The Eastwood moment.
The highlight of the Republican National Convention had to be Clint Eastwood’s unscripted monologue that has quickly worked its way into a cultural phenomenon.
From Newsday:
Political conventions are TV shows, only TV shows, and the one from Tampa last night starred a silver-maned screen icon named Clint Eastwood who drifted wildly off-script, addressed an empty chair, put words in the mouth of an invisible “president” that were vaguely — no, very distinctly — scatological, rambled for 11 minutes, drove event organizers to drink and in the process totally, irrevocably heisted the entire week.
It doesn't matter what stripe your politics are, or whether you thought last night was a victory or disaster, Eastwood stole the night. He stole it with the expertise and facility of a veteran actor who knew exactly what he was doing — stealing a scene, and stealing it with utter conviction.
There is but one thing anyone will remember from this week — one thing and one thing only: The sight of Dirty Harry addressing an empty chair.
But wait! What about us? The viewer — the ones sitting at home, drifting off to sleep, wondering when we'd hear yet another speaker talk about yet another mother who had to drive 130 miles to work, while the kids at home were burning the pancakes? The ones watching Taylor Hicks and saying “I voted for THAT guy!?"
Instead, we got Clint and it was electrifying — a glorious, bizarre, fun, wild, weird, kooky, incendiary moment that threatened to throw the entire convention into a complete tailspin — and just before the nominee spoke.
Eastwood took the scripted convention off script and stole the show in doing so. He did through ridicule what no one else had been able to do. Today even the most apolitical know that Obama is an empty suit.
Saul Alinsky wrote that ridicule is the most powerful weapon. Eastwood mocked Obama. In fact, the mocking was so bad; team Obama felt the need to respond via Twitter today. The fact they had to respond shows they know how bad it was. The media tried to portray Eastwood as some nutty old actor, rambling incoherently all over the place. That meme is failing so badly it is being dropped. The media is going to try and make everyone forget about what Clint Eastwood did.
That probably won’t happen.
Last night was so bad Obama’s team had to respond. They did so and that is not a good sign for them.
But I bet it made Clint Eastwood’s day.
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