Here's Politico, in an article inexplicably treating the right's "Empty Chair Day" as something other than the embarrassment that it is:
As conservatives have pointed out on Twitter, AMC is capitalizing on this national conversation with a Monday marathon of Eastwood's films.Er -- no. AMC is not "capitalizing" on this alleged "national conversation" about the brilliance of Eastwood's empty-chair metaphor. Not according to Entertainment Weekly, which ought to know:
AMC had its Clint Eastwood movie marathon planned way before the whole Invisible Obama thing happened.Yup -- here's a site called thetvratings.com noting the upcoming marathon in a post dated August 18 -- twelve days before the speech.
Eastwood has a new movie coming out in two and a half weeks -- do you think that might have something to do with AMC's programming choices? (Oh, no -- AMC would never do a marathon of films with a star who has a new movie out! The inspiration must be right-wing excitement over a doddering old man ad-libbing to a chair!)
I give the right credit for persuading Politico and the rest of the political media that Eastwood's speech wasn't a pathetic joke. Maybe that "epistemic closure" thing isn't limited to right-wingers -- maybe it extends to the mainstream political press.
