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.
How much would you love it if, after Clint slowly walks in, to the soundtrack from "Rawhide," he stood in his spot, looked the entire audience over slowly in his patented gunfighter stare, and said, 'I know what you're thinking. "Did Mitt beat 6 other candidates or 5?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this lack of excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this man has flip-flopped on every issue 44 times, and is running against the most powerful politician in the world, who would gladly embarass our party, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do we feel lucky? Well, do ya, punks?'
ReplyDeleteAnd then sauntered off.
It'll never happen - but a boy can dream, can't he?
I thought back to this, too, and am just finishing up Eastwood's bizarre speech now. It's funny - they're authoritarians and culture warriors; they desperately want to feel cool, and will turn on a dime. They hated Eastwood, but now that he's on their side, they love him. They will hate him again tomorrow if need be. Orwell had them so pegged...
ReplyDeleteI didn't watch Eastwood's skit. I lost all respect for him when I learned his wife had a reality show on TV.
ReplyDeleteThe media got the political take on the Eastwood Superbowl “It’s halftime in America” ad completely wrong… The ad was created by Weiden and Kennedy- arguably the most pro-Obama creative ad agency on the planet… These were the same folks that created the “Dunk on McCain” Air Obama Nike shoes in 2008.
ReplyDeletehttp://hypebeast.com/2008/09/obama-force-one/
Mark Fitzloff, the executive director of creativity this past year
contributed heavily in a piece in Harper’s whose stated goal was how you
create an Ad specifically for the Superbowl to sell the government
http://harpers.org/archive/2011/02/0083294
I think Mark Fitzloff is a clearly an Obama loving genius who is also a master of misdirection… Mark even sometimes tweets his disapprove of the GOP. (“markfitzloff Mark Fitzloff There’s gridlock, and then there’s extortion. “GOP says it’ll block bills until tax cuts extended.” http://tinyurl.com/2up9no2 1 Dec 10 “)
Mark also stated that getting Obama to mention his last Chrysler ad in a speech in Detroit:
“…; the fact that the president quoted the spot in one of his addresses…its things like that are above and beyond anything else that we have done.”
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xmu2qp_mark-fitzl...
Obviously, Mark sees serious advertising advantages with tie-ins to the Obama presidency. What better way than to get his hidden political message across than to make fiscal conservative Clint Eastwood the mouthpiece of his subtext? The mainstream media was completely and utterly taken in assuming that Eastwood created the piece and that it had no intentional subtext. Real reporters should find out who actually wrote the script and if there was overt discussion of the “second half” tying in to “4 more years” Obama.
Whoa, "Eastwood has always been a conservative"?
ReplyDeleteI guess that you missed the following descriptions of himself:
"[I've always been] a social liberal." -Premiere, March 1999
"I don't see myself as conservative." -USA Weekend, January 2004
"I'm not really conservative." -London's Observer, February 2007
Indeed, how could Eastwood have always been a conservative when he is pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pro-environmental protection, pro-gun control, anti-war, and anti-censorship?
And about that Los Angeles Times article, the journalist either misinterpreted some of Eastwood's answers or Eastwood, now in his eighties, is losing his faculties and memory. He has often claimed that he has supported Democrats as well as Republicans in California and there is proof that his support for Democrats has not been limited to Gray Davis. In 2002, for instance, Eastwood donated $1,000 to the reelection campaign of Representative Sam Farr, a liberal Democrat from California. Presumably, Eastwood voted for Farr as well, even if he's now forgotten about that vote and perhaps others as well.
By the way, Farr later circulated articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney.
So Clint Eastwood as a conservative (aside from classical fiscal policy)? No. Clint Eastwood as a guy who is losing his faculties? Maybe.