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The Corner NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE
Like William F. Gavin, I hugely enjoyed Clint Eastwood’s turn last night, but I’m not sure I agree that it was “unintentionally hilarious” and that “he forgot his lines, lost his way.” Clint is a brilliant actor, and a superb director of other actors (and I don’t just mean a quarter-century ago: In the last five years, he’s directed eight films). He’s also, as Mr. Gavin observed, a terrific jazz improviser at the piano — and, in film and music documentaries, an extremely articulate interviewee. So I wouldn’t assume that the general tenor of his performance wasn’t exactly as he intended. The hair was a clue: No Hollywood icon goes out on stage like that unless he means to.
John Hayward writes:
The intended recipient was not Mitt Romney, the convention delegates, or even Republican voters, but rather wavering independents. Clint was there to tell them it’s OK to find Obama, his ugly campaign operation, and his increasingly shrill band of die-hard defenders ridiculous. It’s OK to laugh at them.
I’m not sure he could have pulled that off if he’d delivered a slick telepromptered pitch. As Mr. Hayward suggests, the hard lines packed more of a punch for being delivered in the midst of a Bob Newhart empty-chair shtick from the Dean Martin show circa 1968. Indeed, they were some of the hardest lines of the convention and may well prove the take-home (“We own this country . . . Politicians are employees of ours . . . And when somebody does not do the job, we’ve got to let them go”), but they seemed more effective for appearing to emerge extemporaneously from the general shambles.
The curse of political operatives is that they make everything the same. A guy smoothly reading platitudinous codswallop while rotating his head from the left-hand teleprompter to the right-hand teleprompter like clockwork as if he’s at Centre Court watching the world’s slowest Wimbledon rally is a very reductive idea of “professionalism.” Even politicians you’re well disposed to come across as slick bores in that format. Which is by way of saying Clint is too sharp and too crafty not to have known what he was doing.
Oh, and next time ’round, he should sing.
Incidentally, I’m not generally in favor of what Rob Long would call “working blue,” but, if you’re going to do it, doing anatomically impossible sex-act cross-talk with an invisible presidential straight-man in front of the Republican Convention is definitely the way to go.
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COMMENTS:
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The Lefties were very disturbed by Eastwood’s improv, which is a good sign that it worked and even got to them, as well. The just retired publisher of an upstate newspaper around my parts said that it was disrespectful to Obama. I think that Eastwood’s point was that Obama had literally tried to shut people up, with real live threats against his critics, and that he, Eastwood, had certainly noticed. The improv performance itself was quite sophisticated, not incoherent at all, though Eastwood’s delivery was at moments halting. He managed to get the real Obama in that empty chair, and that was brilliant.
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Hayward writes “There are people who await cultural and social permission to express their dissatisfaction with Obama.”
Was I not saying this months and months ago? I am really encouraged to see that attention is being paid to the psychological aspects of communications strategy. The more we read between the lines of stuff that gets said and who says it, the more apparent it is that some people have their thinking caps on.
BTW this permission/expression angle may also explain certain polling mysteries.
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I can only attribute this reticence to the (valid) fear of being labelled a “racist” by one of our self-parodying friends on the other side.
Chuckles the Clown, our brave and brilliant newsletter editor in chief, truly provides a target rich environment for mockery
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Before they even picked Obama as The One to run for president, the movers and shakers on the other side concocted the reticence strategy. Race would not only place him in office, it would become the psychological wall protecting his second term from those with second thoughts. They calculated we wouldn’t be able to get any messages under, over, around or through it. They sent their journalists forth to redefine the word racism to encompass nearly every possible thought one could express about anything, thus heightening fear: one never knows when one has committed a thoughtcrime. But they did forget that it is possible to go over the top in using this defense and thus make themselves a laughingstock. They also forgot the disarming power of laughter in general.
Tear down this wall and take home the parts with the best graffiti as souvenirs.
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dicentra 1 day agothey seemed more effective for appearing to emerge extemporaneously from the general shambles.
AKA the Lt. Columbo ploy. Always make ’em underestimate ya.
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Any convention can find some politician to read a speech from the teleprompter. In fact, that’s convention[al] wisdom.
What are non-political people talking about today? Eastwood. He’s a highly respected actor who just mocked Obama. I believe that single act will do more to unleash and free the independents and fence-sitters to vote for Romney than anything Romney or Ryan can do between now and November.
The key is that he didn’t mock Obama maliciously; rather, he poked fun at him. He had fun at Obama’s expense. He went where Leno, Letterman, Stewart, O’Brien and all the other so-called funnymen hadn’t dare go before. That’s huge.
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Watching the great Clint Eastwood last night, my husband and I thought him hilarious.
I also think his messy cowlick was intentional, Mark. He knew exactly what he was doing, who he was ticking off…and the sheer beauty of this is he does not care. It was brilliant.
I also, now that I have had time to connect it, realized he was being Jimmy Stewart to Harvey, the invisible rabbit. Many similarities in timing and delivery.
Regardless, I simply loved it, as Dear Leader is an empty suit or chair. I consider things working well when the liberals are in full hysteria from their thin-skin being chaffed.
Have never loved a convention before. Have never loved a balanced ticket like this before.
We can do this!
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I totally agree his hair was styled the way he wanted it and was a dead giveaway he was doing a schtick. He even scratched his head to give an additional clue.
The Libs do not have a sense of humor and Clint proved his point plus got in some great jabs at The One and his Vice-Idiot but the Libs can’t relate to the BFD.
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Speaking of “reductive” . . . . what about a panel of four or five to discuss the codswallop as if there really were a need to gauge the accurate level of “humanizing” with the precision of a nuclear physicist? Maybe Eastwood’s routine pushed beyond NPR’s style guide for muted chuckles that are to be sparingly deployed in acknowledging especially well-placed humor.
But aside from that, how concerned should Eastwood be that a group of panelists paid to import meaning into every well-honed genuflection in an expressly political arena were unable to recognize a performance?
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This. As usual, Steyn sees and understands what others merely fail to see.
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vonryansexpress 1 day agoAgreed. And, as I’ve offered today here on NRO in comment to the Nordlinger piece:
“He was the Director at the pre-production meeting musing on the days ahead.”When one sits at the Mission Ranch in Carmel and listens to Eastwood’s friend and music collaborator Gennady play the piano, you understand how the ‘let it flow’ works for Eastwood creatively–he’s given to the improv and the goal worked together–you can arrange the two and have impressions made.
In essence, Eastwood plans his spontaneity.
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Clint’s speech was fun, infinitely more enjoyable than Romney’s constipated performance.
You could argue he made Obama the invisible straight man in a self-depreciating comedy act. Obama gets a little depreciated too.
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That’s twice now: It’s “self-deprecating”, not “self-depreciating”. Go forth and do likewise.
ABYSSUS ABYSSUM INVOCAT / DEEP CALLS TO DEEP 
The fact that so many folks are still commenting and speculating about that wonderful presentation is testimony to the genius of what Eastwood did and how he did it.
EASTWOOD;;;; REMINISCENT OF COLUMBO!! SCATTERBRAINED, LOSING HIS WAY, LESS THAN TOTALLY ARTICULATE, HALTING … LIKE A FOX!!!!!! SETTING THEM UP FOR THE POUNCE!