"Go Hope Yourself"
“We own this country… Politicians are employees of ours…
And when somebody does not do the job,
….. we’ve got to let them go”
Posted on 09/03/2012 2:38:13 AM PDT by Kaslin
Theater review on Townhall Finance? Hey, it’s a holiday. Anyway, bizarre deviations from the script are cool! Just ask Clint Eastwood.
Old, new, and social media are abuzz deconstructing Eastwood’s performance at the Republican Convention.
Brilliant? Senile? Disastrous?
The right answer is it was a triumph, a gutsy one. In immediate impact, substance, lingering effect, and the personal risk of the messenger, it was a unique accomplishment that has already added a new meme to the campaign: The empty chair.
Let’s dispense with the spin that it was a painful moment where an aging icon lost his way and drooled on television. Yeah, no.
The president of the United States does not roust himself at 11:30 pm to tweet snappy rebuttals to pathetic, little embarrassments. Nor does the national media go bonkers, with thousands of articles and blog posts--dozens just between the Washington Post and the New York Times.
Eastwood’s skewering so vexed the president and his media guard that they couldn’t decide whether to squeal like pigs or pretend to mourn a fading star. In 11 captivating and unpredictable minutes, Eastwood’s skit injected these themes into popular consciousness:
• Obama’s presidency is like an empty chair.
• His ascension was a sort of celebrity-whipped party, presided over by a crying Oprah.
• Our tears really should instead be shed for 23 million unemployed Americans.
• Obama’s not helping. It’s time for someone with better solutions.
• He made so many promises. How does he answer people for them?
• Obama’s unseriousness on security is evident in things like proposing to try terrorists in civilian court in New York City; announcing in advance the withdraw safe date for the Afghan jihadis who are waiting us out; and pandering to Russia in charting our plans.
• Democrat “intellect” Joe Biden is a grinning buffoon.
• The contrast is stark between Obama’s lofty pronouncements, and his high-carbon, jet-setting, campus-pandering, campaigning style of “governing.”
• The empty chair’s protests telling Clint to shut up, and telling him and Romney respectively to do physically impossible things to themselves were funny rebukes to the “likeable” picture of Obama the media protects like the Mona Lisa. He’s not nice. He’s a Chicago pol with Nixon’s list and Madame DeFarge’s scarf.
Clint painted that humorously and with more candor than any reporter has in four years. With the reminder that Obama’s attack ads show he’s not such a nice guy, this was a naked-emperor moment that might break through.
Eastwood’s simple conclusion spoke plainly: This is a great country. The people are in charge. Politicians are our employees. He’s not doing the job. We gotta let him go, not hang onto him for sentimental reasons.
Ask any politico or speech writer to stuff that into 11 minutes and you’ll get a stiff political speech. Eastwood delivered it as if over the dinner table. Instant reaction suggested it must have been ad-libbed. No way. There were too many funny punch lines that drew political blood. They were carefully developed.
Pundits suggest Clint was halting and lost his way. Maybe. But every time it seemed like that, he’d sharpen up and put a knife in Obama’s soft spots. If he was doddering, he chose his lucid moments shrewdly.
It was a non-speech for an unpolitical audience. It was aimed past the delegates, into living rooms, and probably beyond, at social media and YouTube where it’s getting millions of views. For a generation that boasts of ignoring politics and getting news from the Daily Show, that’s a good thing.
Some say the skit distracted from Romney. But those tuned in still got Romney’s speech and message. It’s more likely that Eastwood brought many additional eyes to the campaign, that night, and still as the online hits tally up.
Besides, Romney was likely to get a modicum of coverage, and a planned counter punch, in the same vein as the media’s instant, dishonest Ryan-lied meme. If the attacks that would have rained down on Romney were diverted to an icon’s endorsement of Romney, that’s a plus.
About that stammering, strolling delivery. Was it an act to draw us in and provoke the buzz that resulted, or was it the unvarnished Eastwood at 82? If the former, Clint is laughing. If the latter, he’s probably still laughing. But others ought to slump in shame.
How dare someone like Roger Ebert, whose own struggles and appearance remind us life deals hard chapters to anyone, tell Clint Eastwood he should stay quiet? That’s not how he’d react to Kirk Douglas’s thick-tongued Academy valedictory.
I’m sure Eastwood doesn’t care. He either played exactly the role he wanted, or he just laid it out as he is. Either way, he was there to tell America we need more and better. Romney is the choice to change our direction.
He succeeded famously.
Judge for yourself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoqKdWY692k&feature=youtu.be
Clint Eastwood has more class in one strand of his gray hair than the entire obama administration and the leftstream press put together.
You’ll see how truely pathetic the obammy klan is when they leave the White House in disarray and a mess. making the Clinton fools look like saints
Today is National Empty Chair Day. I got up at 6am to put out my chair, right across the driveway from my neighbor who works for CNN.
Clint Eastwood “made my day”.
"Go Hope Yourself"
“We own this country… Politicians are employees of ours…
And when somebody does not do the job,
….. we’ve got to let them go”
For the life of me, I cannot figure out why everyone thinks Clint's presentation was marred by what they perceive to be an age infirmity.
It was a perfect imitation of Jimmy Stewart's stuttering delivery in the movie Harvey!
And a comic genius I actually never expected to be displayed by someone who is usually considered an 'action hero'.
I also thought it was a parody of Obama’s stammering style.
For the life of me, I cannot figure out why everyone thinks Clint's presentation was marred by what they perceive to be an age infirmity.
Everyone???
Yes if you referring to the MSM/DEMS (but I repeat myself ) that IMMEDIATELY attacked Eastwood's delivery as indicative of an age infirmary. Remember the adage one only receives much flack when over target.
The MSM/DEMS desperately have to misdirect the viewing/reading audience from the subject of Clint's message. The MSM presented ridicule, scorn, indignation accomplishes that intention of misdirection.
Heaven forbid that the audience ruminate on the concept, the realization that Obama isn't doing the job and has to be let go.
I think the Stammering, strolling delivery mocked 0bama’s stammering/strolling delivery whenever TOTUS brakes down, or 0bama falls behind TOTUS and loses his place
Not sure if we have seen the last of Eastwood. He may work even harder for Romney after what the media did to him.
The empty chair is backwards not forward. The media has been an empty chair too.
The powerful image of the empty chair,
and a resounding “we own this country”.
These two things will survive.
These messages got through the noise,
into our common memory.
Much has been said about the style.
It was intentional. This is an expert.
Not his first day.
The use of silence made us perk up and listen, and made us
a little uncomfortable. Silence is terrifying in these venues,
both for the speaker, and the audience. He used that.
The tension was relieved in laugh out loud remarks.
How often does that happen in pol speeches?
Laughed out loud, we did.
Eastwood had to deal with the genuine “phoniness” issue as an actor. Had to convince the people he was not just acting, not playing a role.
He nailed that by not being slick and polished, by having the guts to let the silent moments hang a little too long, by not delivering lines in a practiced, rote manner.
It came across as an unrehearsed, unguarded, honest conversation between friends in a small room.
The result?
Not one person has questioned his sincerity.
The unanimity on this is remarkable.
He meant what he said.
Came to us as if from an old friend.
Finally,a third thing on the directed message.
Time to consider, just maybe, we have to let the guy go for not doing the job.
No hate, bigotry, ideology there, just plain common sense.
These thoughts resonate to real folks still on the fence, the only folks we need to speak to.
***********
I believe that this will become a standard for “great speech”, that the future common refrain will be to compare speeches to this, because of the effect it will have in the long run.
“needs more Eastwood”
It was a great speech, a great moment.
The thing is, as part of a family dealing with long term unemployment in our area, I felt like he really gave a damn.
I can’t say that about any of the rest. Our side or theirs.
Most everyone. Even here, I've seen FReepers call the performance painful and doddering.
Maybe I'm just not accounting for the cultural gap caused by the age differences. Folks my age and older [like Clint] INSTANTLY recognize Jimmy Stewart's style.
It's a lot like someone saying the word 'Satchmo'. How many younger people know they're talking about Louis Armstrong?
Because certain concepts were common then doesn't mean they're common now. Maybe I just don't always consider that.
“Pundits suggest Clint was halting and lost his way. Maybe. But every time it seemed like that, he’d sharpen up and put a knife in Obama’s soft spots. If he was doddering, he chose his lucid moments shrewdly”
It struck me pretty quickly that Clint was channeling Jimmy Stewart and doing a helluva good Elwood P. Dowd.
The short bit by Clint Eastwood will prove a pivotal moment in the election—the sort of “Mad as Hell and not going to take it anymore” moment that will pull Obama from the White House. He may not have known it, but Eastwood started a fire that will reform the nation. watch as the Democrats try to duplicate’s the bit in their convention—it will not work because his was based on truth.
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