There was a moment in Clint Eastwood’s rant last night that struck me then and strikes me even more now, when he explained that there are people of all ideologies in Hollywood.
I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, what’s a movie tradesman doing out here? You know they are all left-wingers out there, left of Lenin. At least that is what people think. That is not really the case. There are a lot of conservative people, a lot of moderate people, Republicans, Democrats, in Hollywood. It is just that the conservative people by the nature of the word itself play closer to the vest. They do not go around hot-dogging it. [my emphasis]
When he said it last night, I couldn’t tell whether he put himself in the conservative or the moderate classification (he doesn’t fit either label well, in any case).
He seemed, quite literally, trying to figure out what his political beliefs were on stage, talking to a chair.
Add in the fact that Clint reportedly had a script and no chair but threw out the script and got the chair at the last minute.
Then add the evidence that Clint demonstrably didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. He criticized lawyer-Presidents at a party for a guy with a JD from the same school as Obama.
See, I never thought it was a good idea for attorneys to the president, anyway.
He evinced an isolationist stance on Afghanistan that would be totally at odds with GOP ideology if they discussed anything besides Israel.
But you thought the war in Afghanistan was okay. You know, I mean—you thought that was something worth doing. We didn’t check with the Russians to see how they did it—they did there for 10 years.
And while much of what Clint said was pitch perfect for Mitt’s campaign–the focus on jobs, Romney as a quote unquote stellar businessman, the support for Gitmo–ultimately this was a batty old man demanding that citizens get their country back again, a view profoundly at odds with the idea of that party thrown by the huge corporations and billionaires that own Mitt’s campaign and are trying to buy our government.
I would just like to say something, ladies and gentlemen. Something that I think is very important. It is that, you, we—we own this country.
(APPLAUSE)
We—we own it. It is not you owning it, and not politicians owning it. Politicians are employees of ours.
(APPLAUSE)
And—so—they are just going to come around and beg for votes every few years. It is the same old deal. But I just think it is important that you realize that you’re the best in the world. Whether you are a Democrat or Republican or whether you’re libertarian or whatever, you are the best. And we should not ever forget that. And when somebody does not do the job, we got to let them go.
It’s as if between the time news of Clint’s speech leaked while he flew to Florida and the time he walked into a hall of people who are far more rabid than he is–one that fundamentally denies most Americans get a stake in the country–he began to figure it out. He began to get that the Republicans are no more interested in letting the owners of this country enjoy it than anyone else.
Clint Eastwood actually had something to say last night. But it’s like he couldn’t figure out how to say it at that party without babbling to a chair.