Clint’s complaining about Gitmo not being closed. Crowd goes wild. But it wasn’t closed under Bush.
Clint’s complaining about Obama wanting to stay in Afghanistan and how big a mistake that was. Crowd goes wild. And no one remembers who STARTED the war in Afghanistan.
Um…that’s about it, substantively. There was a small piece about 23 million unemployed people and a small piece about Obama driving a gas guzzler, but those two points seemed to be the only thing in an 11 minute speech he was upset about. What a weird thing that was.
Given that essentially every non-white in the party who has won election to a post as significant as, say, the mayoralty of Saratoga Springs, Utah, was trotted out before the camera, irrespective of any actual accomplishments, and that those people constitute virtually the entire list even at that, then yes.
Not that they aren’t using the party as much as the party’s using them, of course. Declaring membership in a party desperate to show them off, with the ensuing political pandering, is a great career move for each of them.
In fact it was opened under Bush. And it sounds to me like he is criticizing Obama for not keeping a promise but he’s seems to think Gitmo should remain open. The critique of Afghanistan makes much less sense.
I’m listening to the Clint thing now, and I’m thinking this would have gone over pretty well if he’d just started by saying “I’d like to do a scene from ‘Oh My God What the Fuck is Grandpa Talking About?’ by Vincent Gallo.”
Unfortunately, their idea of reaching out to minorities is much like their idea of reaching out to Democrats. They want them to become more like good conservatives, rather than the GOP adopting any of the issues that are important to minorities.
What a mess. Totally disorganized and unprepared, many of the critiques make little sense and others make none, he seemed to forget when the war in Afghanistan started and people in the crowd couldn’t tell if he was fer Gitmo or agin it (fer, with a criticism of Obama for failing to close it), there was no sensible reason to use the chair at all. Jeez. It was distracting even though the pretend "Go fuck yourself"s were amusing. And all that after the Republicans went out of their way to hype the speech by keeping Eastwood’s participation a secret.
It’s good that the President waded in, because Clint essentially highjacked the night, and sucked all the air out of the room. Other than his wife, Romney’s “supporters” basically delivered campaign speechs for their own Presidential candiacy. So Romney seemed defeated before he started.
Overall I find the GOP to be as empty as the chair. Romney didn’t give us anything new or substantive. Even the CNN focus group of undecideds said roughly the same thing.
Sorry–I meant that when Michael Steele was made chair of the RNC, he was an obvious token minority, who proved to be a little less malleable than the Pubbie bosses liked, so they canned his ass. Honestly, when Michael Steele is outside your parameters of what a totally safe milk-hearted black man looks like, you don’t have a lot of room inside your tent for people of color.
We were out last night, so didn’t hear any of this, but reading the highlights of Romney’s speech this morning, it’s clear as a bell who to vote for. Couching things like vouchers, tax cuts for the rich, and deregulation of industry and pollution controls in pretty language doesn’t fool anybody.
Steele wasn’t in charge in 2008. He announced a run for chairman of the RNC in November 2008, won, and became chairman in January 2009. He was on The Daily Show last night taking credit for Republican gains in Congress and in lower levels in the 2010 midterms, but as I remember it preferred Republican establishment candidates to the Tea Party candidates, and when the Tea Party candidates won and helped the party take control of the House, he was pretty much doomed.
I haven’t watched any of the Republican Convention, but read about Eastwood’s performance and parts of his speech.
Interesting that the Republicans have always bitched and moaned and made fun of the Democrats for going “Hollywood” anytime one of the 1000’s of celebrity Democrats appear at any fundraiser, but suddenly yanking up Eastwood on stage to stump for Mitt is not only OK, it is a badge of honor.
Wonder why they didn’t yank up their other star-power; George W. Bush and Sarah Palin?
George Bush wasn’t invited to the RNC
Sarah Palin wasn’t invited to the RNC
Dick Cheney wasn’t invited to the RNC
John McCain was invited as a Wal-Mart greeter.
I think this puts into perspective what the Republican Party thinks about its past leaders.
Frankly, I think that if Reagan were alive and lucid today he wouldn’t have been invited because no one in the RNC would have been comfortable with what he’d have to say about the Republican Party of 2012.
The Eastwood fiasco was pretty bad for Romney. At the least it represented a lost opportunity. The final hour of a convention is an incredibly valuable commodity; basically a large prime-time audience and the last real opportunity for a candidate to present himself unfiltered before the election. Wasting some of that on some rambling nonsense is a real waste.
But Eastwood is also threatening to suck what little oxygen Romney’s speech was going to get. It was a decent but not particularly memorable speech and now it may be completely overshadowed by Eastwood. Certainly the comedians are going to have a field day and it’s probably going to become the Interne meme of the week.
Mitt Romney: I don’t deserve this… to die like this. I was running for President!
Clint Eastwood: Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.
[point to an empty chair]
Mitt Romney: I’ll see you in hell, Clint Eastwood.
Clint Eastwood: Yeah.
[Goes onstage]
The saddest part is that with all those people, I kept thinking that the GOP had hit bottom. Little did I know that they were determined to bring in a back hoe and see just how far down they could dig.
And it sounds to me like he is criticizing Obama for not keeping a promise but he’s seems to think Gitmo should remain open. The critique of Afghanistan makes much less sense.