Clint Eastwood's empty chair a perfect metaphor for the 2012 GOP
Posted on Friday, August 31, 2012 at 10:09 AM
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Here was an old, often incoherent and unmistakably contemptuous white guy slowly lecturing an empty chair about all of its shortcomings.
There was something Shakespearean about it, with Eastwood looking like old King Lear on the heath, because the 82 year old's bizarre speech had hard words for Democrats but only faint praise for Republicans.
(This was a trend by the way: at the RNC of 2012 Barack Obama was mentioned twice as often as Mitt Romney).
It began well. Eastwood, who had played an iconic tough guy in the early 1970's, appeared to roars of approval from the mostly white, mostly middle aged, crowd. But once he actually started talking their enthusiasm quickly plummeted.
Eastwood ordered the empty chair to get out of Afghanistan. 'I know you were against the war in Iraq, and that’s okay. But you thought the war in Afghanistan was OK. I think you’ve mentioned something about having a target date for bringing everybody home. You gave that target date, and I think Mr. Romney asked the only sensible question, you know, he says, 'Why are you giving the date out now? Why don’t you just bring them home tomorrow morning?'
That line brought heavy applause but the Romney team winced, they have said their candidate wants to keep the troops there indefinitely. This is when things started seriously going wrong.
If I was a comedy writer for Saturday Night Live I would have seen this moment for it was rapidly becoming: tragicomic comedy gold. You can bet it will be all over The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and SNL by Sunday.
And I predict that empty chair will come back to haunt the GOP in November. Because it did something team Romney didn't want it to: it reminded the nation who was not there.
Blacks, Hispanics, Gays, Immigrants, Women and Young People. There is simply no room and no real welcome for them in the all-male Christian Brotherhood that is the GOP in 2012. There are only the true patriots versus the un-American now.
Oddly enough, looking at that empty chair, I also thought of John Lauber, the teenager at Cranbrook prep school that Romney once led a group of frat boys to attack as he cut his hair off with scissors. For a moment Lauber's ghost was sitting in that chair, being bullied by another malicious swaggering tough guy who was sure that the crowd was on his side.
It began as a joke but it ended by telling the truth, and it was nauseating.
62 comments
BrianO | Sep 04, 2012, 01:53 AM EDT
Big daddy be careful, you are not supposed to let the truth out of the bag, socialist leader, you are supposed to hide your views and never let it slip that a socialist regime is what you seek. You might want to check BO background, before you elevate him to scholar.
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BigDaddy | Sep 03, 2012, 10:07 AM EDT
Cahir...A well written, to-the-point article that portrayed Eastwood in the light he deserved to be shown in I believe. He lost his way, his rambling was painful to watch and yet there are "the faithful" who attack anyone who notices or dares to speak the truth.... Eastwood was an embarrassment, Romney is the meat puppet of the Kochs and more people watched Honey Boo Boo than watched Mitt.... As JimmyJK noted, what has happened to America hasn't happened in 3 1/2 years. It has happened over the last 30 years and it was done intentionally. It is no coincidence that roads and bridges are left in disrepair. No coincidence that prisons are privatized. All the essential services provided by government will be for profit, and when they are, I hope all the sycophants that have written here will see that their dislike of minorities has cost them a nation. You are no patriot if you destroy a nation rather than help those less fortunate than yourself. You bought Ronald Reagan, a bad actor and FBI informant, as your savior but a Constitutional scholar isn't acceptable because he's black? How dumb do you think you are allowed to be and still remain free? YOU are the sheep that needs a daddy. Murdoch's FNC believes that you cannot tell reality from cartoons and yet you resist the facts as if they were poisonous. Remember dumbasses, corporations are not people and when they actually take ownership of America, you will beg for a socialist leader.
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hollabackgurl | Sep 03, 2012, 09:32 AM EDT
The empty chair really is the perfect metaphor for the party that has no welcome most of the people of United States. Millionaires are a different story, of course.
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seanomelb | Sep 02, 2012, 07:41 PM EDT
Why were the Bush,Cheney,Rumsfeld,Rove and "Failin Palin not invited to the convention? Maybe the GOP did not want the folks to remember how they F##cked up the economy
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EphraimKibbey | Sep 02, 2012, 05:24 PM EDT
ROMNEY IS THE PROBLEM!!!
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EphraimKibbey | Sep 02, 2012, 05:23 PM EDT
Just LOOK at what Cheney/Haliburton did in Iraq! Billions missing! Guess whose pockets got lined with YOUR tax dollars! That loud SUCKING sound you hear is NOT aid to the poor or to education or to policemen or to roads and bridges, it goes directly to the 1% and then straight on to Swiss or Cayman Island bank accounts.
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EphraimKibbey | Sep 02, 2012, 05:17 PM EDT
Republican politicians DO NOT CARE ABOUT AMERICA! It is just another business to be milked for all its worth, driven into insurmountable debt and then allowed to go bankrupt leaving its investors and citizens to perish. Romney has his strategy so why won't he tell us? BECAUSE no one would vote for him if they knew what he has planned!
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EphraimKibbey | Sep 02, 2012, 05:08 PM EDT
@1CelticYankee - The Boehner/Obama compromise over the debt ceiling debacle last summer would have REDUCED the debt by FOUR TRILLION (4/5's of the amount added since Obama took office) but RYAN and ERIC CANTOR scuttled the deal and voted instead for the Cliff facing the military in January. Why? Because the deal included revenue enhancements (Tax Increases on the only group who are still making out like the bandits that they really are.) Obama has repeatedly, since then, proposed similar debt reductions but has had his hand of compromise slapped away each time because of the GOP's greater devotion to Norquist and the 1% than to the United States of America. Note that both the Ryan (twice GOP passed) budget and the Romney 59 points budget do NOTHING to reduce the deficit until 2040 by which time they will be long gone with their riches intact. Cheney Quote when told by a financial advisor that the Bush tax cuts would bankrupt the country: DEFICITS ARE NOT IMPORTANT!
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McNamara31 | Sep 02, 2012, 02:42 PM EDT
1CelticYankee... Obama has raised the debt by 50 % getting us out of a 1929 (size hole) that the reckless Bush put us in. Previously, Bush took the Clinton surplus ($260 billion) and turned it into an 86% debt increase, and Reagan who the GOP thinks walked on water, increased the countries debt on his watch by 186%. Based on past finances, a vote for the GOP is a vote for financial ruin.
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1CelticYankee | Sep 02, 2012, 02:00 PM EDT
Cahir O'Doherty, you'd better stick to Ireland because you're clueless about the United States of America... the silent majority don't want to wind up being like Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and IRELAND ! ! ! Only Romney / Ryan can turn around Obama's bullet train to Socialism and save our country. If you don't like a strong US, go back to your bogs and peat fires and Irish poverty... yes, you're on the way back to ancient times ! ! !
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seanomelb | Sep 01, 2012, 09:01 PM EDT
Three chairs for the corpse!! the GOP are dead in the water.
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JimmyJK | Sep 01, 2012, 08:39 PM EDT
here here EphraimKibbey.... Keep speaking the Truth
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EphraimKibbey | Sep 01, 2012, 05:57 PM EDT
Maybe, if we are going to label people and parties, we should know what those labels REALLY mean. According to the dictionary, CONSERVATIVE means tending to PRESERVE established traditions or institutions. LIBERAL means favoring political reforms tending toward DEMOCRACY and personal FREEDOM for the individual. REACTIONARY means an advocate of REACTION which is further defined as a movement back to a former or LESS ADVANCED condition. Feel free to read them in your own dictionary. I would have to LABEL the current GOP as Reactionary and the current DEMS as Liberal. I think that there are not many Conservative politicians around as the Tea Party out "primaried" them all. Using THOSE definitions, which label would you use for yourself? Label me LIBERAL, as were our founding fathers, and I will accept the compliment with pride. Why does the GOP use "Liberal" as a put down? If the GOP REALLY believes in Democracy, ask yourself "Why are they trying to limit voting in so many states?" Do not shame your ancestors, vote for the individual freedom of Democracy not the tyranny of Plutocracy.
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eiriamach | Sep 01, 2012, 04:46 PM EDT
Sitt down, Mitt, in this empty chair here! I have a few questions to ask you. What's that you say? "No one's ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised." Nah, I wasn't gonna ask about your birth cert. I want to know why you fired Clint Eastwood. "Like I said in January, I like being able to fire people who provide services to me." But why did you fire him? Tell us your story, Mitt. "I should tell my story. I'm also unemployed, just like Clint Eastwood." But what reason did you give Clint when you fired him? "I'm not familiar precisely with what I said, but I'll stand by what I said, whatever it was." And do you think the American people approve of your firing Clint? "Like I said in January, I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that's the America millions of Americans believe in. That's the America I love." (All quotes are genuine Mitt Romney at his best, only slightly edited.)
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