Saturday, September 1, 2012
Two Thumbs Up... Way Up
I loved Clint Eastwood at the Republican National Convention. And I loved the fact that Roger Ebert didn't love it. Hey Rog, what did you think? This was a movie you thought you could review? What, we can't laugh at the guy that told us, with a straight face, that he was going to lower the level of the oceans? Seriously?! Meanwhile Eastwood is out producing, what, eight movies in the past five years? Sorry, Rog, your opinion means nada on this one. Eastwood was great, and if you didn't get it, that may say a lot about you. It doesn't say anything about Clint, or his performance at the Republican National Convention.
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What Roger is having a hard time figuring out is how Clint took it to Obama without tripping one of the many booby traps the Democrats have thrown up around him. Without raisng an eyebrow, he said in language everyone understands that Barack Hussein isn't such a nice guy, isn't such a bright guy, and whether he doesn't know what he is doing or is purposefully taking the country down the wrong road, it doesn't matter. It's time for him to go. I loved that.
ReplyDeleteI loved the fact that the chair had a teleprompter in its usual place, snap dab in front of the president. I think he used it, too. Meanwhile, Clint did the whole thing extemporaneously. The slow conversational delivery, the halting, understated style ... it wasn't an accident. It was no more an accident than any of Obama's frequent interruptions. Clint managed those just fine. You see, there was a certain amount of acting going on Rog, and if you couldn't see it, well then, I guess he pulled it off pretty well.
I've picked the chair I'm posting for Post A Chair Day tomorrow.
ReplyDelete.
Making use of the empty chair meme, union hack Lee Suanders, president of the public worker's union AFSCME, thought he'd make his own little statement. Speaking at a breakfast gathering he began:
ReplyDelete"I want you to give Clint Eastwood a round of applause. I brought him with me to learn some things, OK? To teach him, to educate him."
Saunders asked the chair questions, then joked,
"He doesn't have anything to say."
"Mitt Romney doesn't have anything to say."
"Paul Ryan doesn't have anything to say."
Suddenly, the tone changed: Saunders, finishing his speech, began to kick the chair, threw it, and yelled
"Dirty Harry, make my day! We're gonna kick ass in November!"
You're yesterday's news, Saunders. It's easy to kick an empty chair. That doesn't impress. The people are tired of paying for your Porsche. You thought Wisconsin went bad? The people aren't through tossing the likes of you out of power, and they will have their say.
We'll see you in November. Now pick the chair back up.
I've been arguing about this a lot on Facebook. I thought it was a very funny speech, and that the dithering on which they have been fixating was obviously a performance, representing his attempts to get Obama to acknowledge him. Amazing what people see that isn't there, or in this case don't see that is there, when it suits them. So now the internet is awash not only with condemnation of Clint but also phony baloney sympathy, because the speech 'proves' he has Alzheimer's, and how wicked of the Republicans to let him go on in such a state (etc).
ReplyDeleteIf he had Alzheimer's, a teleprompt would have been the first thing he had! Do they think he didn't rehearse??? Not reading it off a screen doesn't mean making it up as you go along!
As I said on FB, the obsession with bringing down Clint is because he alone on that platform has a reputation for coolness within pop culture generally, so it is essential that he is not allowed to influence any young folks into thinking for themselves.
I agree, totally. This was no accident. The people that hated it and who are so ready to spew their venom on any dissenters are the same people that think the government has not spent enough money, and if we are destablizing the economy with all the debt we are racking up, why should they care? Just tax some rich guy.
ReplyDeleteAfter both conventions were all said and done, the most memorable speech came, not from a finger-waving serial philanderer, but from a non-politician stating what we all should know: this country belongs to us. Clint is suffering from Alzheimer's? You'd have to be brain dead to believe that, which... maybe they are.
In the only interview he granted, to the Carmel Pine Cone no less, he was clear that he had done what he had hoped to do, speak plainly to the American people in a style that would contrast with the speeches of the politicos. He did that.
"President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perptrated on the American people."
And he did it in a way that was not harsh or mean, but straightforward and honest.