I’m a great fan of Clint Eastwood: Unforgiven; Gran Torino; Bird; Play Misty for Me; Sudden Impact; Escape from Alcatraz – all were good, as were the spaghetti westerns. The same can be said of the Dirty Harry movies. I’ll even give him a nod for The Bridges of Madison County.
But the last night of the Republican National Convention made me think he was having either a "senior moment" as Rex Reed declared several years ago when he was accused of shoplifting CDs at a Tower Records in Manhattan; or a Pee Wee Herman moment when he was caught pleasuring himself in a movie theater in South Florida; or maybe it was an Elwood P. Dowd moment when the empty chair on the stage in Tampa seemed to take the shape of a 6-foot invisible rabbit named Harvey.
Either way, the rambling, often off-point speech Eastwood made Thursday night seemed to say so much about the 2012 Republican National Convention. There Eastwood stood, talking to – and sometimes admonishing – an empty chair, not totally aware of what his own actions meant. An American icon reduced to a caricature. It was a disturbing scene, awkward in its execution, so eerie that one could not easily turn away. As Tom Brokaw tweeted: “Clint Eastwood became huge star as a man of few words As a surprise guest on the Tampa stage he had too many words.”
Even worse, Eastwood seemed to be leading tens of thousands of Republicans in a mental self-pleasuring while millions of people watched dumfounded, shocked at what they saw. Indeed – to borrow from Mike Lofgren, a former 30-year Republican staff member on Capitol Hill – the GOP looked like an “apocalyptic cult.” Forget the Kool-Aid; we’ll take the arsenic straight up, no chaser.
That was true of so much of the GOP convention. As I watched the unfolding of the coronation of Willard Mitt Romney as the Republican presidential candidate, I kept thinking of his party as a horde of petulant children. After breaking all the lamps and light bulbs in the house, they complained of the darkness and demanded that someone else pay the repair bill. The Republicans, particularly those in Congress, have spent nearly every day since Jan. 20, 2009, distorting America’s light until all that was left were shadows, a shadiness steeped in claims that President Barack Obama has been a failure, an un-American, post-colonial Kenyan Socialist.
Obama ignored an urgent report by his own 18-person debt commission, the Republicans said this week without mentioning that Rep. Paul Ryan, their vice presidential candidate, led the GOP charge to ignore that urgent report and to strike it down. Obama failed to save a GM plant in Janesville, WI, the Republicans said without mentioning that the decision to close the plant was made six months before Obama was elected. Obama is taking the work out of the welfare-to-work program, the Republicans shouted without mentioning that two Republican governors were among the five who recently sought waivers that would give each more flexibility in meeting federal work requirements.
And there were the claims that Obama had destroyed the economy, despite evidence that Obama has created more jobs in the time since the economic downturn ended than Ronald Reagan did in the same period of his presidency after the end of the economic recession of the early 1980s.
Of course, we expect a certain amount of fudging of facts in a political campaign, a certain amount of hyperbole, and a certain amount of partisanship. Political conventions are infomercials, a chance to sale the nation your candidate, to keep them from ordering the Jinsu knives or the Amway products being hustled on the other cable channels.
But this year’s GOP infomercial went beyond what we normally expect. It was peppered with outright lies and grand omissions, a floundering about in the marketplace of ideas. Racial overtones and undercurrents hovered over the Tampa Bay Times Forum. Concrete details about policies and national direction were as scarce as the number of dark-hued faces in an arena in a state where tans are ubiquitous.
Yet, that was nothing compared to the Hollywood deity who was once the Pale Rider, a gun-toting avenging preacher. He stood talking to a chair, looking not much different than Grandpa Simpson, a crotchety old man. Eastwood would have been better off if we could just chalk it all up to a “senior moment.” We can’t though. No wonder even Republicans take issue with their party. Let’s hope the Democrats do better when their turn comes up.
But the last night of the Republican National Convention made me think he was having either a "senior moment" as Rex Reed declared several years ago when he was accused of shoplifting CDs at a Tower Records in Manhattan; or a Pee Wee Herman moment when he was caught pleasuring himself in a movie theater in South Florida; or maybe it was an Elwood P. Dowd moment when the empty chair on the stage in Tampa seemed to take the shape of a 6-foot invisible rabbit named Harvey.
Either way, the rambling, often off-point speech Eastwood made Thursday night seemed to say so much about the 2012 Republican National Convention. There Eastwood stood, talking to – and sometimes admonishing – an empty chair, not totally aware of what his own actions meant. An American icon reduced to a caricature. It was a disturbing scene, awkward in its execution, so eerie that one could not easily turn away. As Tom Brokaw tweeted: “Clint Eastwood became huge star as a man of few words As a surprise guest on the Tampa stage he had too many words.”
Even worse, Eastwood seemed to be leading tens of thousands of Republicans in a mental self-pleasuring while millions of people watched dumfounded, shocked at what they saw. Indeed – to borrow from Mike Lofgren, a former 30-year Republican staff member on Capitol Hill – the GOP looked like an “apocalyptic cult.” Forget the Kool-Aid; we’ll take the arsenic straight up, no chaser.
That was true of so much of the GOP convention. As I watched the unfolding of the coronation of Willard Mitt Romney as the Republican presidential candidate, I kept thinking of his party as a horde of petulant children. After breaking all the lamps and light bulbs in the house, they complained of the darkness and demanded that someone else pay the repair bill. The Republicans, particularly those in Congress, have spent nearly every day since Jan. 20, 2009, distorting America’s light until all that was left were shadows, a shadiness steeped in claims that President Barack Obama has been a failure, an un-American, post-colonial Kenyan Socialist.
Obama ignored an urgent report by his own 18-person debt commission, the Republicans said this week without mentioning that Rep. Paul Ryan, their vice presidential candidate, led the GOP charge to ignore that urgent report and to strike it down. Obama failed to save a GM plant in Janesville, WI, the Republicans said without mentioning that the decision to close the plant was made six months before Obama was elected. Obama is taking the work out of the welfare-to-work program, the Republicans shouted without mentioning that two Republican governors were among the five who recently sought waivers that would give each more flexibility in meeting federal work requirements.
And there were the claims that Obama had destroyed the economy, despite evidence that Obama has created more jobs in the time since the economic downturn ended than Ronald Reagan did in the same period of his presidency after the end of the economic recession of the early 1980s.
Of course, we expect a certain amount of fudging of facts in a political campaign, a certain amount of hyperbole, and a certain amount of partisanship. Political conventions are infomercials, a chance to sale the nation your candidate, to keep them from ordering the Jinsu knives or the Amway products being hustled on the other cable channels.
But this year’s GOP infomercial went beyond what we normally expect. It was peppered with outright lies and grand omissions, a floundering about in the marketplace of ideas. Racial overtones and undercurrents hovered over the Tampa Bay Times Forum. Concrete details about policies and national direction were as scarce as the number of dark-hued faces in an arena in a state where tans are ubiquitous.
Yet, that was nothing compared to the Hollywood deity who was once the Pale Rider, a gun-toting avenging preacher. He stood talking to a chair, looking not much different than Grandpa Simpson, a crotchety old man. Eastwood would have been better off if we could just chalk it all up to a “senior moment.” We can’t though. No wonder even Republicans take issue with their party. Let’s hope the Democrats do better when their turn comes up.
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