The Eastwood episode didn’t overshadow Romney, the convention, or the campaign. It was the campaign.

[kpete]

Jamelle Bouie had my favorite tweet of the entire Republican National Convention, when during the epically bizarre Clint Eastwood “speech,” he said: “This is a perfect representation of the campaign: an old white man arguing with an imaginary Barack Obama.”

You can’t escape the racial subtext of what happened last night. Eastwood scolded an (imaginary) black man for his perceived slights to the American way in front of an audience of millions, and a sea of mostly white faces laughed and egged him on. There isn’t anyone for “America” than Dirty Harry; like John Wayne before him, Eastwood stands in for the American sense of masculinity and rugged individualism. In his babbling incoherence, he was telling this effete liberal, possibly foreign, definitely un-American, black man the way things are really done around here.

......................

It perfectly encapsulates conservative thinking on race. Bigotry isn’t much more than a quirk, like drinking warm beer or being a bad tipper. In the film, Eastwood’s not a bad guy, just a lonely old war veteran further disgruntled by the deterioration of his neighborhood from a white suburban enclave to an ethnic gang wasteland. Don’t let the pandering and tokenism of a few minority eloquent minority speakers fool you: this is the mindstate of the Republican party today. Mitt Romney, who won the nomination in part because he was supposed to be the adult in the room, has played right into it with his lies about welfare and birther jokes. But he’s not a bad guy, he’s just trying to protect the America we all love. Never mind it’s an America some of us have never known.

It’s not a huge leap from “get off my lawn” to “we own this country” to “take our country back.” Someone in this equation is an intruder, claiming something they have no legitimate claim to, and for that they must pay. If Mitt Romney wins the presidency, the rest of us are stuck cleaning his Gran Torino.

http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2012/08/31/781731/clint-eastwood-delivers-the-republican-agenda/


Republicans started buzzing about their "secret guest" on Monday, if not earlier. That means they had four days to help Clint write a speech and, you know, vet it. They didn't.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/31/1126179/-RNC-nightcap-Clint-Eastwood-and-nothing-else-mattered

[still_one]

1. That may be, but they sure are not talking about romney this morning they are talking about eastwood

[Jackpine Radical]

2. I sorta think that was the point of the OP.

[still_one]

3. ok, I am slow, thanks /nt

[avebury]

4. K&R nt

[Bernardo de La Paz]

5. Four more chairs!

[BlueStreak]

6. Exactly. They ALL do this straw man routine -- not just Eastwood

That is the basis for all of their lies. They are all straw man arguments.

In a straw man, you attribute a false or misleading position to your opponent. it helps a lot if you opponent is not there. An empty chair is the perfect metaphor for that.

Then after establishing that false premise (e.g. "Obama stone $716bn from Medicare&quot you then proceed to smash the straw man.

There wasn't anything weird or peculiar about Eastwood's performance. He was just demonstrating this technique a bit more clearly than the others.

[Jackpine Radical]

9. I hadn't made that connection but you're absolutely right.

The "Empty Chair" argument versus the Straw Man argument.

[RagAss]

7. WOW - Talk about over-analyzing an old man crapping his pants on live tv.

[salinen]

8. right