How Awesome Was Clint Eastwood?

Posted on | August 31, 2012 | 60 Comments

TAMPA, Florida
Evil Blogger Lady quotes Clint’s best line:

“Of course we know Biden is the intellectual of the Democratic Party…” That alone was worth the price of admission!

Members of what Andrew Breitbart liked to call the Democrat-Media Complex are all over the ‘Net today going on about Eastwood’s “Bizarre, Rambling Speech to Empty Chair,” as Benjy Sarlin of Talking Points Memo describes it. But these are liberals: People who think a crude buffoon like Bill Maher is hilarious, and who think of Janeane Garofalo as a brilliant comedienne. Are we going to let people like that tell us what is or is not funny?

The best analysis of Eastwood’s routine was Romney adviser Eric Ferhnstrom’s quote to Byron York: “It’s improv” — and the important thing is, it worked, both as a comedic performance and in terms of its political purpose in the closing-night schedule at the Republican National Committee. It was a low-key, offbeat, humorous moment that provided a sort of relaxing breather before the emotional excitement of Marco Rubio’s speech and the big drama of Mitt’s acceptance speech. Here’s the video:

Description at the video:

Rachel Maddow was at a loss for words on Thursday after Clint Eastwood finished what was largely considered a bizarre and awkward GOP convention appearance.
“I don’t — I don’t — I don’t know what was going on there,” Maddow said, seemingly tongue-tied. “Clint Eastwood is 82 years old and I think that — I don’t know if that’s what was going on there.”

Maddow “at a loss for words”? Winning!

UPDATE: John Nolte: “Newsflash: Obama can’t take a joke. But we already knew that.”

Comments

60 Responses to “How Awesome Was Clint Eastwood?”

King Shamus
August 31st, 2012 @ 1:38 pm

While all the Left can do is cry over Eastwood’s speech, Mitt Romney comes out smelling like a rose.

Clint’s speech worked better than anyone could’ve imagined. Brilliant.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
August 31st, 2012 @ 1:49 pm

Thanks for the linkage!
jlwellfonder
August 31st, 2012 @ 1:53 pm

It was fanfreakintastic, he was cracking me up!
Eastwood Made Our Day « Jackie Wellfonder – Raging Against the Rhetoric
August 31st, 2012 @ 2:00 pm

[…] The Other McCain Share this:EmailTwitterFacebookPrintTumblrMoreRedditLinkedInStumbleUponDiggPinterestLike […]
section9
August 31st, 2012 @ 2:04 pm

This was, bar none, the most effective application of Uncle Saul Alinsky’s Rule #5 in Campaign History:

5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.
It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition,
which then reacts to your advantage.”

These 12 minutes by an 82 year old actor, deftly using Bob Newhart’s Empty Chair sketch and some of Foster Brooks’ stuff from the early Seventies’ Roasts, were some of the most devastating takedowns of His Oneness ever put to the small screen. This was just as brutal, if not more so, than Tina Fey’s riff on Palin, which is why the Left can’t take this. They can’t take Rule #5 when applied to them.

The White House’s reaction was telling. Instead of ignoring what Eastwood did, they posted a picture of the back of the President’s Cabinet Room chair with him in it with a subscript post that said, “This seat’s taken.”
CitizenEgg
August 31st, 2012 @ 2:11 pm

Clint draws their fire and ire and illustrates perfectly how thin skinned and protective the Democrat-Media Complex are. Also how whiny and humor challenged. Yay Clint and a good solid speech from Romney. Real emotions and a genuine desire to help America and all Americans.
David Lentz
August 31st, 2012 @ 2:15 pm

Clint Eastwood is eighty-two but he also world class actor, writer, and director. Eastwood may have improved his make my day close, but every thing else Clint did was to set=-up devasting one liners. Eastwood is a director, and he directed his barba at Obama via the character of doddling old man.
So what is the world record for pull quotes in ten minute speech? Don’t bother to ask Joe Biden.
Mr. Eastwood Examines the Polling Data | hogewash
August 31st, 2012 @ 2:18 pm

[…] Evil Blogger Lady has more analysis by Mr. Eastwood here. (H/T, Stacy McCain) Share this:TwitterFacebookLinkedInEmailPrintLike this:LikeBe the first to like this. This entry […]
Adjoran
August 31st, 2012 @ 2:26 pm

And O’s chair has a brass nameplate engraved with his inauguration date like the cornerstone of a building. What a huge, bloated ego for someone who never accomplished anything!

And is it just coincidence that the most effective rules are always #5?
Mark Mays
August 31st, 2012 @ 2:42 pm

Uhm, no, not this time. “Liberals” love Eastwood as much as anyone. No one is angered by Eastwood’s stunt. Most of us just feel bad for him and the way he stammered through the adlib. That people are running with this on social media cannot possibly be surprising to anyone, especially the hired guns running the campaign. It was a high risk gamble, and if it failed, it would be catastrophic, and so it has been.
Charles
August 31st, 2012 @ 2:56 pm

He won over all the ladies in my mother’s bridge club.
K-Bob
August 31st, 2012 @ 3:18 pm

“Social Media”

No other comment necessary.
K-Bob
August 31st, 2012 @ 3:24 pm

Eastwood was a hoot.

I think it’s funny that Rassmussen decided to let us know that conventions don’t really matter. …To the general public.

Why he needed a poll for that is the real question.

If you ask people if they care or are concerned or are “guided by” the design process of traffic signals, they’d probably say the same sorts of things: “no,” “no,” and “what?”

This was the best convention I can remember since Kennedy’s acceptance speech. Does the public in general care? No. But it definitely matters.
Nobody On Team Romney Taking Credit, or Blame, For The Eastwood Fiasco
August 31st, 2012 @ 3:27 pm

[…] that the Eastwood appearance was pure brilliance (see the posts by Peter Ingemi, Ed Morrissey, and Robert Stacey McCain for examples of that) but, the Washington Examiner’s Byron York hits the nail on the head […]
US political campaigns of the desperate and stupid — mooseandsquirrel.ca
August 31st, 2012 @ 3:44 pm

[…] C) Maddow was left speechless… by lines like this apparently: “Of course we know Biden is the intellectual of the Democratic […]
Anamika
August 31st, 2012 @ 3:58 pm

The RNC-Eastwood moment was an embarrassment by any standard. I understand your need to defend it.
section9
August 31st, 2012 @ 4:04 pm

To be fair, all Presidents get that engraved nameplate.
section9
August 31st, 2012 @ 4:05 pm

Your bullsh*t rationalizations sell only to yourself. Sorry, no sale. The MSM is in a panic for a reason.
rjacobse
August 31st, 2012 @ 4:06 pm

And we all know how much everyone here values your insights. About this much: .
Anamika
August 31st, 2012 @ 4:20 pm

I pity you if y’all don’t think McCain is overdoing his part in defending the undefendable.
Mark Mays
August 31st, 2012 @ 4:25 pm

If you hadn’t noticed 1) most people get their news this way 2) that’s all traditional news outlets have been referencing is social media 3) Every campaign has a social media person working full-time. Scoffing at social media only means you’re woefully out of touch and couldn’t possibly last in modern politics
Aidan
August 31st, 2012 @ 4:30 pm

Nobody thinks Janeane Garofalo is a brilliant comedienne.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
August 31st, 2012 @ 4:36 pm

I pity that you are you Anamika.
Rose
August 31st, 2012 @ 4:51 pm

It was funny. Every line a zinger. And he was VERY charming! – when the lady yelled “Make My Day” and he said “I don’t say that word any more…” then he smiles – as if just for her, ‘Well, maybe one last time.”

It weren’t no run-o’-the-mill political speech, that’s for sure. Made me laugh. Not cringe, Well, ok, maybe wince. LOL But I can see why the left is howling.
Steve in TN
August 31st, 2012 @ 4:53 pm

“This seat’s taken.” By an empty suit…
rosalie
August 31st, 2012 @ 5:06 pm

When you mentioned “defending the undefendable”, I immediately thought of O.
Adjoran
August 31st, 2012 @ 5:13 pm

Is there a danger someone is going to sit in their chair?
Adjoran
August 31st, 2012 @ 5:16 pm

Keep telling yourself that over and over, snookums. And wash it down with a handful of pills.
Adjoran
August 31st, 2012 @ 5:16 pm

Yes, how dare he speak up for freedom and decency!
Adjoran
August 31st, 2012 @ 5:17 pm

Hey, ya gotta admit that makeup is hilarious.
K-Bob
August 31st, 2012 @ 5:19 pm

You are not even “in touch” if you believe social media has more reach than Wall Street Journal online, Drudge Report and a few other news sites.

Social media is the backchannel for chattering about what people find at the news aggregation sites.

Nobody is spending billions of dollars to make twitter the “News source of record”. Nor Facebook.

They are spending that much to lure you into reading the crap spewed at the New York Times and Washington Post websites.
gunsmithkat
August 31st, 2012 @ 5:19 pm

Perhaps one of Clint’s greatest performances. Definitely out of the park. And to judge by the reaction of the Left, possibly the best snark ever laid on at a Party Convention.
McGehee
August 31st, 2012 @ 5:26 pm

They certainly don’t want Uncle Choo-Choo sitting in it. Depends® only do so much.
Wombat_socho
August 31st, 2012 @ 6:08 pm

And unlike the college kids obsessively hitting F5 on Facebook, they’re the kind of folks who show up regularly at the po9lls.
K-Bob
August 31st, 2012 @ 6:25 pm

Let’s examine this further, so folks can understand what’s going on…

“Social Media” is a colloquialism that doesn’t really signify anything in particular. It doesn’t really mean “Obama’s Facebook Page” or “Brad Pitt’s followers on Twitter.” What it means is “all the places people communicate with each other.” I was about to add “online” to the end of that phrase, but that’s misleading. People don’t really think of packet cellular networks as “online” as much as they do “the Internet.” However, a lot of social media involves people texting and using Apps on their iPhone and Android platforms, for example. And of course, people still use good, old email more than any other messaging medium. (In places like India and Indonesia, where keeping fiber optic and copper lines safe from predation is horrifically expensive, packet cellular and satellite link is the way to go, and folks there tend to leapfrog the rest of us by using, say, Facebook more than anything else as their main messaging medium).

Now even while Facebook itself is the number one site in terms of traffic, and email is used even more than Facebook, what is really happening is that people use those sites to communicate with each other. In general, folks don’t check their Facebook page to see what’s going on in the world, they check it to see who’s sent a message. There are Facebook apps that help you aggregate news, but they are simply shortcuts for getting to the news sites themselves to read about it. So “social media” is really just polyglot for “internetworked messaging system,” just like email is, and telephones are.

But “news” comes from reporters, and increasingly, bloggers. In other words, people who go where you have to go to get the story. So to “get your news” you really do have to get it from a news site or blog. Or the TeeVee, or a newspaper.
K-Bob
August 31st, 2012 @ 6:33 pm

Crap. One other thing, while I’m being a boring, network-geek pedant:

Notice that the “social Media” is abuzz over Clint Eastwood’s appearance on TV, not over what we’re banging our digits about here.
Mark Mays
August 31st, 2012 @ 6:57 pm

The metrics are out there for you to investigate. But seriously, you compared WSJ Online to social media? Facebook, for example, has 500 million users who use it daily. There are twice that many accounts. Most of those 500 million live in the US. Compare that with how many hits the WSJ gets in a day. Most of the people who are at all interested in whatever story was in the WSJ that day have already seen three versions of from other news sources it from their friends on Facebook or Twitter.

So what you call “back chattering” is actually the crowd deciding what topics are important. The water cooler is now online. People aren’t interested in what Drudge thinks is important anymore. This is not ’96. Drudge is niche now. He doesn’t have ANY influence on news stories anymore. What do you think news editors look to first to see what people are interested in, Drudge, the WSJ opinion page, or Twitter’s trending topics sidebar?

When a “newsy” topic starts trending in Twitter, you know that is what everyone is talking about, that is what is going to be one of the top five stories on your six o’clock show.

Now, read carefully and don’t argue against something I haven’t said: NO ONE is saying social media are going to “replace” news outlets. I never even
There is a new paradigm on how news travels. The old phrase news travels fast has a new meaning.
Mark Mays
August 31st, 2012 @ 6:57 pm

The metrics are out there for you to investigate. But seriously, you compared WSJ Online to social media? Facebook, for example, has 500 million users who use it daily. There are twice that many accounts. Most of those 500 million live in the US. Compare that with how many hits the WSJ gets in a day. Most of the people who are at all interested in whatever story was in the WSJ that day have already seen three versions of from other news sources it from their friends on Facebook or Twitter.

So what you call “back chattering” is actually the crowd deciding what topics are important. The water cooler is now online. People aren’t interested in what Drudge thinks is important anymore. This is not ’96. Drudge is niche now. He doesn’t have ANY influence on news stories anymore. What do you think news editors look to first to see what people are interested in, Drudge, the WSJ opinion page, or Twitter’s trending topics sidebar?

When a “newsy” topic starts trending in Twitter, you know that is what everyone is talking about, that is what is going to be one of the top five stories on your six o’clock show.

Now, read carefully and don’t argue against something I haven’t said: NO ONE is saying social media are going to “replace” news outlets. I never even suggested it might. However, you are correct, traditional news outlets are trying to draw in eyeballs. HOWEVER these outlets, even Drudge, even the WSJ are dying to know what people want to read about and they are using social media to do it.

@section9: your “paniced” MSM is just as imaginary as Eastwood’s conversation partner last night.
MM
August 31st, 2012 @ 7:02 pm

Watching the talking heads on Fox News with Bret Baier, and my friend and I are shaking our heads at how clueless and tone deaf all of them are, including the conservatives. Clint Eastwood was a gift – low key delivery, bittersweet moment as we all realized how old he is. But he gave permission to a lot of folks to fire Obama. His satire with the empty chair with the teleprompter was brilliant, reinforced today when Obama was forced to scamper after Romney to New Orleans (leading from behind, you see). It has gone viral, with people posting empty chairs on Instagram and Twitter. How ANYONE can see this as a failure is beyond me, which is why I read the internet to see what is going on in the real world, not on a news set.
Bob Belvedere
August 31st, 2012 @ 7:20 pm

In the longer term, what will be remembered are the one-liners by Mr. Eastwood and that’s all that matters. I bet bumper stickers and t-shirts are already rolling off the presses.
People will forget the cringe-inducing stammers and the uneveness of his delivery, especially because so many people have a great affection for the man [as a man].
Shawn Gillogly
August 31st, 2012 @ 7:26 pm

If “Social Media” didn’t understand Clint Eastwood’s routine, @InvisibleObama would not have 55,500+ followers in less than 24hrs.
Bob Belvedere
August 31st, 2012 @ 7:40 pm

If Mark Steyn is right [and he usually is] then shame on me for not getting it.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/315658/play-clinty-me-mark-steyn

Our Steyn is an awesome Steyn.
K-Bob
August 31st, 2012 @ 7:47 pm

You have it exactly backwards. Someone has to uncover the news. That someone is usually a reporter, or a blogger who is on the scene. THAT is what gets tweeted and trended, not the crap people come up with on their own (except for stupid stuff people say that gets re-tweeted, which clearly isn’t news). You are making the classic sophomore mistake of thinking “the medium is the message,” (which is a stupid concept from the sixties that only worked when a small group of suits controlled the nightly news). Facebook is like email. Nobody says “We’re going to make this go viral with an email campaign” anymore. They just use “social media” as the term instead. But it’s really the same thing: canned messages. Big freaking deal.

But in terms of news, that’s not nearly as powerful as the traffic at news sites, and big aggregators like huffpo, townhall, and mediaite. The twitter stuff shows trends, sure, but a trend doesn’t just “happen” from nothing, it has to be ABOUT something. That something is what we call “news”. The news has to exist first.

New paradigm? Yeah, that paradigm is as old as gossip. All we have that’s different is technology to push it faster, and track it. It’s not new anymore.

Well, maybe to you.
richard mcenroe
August 31st, 2012 @ 8:10 pm

Of course you realize the Left will top this by inviting Jason Biggs to their convention to do ten minutes of jokes about Paul Ryan’s wife’s ***hole…
Zilla of the Resistance
August 31st, 2012 @ 8:16 pm

Stacy just called me a little while ago and he needs prayers and help!
http://marezilla.com/2012/08/blogger-in-crisis-900-miles-from-home-robert-stacy-mccain-needs-help-tcot/
PGlenn
August 31st, 2012 @ 8:31 pm

K Bob, enjoyed reading your analysis. ALL of it was informative, including up to the last bit on “internetworked messaging system.”But, just in case you hadn’t noticed, you’ve tuned Mark Mays into a bloody pulp of goo.
richard mcenroe
August 31st, 2012 @ 8:32 pm

It’s the debate you can’t wait to see…. http://tinyurl.com/9fq5rbs
richard mcenroe
August 31st, 2012 @ 8:51 pm

Per Zilla, Stacy’s in trouble on the road again… nblo.gs/BCtLT
chuck coffer
August 31st, 2012 @ 8:55 pm

Yeah. Your “love” of Clint Eastwood inspired you to shit all over him in this blog.

Leftists are the scum of this earth. I guess you freaks find a certain solace in that. Nowhere to fall from the gutter after all.
Blogger in Crisis 900 Miles From Home – Robert Stacy McCain Needs Help! #TCOT | Zilla of the Resistance at MareZilla.com
August 31st, 2012 @ 10:35 pm

[…] at The American Spectator, which is awesome, and his latest blog posts, on the RNC Convention and Clint Eastwood’s magnificent speech, which are also totally awesome at The Other McCain, and pray for his safe return […]