Slate reported that it was Romney’s idea:
Yeah that will work, Mr. “I want to carry this dumb water for the Republicans and “Liberals are fascists”” Goldberg.
The big picture shows that Romney screwed what was supposed to be unescrewable, to keep the best looking message so as to attract not only the party faithful (what kind of faith is that one that still tries to make good of this mistake from Romney?) but the independents that will make the difference in November?
I did not see it as the unmitigated disaster some are describing. I really didn’t. It was a bit clunky, and he’s no professional comedian. He came across as an 82-year-old guy whose “quick on his feet” days are behind him. But who cares? He’s a beloved icon who came out to support the cause, and he didn’t need to be Groucho Marx to be successful. My wife and I chuckled, and we thought he did fine.
This board is having one of those Pauline Kael “I don’t know anyone who voted for him!” moments (I know that story’s probably apocryphal). The rest of the non-left leaning world did not view that speech and think, “Oh my God! Horrifying! What a spectacular disaster! What could they have been thinking! It destroyed the night and the whole convention for them, the fools!” It was more like, “It was nice to see Clint, wasn’t it?” I know that seems like such a non sequitur to this board, but this board is not representative of the country’s collective sensibilities (thank God).
So content didn’t matter to you? If he’d passed gas audibly, or showed up with his fly unzipped, or made monkey-imitations for 10 minutes, you’d have had the same reaction? Seems to me that any Pubbie who wasn’t at least mildly embarrassed by that display is self-identifying as a yellow dog whose views need rightly to be discounted completely. Thanks for stepping up to the plate on this one, Stratocaster!
That’s funny. You make my point. Anyone who didn’t react as you did is delusional or partisan (or something). Only your reaction is valid. And what an argument this is: because I didn’t find this content objectionable, that means I would feel the same about any content.
And don’t ask for opinions if your only reaction will be snide, pointless snark. I answered in good faith because I thought you were interested, and I get the typical prr vacuous bullshit. I should have known better (thanks for stepping up to the plate). :rolleyes:
Sorry–I started this thread to discuss the content of the Eastwood schtick, and instead of addressing any of the specific points i wanted to find out about, you come in here and say, “What’s the problem? I thought it was all good,” the exact response I identified in the OP and wanted to discuss.
DO you have an answer to what the empty chair was supposed to mean? Or what the point of making believe that Obama is some sort of Touette’s-syndrome pottymouth? I’ve got other specifics if you’re puzzled by those.
He WAS Groucho Marx, btw. An 82-year-old Groucho, who wasn’t funny, entertaining or much beyond pathetic at that age. As a Groucho fan, and fan of Groucho’s politics, I certainly had the good sense to be embarrassed by his last few public displays of his doddering mind.
I thought it was supposed to signify Obama’s hollow ideas, or something. Not saying it was great. It was a prop so he could carry on a conversation with Obama.
I thought the “go @#$% yourself” comments were supposed to show Obama’s outrage over the “drubbing” he was receiving from Clint (and Romney in the campaign). Just red meat for the crowd, nothing too subtle.
Stratocaster, if the views on this board were unique, you might have a point. I think a fair reading of the broader national reaction among those of all political stripes was that it was a weird moment at best and a total catastrophe at worst.
Given that, your effort to spin this as some kind of SDMB echo chamber response is transparently stupid.
Well, Hentor, coming from you, that’s good enough for me. Consider me chastened.
But doesn’t pretty much ANY candidate get accused of opponent of having hollow ideas? Forget partisanship for a minute, but that’s the reason we have discourse in the first place: “My ideas are more substantial and better than my opponent’s.” If that’s all you have to accuse your opponent of, that’s pretty weak tea, isn’t it?
And don’t you think the “drubbing” explanation makes more sense if Obama were actually getting drubbed? This is like Obama’s getting accused of running a desperate campaign: excuse me, but only a lunatic would engage in desperate tactics if he weren’t behind by four touchdowns with two minutes on the clock. When you’re winning, or very close in every single poll, any sensible pol is trying very hard to avoid doing desperate things that could damage his standing.
Thanks for answering, though. I appreciate your efforts to make Eastwood’s bit make sense to me.
No sweat. I do think you’re over-thinking it, though. It was a beloved icon delivering a clunky monologue of platitudes that the crowd would agree with. The logic you’re searching for will be as firm as such an effort demands–which is to say, not too firm.
It may not be at all famous – I caught it by chance on CSPAN when I was flipping channels – but Ted Kennedy (ca 1994?) asked the CEOs of McDonald’s and a large pizza chain to a Senate committee to talk about employer-provided health-care mandate. McDonald’s CEO was busy so offered to send CFO but that was unacceptable to Teddy, so he interrogated an empty chair. In front of the empty chair was placed a bag with Big Mac and Fries.
The pizza CEO out-debated Kennedy, who therefore kept diverting attention to the empty chair and Big Mac. I was very disappointed and, ever since, felt the adulation of Teddy was misplaced.
“Senator Kennedy” CEO “empty chair” gets me nothing on Google. How come?
As to Stratocaster’s point about my over-thinking this: is any thinking whatsoever overthinking? I’m just trying to figure out what Eastwood was trying to do, so we can discuss the wisdom behind those thoughts, and how he executed his aims, so we can discuss his tactics. If your best response is: “he was just trying to appear on stage and move around and say words and shit,” then okay, but I call that an epic fail at a pretty easy task.
When you say he was a “beloved icon delivering a clunky monologue of platitudes that the crowd would agree with,” you’re admitting that you’ve got his goals very close to zero. Just by being introducing from the crowd and waving, he would have succeeded by those standards. That crowd, in the hall, was prepared to shower love on Eastwood just for showing up. He would have done better to literally spout platitudes, if all he wanted was to please the RNC in the hall. Literally:
“Thank you. Thanks. Thank you much. 'Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk? Obama sucks donkey dick. And so does Michelle, if you know what I mean. Apology tour. Get off my lawn. And make my day. Then you can make my bed. 23 million unemployed. Let’s make the White House really white again. Joe Biden–is he serious? I mean, Joe Biden? Donkey dick. Never ran a business a day in his life. Like he fired the bullet that killed Bin Laden? Thank you all very much”
would have been no better and no worse than what he actually delivered–pleasing probably to those RNC-members sitting in the Tampa auditorium, and pretty much WTF? to the rest of us. I still haven’t heard a very reasonable account of what he was trying to do, aside from eat up valuable time from Romney’s acceptance speech.
I was listening to NPR at the time of the speech and missed some context only hearing most of it. I was baffled thinking Clint Eastwood had a heckler in the audience with his multiple stops ‘you shut up’ I was thinking ‘why haven’t they removed that person yet!’
It wasn’t until i got home to watch it I saw that it was an intended part of the performance.
Listening to that night without pundits offering commentary was an experience. Also listening to
[QUOTE=Marco Rubio]
more government and less freedom
[/QUOTE]
I was by myself thinking what the fuck did he just say? Did i miss hear that?
What a night for the Republicans.
Now after the commentary, the Romney campaign threw Romney under the buss. It’s almost painful to think about.
Eastwood’s hijacking of their message should have resulted in someone being forced to resign or a firing but nothing’s happened and it’s too late to now. The liberal’s got too much of a head start to criticize Romney for this decision before the campaign could react. Now if they took action it would look to the base like they caved to liberal opinionists and fired the morons responsible.
Personally, as I have no interest in Romney winning, I’m glad he’s surrounded by people so incompetent they let this happen.
I got, as hit #7 with Google “Kennedy Senate hearing Big Mac”
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/23/us/the-health-care-debate-the-employer-pizza-hut-defends-its-insurance-plans.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
(Hit #1 was my previous mention of this at SDMB. :smack: :rolleyes: )
You’ll have to go almost to the end of the article to find
That CEO offered to send CFO instead but was refused doesn’t appear in the article. I’m going to start charging if I have to hunt that down also. 
Bill Keane would have been proud.
Come on, the conventions are for cheerleading. As long as you end it with “go team!”, you do fine in the eyes of the vast majority of “fans”.
Right. Like I said, I’ve seen the “empty chair gambit” to symbolize when someone has been invited to appear, declines to make an appearance, and then the event goes on without him. The chair (or in this case the Big Mac) sits there as mute testimony to the non-appearance of the invited guest.
It does not, in my recollection (and in yours) get interrogated, made fun of, get all sorts of make-believe off-color wisecracks attributed to it, etc.
If Eastwood had come out with an empty chair, to symbolize that he had invited Obama to appear on-stage on with him, I could have accepted that–of course, Obama probably would have taken Clint’s invitation on, so I don’t see that happening.
It’s already happening. My son said that he had to put his headphones on after listening to innumerable comments to the effect that ‘they’ should “stop being so disrespectful of ‘Mr. Eastwood’ who said nothing wrong.”:rolleyes: