disjointed; but that was around 3 a.m. UK time this morning. I was forcing myself to stay awake for Romney’s speech, and I was also following Twitter as Eastwood was speaking, so I wasn’t fully paying attention. When I watched it properly — as most of the television audience would have done last night — it made perfect sense, while being undeniably off the wall.
There was still that part around the middle where Eastwood was briefly incoherent, and it does make for slightly uncomfortable viewing. But watching the Democrats crowing on Twitter and the blogosphere today I’d begun to fear that perhaps the speech had been as big a disaster as they were claiming. It wasn’t.
Eastwood’s skit was all the more engaging for its spontaneity and the occasionally rambling delivery. As Richard Fernandez says on the home page, “It wasn’t the speech of someone who was running for office.” You got the feeling Eastwood was doing this a little reluctantly, out of a sense of duty, in stark contrast to the Hollywood liberals who never miss an opportunity to engage in self-righteous grandstanding and brag of their intimacy with President Obama — “hot-dogging it,” in Clint-speak.
At the moment, however, the nearest thing the Democrats have to star quality for next week’s convention in Charlotte is Eva Longoria, the former Desperate Housewives actress who’s also the face of L’Oréal and, most recently, cat food. Her speech is sure to be polished and teleprompted; it’s also sure to be predictable, tediously earnest, and have little appeal beyond the convention hall and Latino special interest groups (Longoria is an immigration activist, and a budding constitutional scholar).
In the meantime liberals are whistling past the graveyard, claiming that Eastwood’s convention turn has somehow damaged the Romney campaign and handed the Democrats an advantage. But do they really think undecided voters might be put off supporting the GOP ticket because a movie legend isn’t quite as eloquent as he used to be? On the contrary, it’s likely that his message will have resonated with many swing voters, the delivery notwithstanding.
Typical of the attacks on Eastwood was Michael Moore’s in the Daily Beast, in which Moore claims to represent “the American mainstream” in the same breath as mocking an 82-year-old national icon. That combination of tone-deafness and spitefulness is a hallmark of liberalism, and it’s become a feature of the Obama administration — and it’s why I suspect Eastwood will have the last laugh in November.
I presume the Democrats would have laughed at FDR’s polio too..”cripple, ha, ha, ha, ha”.
The Democrats are eventually going to permanently disgrace themselves as “the suitors in the House of Odysseus”, doing as they please, respecting none but themselves, because they do not understand that not everyone cares about their issues as much as they do…but the neutrals do understand that the Democrats rule the culture. Fairness will matter to them, eventually, as a personal self-survival instinct, and then when the judgment happens it will be hard to overturn by screeching alone.
Because ganging up on numerically-inferior bullies by those who realize that they together have the strength to do so is actually an evolutionary adaptation.
Basically, the problem the Democrats have is that to do what they want they basically have to “Alinsky” everyone opposed, because otherwise they will lose their case with the people, and the Alinsky tactic really only retains its long term usefulness if done sparingly.
As the Chick-fil-A thing showed. People don’t like bullies, and they have an instinctual evolutionary disinclination to letting those who have been proved to have no true strength advantage from ruling as the Alpha.
Oh I like that immensely, the suitors of Penelope, wife of Ithaca’s King. Unfortunately, I don’t know who to thank for this simile. Is it Anon #3 or Anon #567 or even me because I forgot to fill in my name and email in the boxes. No it is not me, but that’s all I do know.
“Nobody” did it.
You silly, somebody obviously did do it. But I’ll play, thanks, Nobody.
I thought that citing ‘nobody’ as a reference was a very clever reference to Clint’s marvelous role in the old spaghetti Westerns. Correct, Anonymous?
In the Odyssey, when Odysseus confronts the Cyclopes, he gives is his name as ‘No Body’, so that when the Cyclopes is blinded he cries to his bretheren for help, saying that ‘No Body had blinded him’. Since ‘nobody’ did it, they ignore him. One of the many ruses of the wily Odysseus.
– the Wily Odysseus.
Well, it wasn’t Wile E. Coyote. Those are the other guys.
“Brave Ulysses” acording to The Cream.”
“it’s also sure to be predictable, tediously earnest and have little appeal beyond the convention hall and Latino special interest groups”
Here, you’ve hit upon something that explains the criticisms of Eastwood by the American news media and punditocracy. They’re used to actors showing up in DC at Congressional committee hearings who, possessed of a painful intellectual insecurity, go out of their way to appear knowledgeable, sober, straight-laced. They’re not well informed about what actors do and how they do it. They simply don’t realize that those actors are playing a character meant to appeal to the news media, opinionators and congresscritters, because those actors want themselves and their causes to be considered seriously.
Clint was likewise playing a character Thursday night, but one not meant to appeal to the the news media or the pundits, but to his fan base (which is pretty much every ordinary American). Clint has spent more time learning his lines and hitting his mark than Eva Longoria has been alive. He’s spent more time setting the scene and mood in his films than Michael Moore could ever hope to. (The man has produced or directed 8 films in the last 5 years.) The doddering was intentional, allowing him to segue from one stinging rebuke of Obama to the next. He knew exactly what he was doing and he did it very well.
I do not know if Clint was playing a role, or if he is merely been “made weak by time and fate.” What I do know is this–
A.) It is clear now that he should have been playing a much more prominent (but modest) role as an “honest broker, this is what I believe, this is my opinion” type guy years ago. We as a nation have been the lesser for it. The man is impressive as a *man* and a man of *character*, and I for one am sorry I do not personally know him.
B.) many years ago there was a TV remake of Moby Dick, with Henry Thomas (“E.T.”) as Ishmael and Patrick Stewart as Ahab. As a nod to the 1950s film, Gregory Peck at the age of 81 or 82 played Father Mapple. He won a Golden Globe for the role.
Even though, or perhaps because of, the fact that the performance he gave was frankly but an echo of the Peck of old. Saturn, bringer of old age, had finally conquered him, as it will do to each of us. And yet I bet that in Hollywood, in the business, that anyone who would have criticized Peck’s performance would have been flayed alive if anyone decent and of the craft was around. Peck went out there and raged against the dying of the light, probably knowing he wasn’t what he used to be. Exactly as we should all do if we have to face the same situation. Old age conquers us all if we live long enough, but we need not unilaterally surrender. I am in my forties now. I will probably never again be able to meet the basic physical training requirements of the military boot camps of my youth. And yet I try to. Just because. Always keep striving, and never give up. Peck didn’t, and neither did Clint, if he wasn’t playing a role.
If people want to make fun of Clint Eastwood as a doddering old man, fine. But it does say more about them than anything else, and I would hope is something they would eventually be called to account on, by someone, somewhere. Because I doubt they will be able to defeat Saturn either when their turn comes–or at least not because of anything they themselves did.
As an addition, people also need to take a look at the 2009 moon landing commemoration at the Smithsonian. Buzz was incredibly smooth and polished, but neither Armstrong or Collins gave particularly good appearances, in my opinion.
To which it must be said–Who cares? We should just be happy they were with us still and not with Gus, Deke, Shepherd, and the others.
Thus, regardless of whether Clint was actually playing a role or just not reading off a teleprompter, if Democrats want to once again show their essential shallow and vicious natures, I for one am pleased for it to be on display for the entire world to see it.
‘Candle in the Wind’ should be reserved for those who actually deserve the appellation, like those referred to. And no, the ‘government’ should not be allowed to take credit for what they did.
Exactyt riight. By playing the stammering codger he made us listen more closely, then hit us with another zinger. 82 is not that old.
Great observation! I watched his speech again and once I realized it was performance theatre it started to resonate. Problem is it is probably over the average persons head.
Eva Longoria isn’t even that “Hispanic”. Watch her face fall when she gets her DNA results…
http://takimag.com/article/affirmative_acting_kathy_shaidle/page_2#axzz25EA4tdej
Wow, that really reveals the dirty heart of progressive liberalism. If people can watch that and still on board with the sad racial tenets of PC liberalism, they are unreachable.
The “respect” that the Democrats are demonstrating to Eastwood’s age has not been lost on other seniors. This could be huge in the Medicare campaign over the next nine weeks.
The poor souls of Demunists have no popular achievements to go on so, according to Axelschmood, they are going to attack “The economic policies of the last decade”, which is as much as to say the Bush Presidency and the Demunist majorities of the House and Senate. Oh yes, to attack the policies of the last decade, sans the Obama years, is to attack in large measure the Dems in Congress in that period.
Does Axelpants know this? Sure, somewhere in the spider-webbed recesses of his fevered brain. But since he is as crazy from desperation as is blond-white-fat-boy Chris Matthews, he is brushing this truth aside. Good. More rope to hang himself and the rest of them.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/dem-convention-will-focus-on-bush-economics–but-not-on-bush-the-man/2012/08/31/9dbc4472-f39a-11e1-adc6-87dfa8eff430_blog.html
This is why Ryan has to be careful not to be too mean to Biden. If he look like he’s picking on an old guy with Alzheimers, it could hurt him.
CraigZ: You are precisely correct! My own father lives in a Veteran’s home in liberal MA. My father and his comrades – even the Dems in the bunch – are pretty ticked off about the criticisms leveled at Clint Eastwood. The liberal’s criticism of an elderly man – let alone an American icon – is going to blow up in their faces! OMG – the impending demise of the Obama presidency is a most delicious scene to observe! They’re runnin’ scared in DC and Charlotte, and I, for one, am enjoying the spectacle!
Metrics on Clint’s Alinsky treatment of Pres. Empty Chair…
Here’s another data point, too: the split among Florida voters to Eastwood’s speech was 49% positive to only 24% negative by the next day — presumably even after the avalanche of criticism for it. The overall split is positive in almost all demos except Democrats (30/45) and liberals (26/58). Majorities of independents (51/26), seniors (54/20), men (54/24) approved of it, but the biggest positive response came from Hispanics, 62/21 — even better than Republicans (58/12). Even women (44/25) and black voters (43/37) liked Eastwood’s extemporaneous riff on President Obama.
Via HotAir
It was an avalanche alright: “…presumably even after the avalanche of criticism for it.”
Every snowball on the Journolist chimed in. It is really comical how they use the same criticism and even the same words in their attacks. This is the largest collection of legal plagiarizers in the world, outside of China and the old USSR perhaps.
Oh, and the tone-deaf haters in the moonbattery launched “old” and “demented” attacks with reckless abandon. Many of which I have printed to show old people just how much they are really loved and admired by the Collectivists.
Heh!
Using his own words w/o a teleprompter, he stills sounds better than anything the libs say. Many of them, on some level, know he is far more intelligent and a far superior man than they are and it burns them to the core. Like guzzling boiling 151.
I loved the speech. I accidentally woke the hubby up with my laughter when Clint said he couldn’t do *that* to himself! Classic! Don’t get me started on the empty chair for Obama!! Perfect metaphor!
Best part……it was mostly ad libbed. Read that the chair was added by him at the last minute. BTW, he has always studdered and stammered his whole life except when acting. It’s just a little more pronounced at EIGHTY TWO!
I can’t believe the “tolerance” of the “liberals”! It is shamefully disgusting!!
I thought it was a fabulous skit of schtick. Like the old roasts they used to have on tv for a while, back when the old legends got together and made fun of each others weaknesses. And yes, the empty chair was THE PERFECT metaphor for the empty suit! As far as I’m concerned, there were no “failings” in the skit, merely age, and I loved it!!!
(I guess we know how “liberals” really feel about their grandparents and the elderly! Maybe that’s why we have death panels!!! Absolutely disgusting!!!)
Re: the (empty) chair. It struck me as the type of prop (method) actors use to get into the proper frame of mind. In this case, a certain Mr. O, a poorly performing, arrogant and sullen employee is about to get a dressing down from his boss, Mr. E in the role of we-the-people. Which (after disrespecting his employer with language and an attitude Mr. O is known to use) is going to end with “your measure has been taken and you’ve been found wanting, you’re fired, now get out of my sight.”
Mr. E even asks him to step aside to let Mr. R begin cleaning up the mess he’s created. Hmm.. Remember the clamor in the MSM in 2008 asking that Mr. B remove himself in November so Mr. O could begin to save the earth and earn his Nobel immediately? Certainly seems more deserved in this case.
Well done. I hope I am half as able when I’m 80. I suspect the leftists have yet to appreciate how Mr. E’s skit has exposed their emperor, and is inexorably destroying the facades of their entire Potemkin village.
Even better every response by the Left to Mr. E will expose how they really think about and treat the elderly (Obama care taking trillions out of the elderly’s health-system, etc.). Remember Mr. O’s treatment of his grandmother? And his never missing an opportunity to neglect to ask his Muslim friends to emancipate women? (doubly striking given his own use of racialism and history). His family, brother in Africa? Even children, condemning them to a worthless education in government schools, to say nothing of the ethnic cleansing we see of unborn children.
So Mr. E has pitched, and the Left has hit into a triple play – every retort showing the Left is at war with the elderly, with women and with the family.
I loved the Eastwood bit. On the other hand Eva Longoria is definitely easier on the eyes. And I don’t doubt that she’ll be earnest and telepromptered to within an inch of her. But will she have anything to say worth listening to?