U.S. News reports:
A close friend of Mitt and Ann Romney confirmed to Whispers Wednesday night that Clint Eastwood is indeed Thursday's mystery speaker at the Republican National Convention.I guess this means Republicans have forgiven Clint Eastwood for doing a Super Bowl ad seen as pro-Obama and pro-auto bailout:
The wingers howled. Karl Rove said:
...it is a sign of what happens when you have Chicago-style politics, and the president of the United States and his political minions are, in essence, using our tax dollars to buy corporate advertising.Righties excitedly retransmitted a Hollywood Reporter story that said "two members of the creative team that produced the two-minute minute spot for ad agency Wieden+Kennedy donated their personal time in 2008 to make pro-Obama art." Rush Limbaugh said Eastwood "got scammed" and "got suckered into this" (as if Clint Eastwood is a poor, naive, inexperienced, gullible innocent who could possibly be duped into doing something he didn't believe in).
Eastwood has always been a conservative, but he doesn't bother trying to pass right-wing litmus tests, and now he's going to endorse a guy who used to be a moderate and has spent the last six years desperately trying to pass those same litmus tests.
Here's Eastwood, not exactly toeing the party line, as reported by the L.A. Times in 2011:
... he condemned anti-gay marriage fanatics in a recent, profanity-studded GQ interview ("Don't give me that sanctity crap! Just give everybody the chance to have the life they want")....He told the Times he liked Herman Cain. But:
The only Democrat he can remember voting for is Gray Davis when he was elected governor of California in 1998. Yet Eastwood is also a big admirer of the current governor, Jerry Brown, and what Eastwood likes about Brown is revealing. He sees him as a kindred spirit, a free-thinking libertarian willing to take unpopular or unorthodox positions on key issues. Eastwood says he contributed to Brown’s campaign to establish several charter schools in Oakland when Brown was mayor there, seeing them as an important example of new thinking on education.
"I've always been very liberal when it comes to people thinking for themselves," said Eastwood, who supports gay marriage, abortion rights and environmental protection....
He’s not as bullish on Mitt Romney. As a film icon, Eastwood has been fiercely protective of his image, but he’s not especially enamored by that attitude in a politician. When Eastwood was in Massachusetts in 2002, filming "Mystic River," Romney was running for governor there. "I saw a lot of him and you have to admit -- he looks like a president," Eastwood recalled with a tone that you’d have to describe as being slyly sarcastic. "I mean, if you were casting a movie where you needed someone to play president, you'd definitely pick him."I'm really sorry there isn't a video clip of that.
Oh, and don't forget that this is a guy who cast two lefties -- Sean Penn and Tim Robbins -- in Mystic River. He'll be the only person in the hall tonight who doesn't think they're both Antichrists.
