Much could be said about any of the stirring speeches and speakers at the recent Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida; but curiously, it seems that Clint Eastwood’s speech last Thursday has been the topic of the most discussion.
We could discuss the stirring speech of statesman Marco Rubio or the heart-felt speeches of friends of the Romney family who have been touched by the GOP candidate’s selflessness and generosity. These speeches, however, seem to call for little examination, explanation, or defense. They seem to stand alone as any honest and well-meaning words should stand. Why then, are we hearing so much about Clint Eastwood’s speech? There are a few obvious reasons.
First, Eastwood is a prominent member of the Hollywood establishment as a long-time actor, director, and musician. The fact, alone, that he would be willing to speak in a major Republican forum, automatically makes him a target among the liberal community of Hollywood and beyond. Like Mr. Eastwood offered as an opening point to establish credibility, Hollywood types are quite well known for their outspoken liberal views and loyalties. Liberals, then, view Eastwood as a traitor to their almost exclusive club of political ideology. He did, though, offer up that there are more conservatives in Hollywood than we think.
Secondly, it is much easier for liberal Democrat spokespeople to attempt to distract the public with sarcastic critiques of an actor’s speech at the RNC than to challenge the substance of the speeches of average taxpayers and policymakers, given that their candidate for reelection holds an indefensible record.
Thirdly, as an elderly gentleman (he is now 82 years old), Eastwood is also an easy target of the pop-culture-addicted liberal elite of modern America, who increasingly alienate the elders among us with their ideas, statements, and policies, and who seem to care little about their elders’ opinions.
Even in their critiques of Eastwood’s speech, his detractors have not largely attempted to attack the core content of the speech. After all, he did have some important things to say. He reminded the audience that “we own this country” and that “when somebody does not do the job, we’ve gotta let ‘em go.” Instead, they have criticized his talent at standup comedy, his failure to adhere to his allotted 5-minute time slot (the speech lasted 12 minutes), and his less-than-smooth and polished vocal delivery.
In his defense, Clint Eastwood is 82 years old, an American icon, and is not a career politician. It seems, then, that he should be entitled to some otherwise inexcusable liberty of presentation. As for the liberal talkers who have been so critical of the speech as one that went on with rambling and stammering, I think it would be interesting to compare Eastwood’s unscripted, 12-minute speech with an unscripted, 12-minute block of any one of President Obama’s speeches to see which speech included the most “uhs” and awkward pauses. That is, if we could find a speech from Obama in which he went without his beloved teleprompter for that long of a time segment. Eastwood is said to despise the use of teleprompters.
So, what has been said about Clint Eastwood and his speech? Well, NBC “journalists” among others have suggested that the Romney campaign was embarrassed and disappointed with his speech. In an interview with Laura Ingraham that breached this subject, Geraldo Rivera, who sometimes unsuccessfully attempts to appear as journalistic and neutral, described Eastwood’s speech as “a disaster”. The New York Times described the speech as a “rambling conversation with an empty chair,” and “the most bizarre, head-scratching 12 minutes in recent political convention history.” Predictably, Rachel Maddow said, “That was the weirdest thing I’ve seen at a political convention in my entire life”; and during Eastwood’s presentation, Chris Soliz of the Washington Post tweeted “What. Is. Happening.” Even our own very mature commander-in-chief weighed in on the Eastwood speech with his “humble” tweet: “This seat’s taken.” We’ll hold back from all the obvious voter fraud jokes that could be inspired by that statement.
As it turns out, Mitt Romney personally invited him to speak on his behalf at the convention after Eastwood’s recent hearty, public endorsement of Romney. The Romney campaign was so “embarrassed” by Eastwood’s speech that they released this statement Thursday evening: “Judging an American icon like Clint Eastwood through a typical political lens doesn’t work. His ad libbing was a break from all the political speeches, and the crowd enjoyed it.” Yes, the Romney campaign was so “disappointed” with Eastwood’s speech that they released this statement during Romney’s final convention speech. They couldn’t wait! Ann Romney also expressed her appreciation of Eastwood’s support in a recent interview. As the New York Times pointed out, a couple of Romney’s aides did describe Eastwood’s speech as “strange” and “weird,” but it is hard to absolutely assume that they necessarily meant these terms to negatively describe the whole of the speech.
In case you missed it, as he addressed the empty chair to his left that he described to be inhabited by the president, in one bit from the standup portion of his speech, Eastwood offered these lines: “What do you want me to tell Mr. Romney? I can’t tell him that. He can’t do that to himself. You’re getting as bad as Biden.” Maybe I’m easily amused or have a warped sense of humor, but that’s comedic brilliance!
Mr. Eastwood’s manager, Leonard Hirshan, is said to have described the feedback of Eastwood’s speech as evenly divided between supportive and critical voices and said of him that “he does these things for himself,” and that “It’s his private life. He believes in what he’s doing.”
Clint Eastwood’s RNC speech may have been “weird,” “strange,” and unorthodox, but it was also arguably on topic, entertaining, and meaningful. For those of us who know and get Clint Eastwood, I don’t think the speech was all that shocking at all, and it seems that he offered nothing in his speech that Clint Eastwood shouldn’t easily be able to get away with. I believe he successfully endorsed Mitt Romney as the best candidate to be the next president of the United States. If you disagree with me, you have that right, but I’ll then offer to you the words of “Dirty Harry” when I say “Go ahead. Make my day.”
Photo credit: Siebbi (Creative Commons)
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Liberals are jealous of any one good they only want people that use women like clooney who obama complained that Romney was born with a silver spoon and in fact clooney was and he doesn’t realize that. As a nation with the upmost praise to Mr Eastwood and his service to our country and want to apoligize to you for the ugliness to you and hope that the liberals don’t have any family to be abusive to as they seem to be to this senior and it shows their spots that they would be abusers too…
WELL: I thought that Clint having a conversation with an empty chair for the most part was an exact depiction of what is sitting in the PRESIDENT’S CHAIR absoutely nothing of consequence. MUSLIM DICTATOR OBAMA IS ONLY GOOD AT BOWING AND APOLOGIZING TO OUR ENEMIES FOR THE ACTIONS AND BELIEFS OF THE USA, oh he is also good at VACATIONS,GOLF,LYING,LYING,LYING.!!!!
I agree with iceman – that empty chair was a great depiction of what IS currently sitting in the President’s chair — I could not understand the critizim that came from the commentators — I thought that speech was funny – very clever – rhetorical – and made appropriate points – coming from an intelligent and witty man – which basicly flew right over their heads — Criticism usually stems from something the critic does not understand — or won’t admit to — This Nation needs a President who LOVES his country – stands up for it and its people – and as iceman said – does not apologize to our enemies for being a great nation – with a CHRISTIAN FOUNDATION – NOT an Islamic one as Obama is trying to portray and establish — or maybe they could not make any favorable comment – but had to criticize the truth for fear of losing thier positions with the Obamanews —
I thought an empty suit occupying the chair would have been perfect!
My husband and I watched the concern on Ann and Mitt’s faces as Clint Eastwood continued his act with the empty chair but never did anyone hear foul language; it was only inferred; he was brilliant, and uplifting to us out here who are worn out with nothing coming from the daily “shows” of Obama’s face on TV constantly, telling lies and bluffing us into confusion and hesitancy to criticize. Eastwood’s act genuinely prepared our minds and physical bodies to wake up and pay attention for Mitt’s great and very much on target speech much later. PS: Mitt never mentioned “wars” is Mitt is very sensitive to his present position while Israel and Iran are at near “blows” at blowing up each other! He was smart there! So commentators, just shut up! We know most of you are all completely bought out and put away by Obama Team!!!
I thought Clint Eastwood’s speech/skit was priceless. He made good points using standup comedic entertainment. The Romney campaign was probably on pins and needles the whole time since he didn’t have a prepared scripted speech for them to review and approve. I liked the extemporaneous nature of it.
This nonsense about the younger generation not relating to anything the older generation has to say really irks me. Just because the body, the outer appearance, is aged looking, that doesn’t mean that the thoughts and expressions are aged and out of date. In fact they can be and often are very much of a contemporary nature. I felt like that was the case for Clint Eastwood. I still see him as Rowdy on the TV series “Rawhide” of many years ago which was essentially his debut in the acting business.
I do seem to recall that the line from the Dirty Harry series was “Go Ahead Punk, Make My Day.” The word “punk” was obviously edited from his convention version otherwise there would no doubt have been an explosion heard coming from the lib media’s booths caused by their bowels erupting in a racist charged convulsion. That would have been truly priceless. Anyone who couldn’t laugh at the Eastwood performance and were instead critical of it is obviously mentally disturbed which goes without saying for the lefties, pitiful souls that they are.
Have to confess that I felt sick when Clint supported Obama, and felt really happy to watch him acknowledge his mistake; and how the MAN did it. The years have not touched his intellect and straightforwardness. This must have really hurt the real empty suit and chair in the WH. I do not mean, hurt the guy, because Obama lacks real feelings; Clint hurt him politically and helped to wake up maybe millions. Great American American.
My first viewing of a Republican convention was on TV in 1964. I have watched each and every one since and I must say that I wish Clint Eastwood had attended and spoken at every one of those dry, boring events. But FINALLY after all these years, a convention that makes all us real people want to see the next convention! Pure comedic brilliance! Just what we needed. I note that we should have a bunch of the planners of conventions fired and get some new blood in there– This proves how stick-in-the-mud they really are! Mostly the same idiots that gave us Bob Dole and John McCain! I look for a great shake-up of the Republican Establishment after this. If Romney loses there will be no return to power of the Republican establishment because there may well be no Republican party as there will no Republicans. We are not all stupid, just the establishment seems stupid.
Makes a 3rd party really look good. Perhaps the Tea Party might replace the Republican party some day?
Thank God for Clint Eastwood — a breath of fresh air — and part of the Hollywood elite that stood up to obozo. We need more men like that. We, also, need people in Hollywood to have backbone like he does. I think Clint did a superb job in addressing obozo, the usuper. Even in his old age he’s a good actor and all the liberals who didn’t like it can sit on it.
WELL SAID !!!!!!!!!!
First I heard some negative press , that peaked my interest, found the speech. Watching it, I thought, WOW, BRILLIANT. Then I find out he winged it, no teleprompter. Started watching him back in the sixties, he’s a much bigger talent now, still my hero…Semper Fi bldg 7
I think all of the negativism, came from the fact that most of the people didn’t understand what was really going on. He was talking to Obama and was continuously being interrupted by the empty chair/president, thus all the pauses in the conversation. A great presentation.
I thought Clint knocked it out of the ball park. When he first came out, what with him being an actor, director and mayor, I thought he was very befuddled. But he knew what he was doing. Do you remember much about what George Clooney, Jessica Parker or Eva Longoria says, as they all sound the same, but Clint will be remembered forever. Way to go clint. He also should have said to the empty chair, Are you feeling lucky, punk.
I have been a HUGE fan of Clint Eastwood for years and can say with admiration, he NAILED IT! Sure the delivery was awkward at times, and yes he stammered a bit, but his message was spot on and his attempt at comedy was pretty cool. I loved the “empty chair”, reminded me of all the “empty promises” from the current fraud in the WH. Thanks Clint for being an American, for standing up for what you believe in and for standing up for US! God Bless you and God Bless the USA!!
Clint Eastwood is my hero. He had guts and I loved every single word he said especially the part where he said, ” HE CAN’T DO THAT TO HIMSELF.”
It is about time some one told BO what to do.
I thought Clint’s “speech” was spot on! So did everyone else there at the convention. They all “got it”:
The empty chair = an empty presidency.
The satirical remark about Obama’s immaculation, people crying, and then the reference to the number of people who are unemployed (something to really cry about).
Obama’s “promises” that were made during 2008 vs. the many unkept ones now.
Gitmo? The Afghanistan war “effort”? Obama the Lawyer as president (NOT a businessman), etc..
And the many priceless interactions with “the empty Obama chair”: the comedic give and take that only a skilled actor like Clint could pull off.
We all “got it”.
However, if you aren’t smart enough (unlike the brains of the Democratic Party: Mr. Biden), then Clint’s whole performance was a big head scratcher; which then led to caustic critism from the liberal press and the rest of the Democrats out there.
So are Republicans, then, that much more intellegent than Democrats (current Oval Office Occupant included)?
It would sure appear so.
Thank you, Mr. Eastwood, for telling like it is and “making our day”!