Clint on Obama: "Biggest Hoax on American People"

Clint Eastwood was on a military plane headed for Korea in 1950 when he had the good luck to have it crash into the ocean north of San Francisco, or so the story goes. While he recovered at Fort Ord, he was lifeguard at the base's swimming pool and somehow was assigned stateside leave---which in that day and age, was a reprieve from a possible death sentence.

I first remember him in Rawhide, and from there he went on to other roles including the famous "spaghetti westerns" directed and produced by Italian entrepreneurs. He presided over the waning years of the Western, winning an Oscar nomination for Unforgiven, a movie I never got to see. Misty was his first chance at directing a movie, and I DID see that one and found its atmospherics compelling. At the same time, he became a national icon for his role as "Dirty Harry" Callaghan, an tough Irish detective in S. F. fighting psychopaths by cornering them and uttering immortal phrases such as the one the RNC said in chorus, "Go ahead, make my day."

When his home town of Carmel interviewed him last week, here was his cautious estimation of Obama and his legacy:

“President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” Eastwood told The Pine Cone this week. “Romney and Ryan would do a much better job running the country, and that’s what everybody needs to know. I may have irritated a lot of the lefties, but I was aiming for people in the middle.”

Okay, so what were you expecting, subtlety and nuance? Here's the amazing story of how his Tampa Bay inspiration hit:

Early Thursday morning, when Eastwood left San Jose Airport on a private jet headed for Florida, he was still making up his mind. And even with his appearance just a few hours away, all Eastwood could tell Romney’s campaign manager, Matt Rhoades, and his aides, was “to reassure them that everything I would say would be nice about Mitt Romney.”
It was only after a quick nap in his hotel room a few blocks from the convention site, Eastwood said, that he mapped out his remarks — starting with his observation about politics in Hollywood, then challenging the president about the failure of his economic policies, and wrapping up by telling the public “they don’t have to worship politicians, like they were royalty or something.”
But even then, with just an hour before he appeared on stage, it still hadn’t occurred to Eastwood to use an empty chair as a stand-in for the president.
“I got to the convention site just 15 or 20 minutes before I was scheduled to go on,” he said. “That was fine, because everything was very well organized.”

The Irish Catholic Conservative Eastwood sat and pondered his final moments:

After a quick trip through airport-style security, he was taken to a Green Room, where Archbishop Dolan of New York sought him out to say hello. Then he was taken backstage to wait for his cue. And that was when inspiration struck.
“There was a stool there, and some fella kept asking me if I wanted to sit down,” Eastwood said. “When I saw the stool sitting there, it gave me the idea. I’ll just put the stool out there and I’ll talk to Mr. Obama and ask him why he didn’t keep all of the promises he made to everybody.”
He asked a stagehand to take it out to the lectern while he was being announced.
“The guy said, ‘You mean you want it at the podium?’ and I said, ‘No, just put it right there next to it.’”
Then, with the theme song from “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” as a musical introduction, and a huge picture of him as Josey Wales as the backdrop, Eastwood walked out to tremendous applause.
“The audience was super enthusiastic, and it’s always great when they’re with you instead of against you,” he said.

Clint started the 12 minutes that had everyone spellbound waiting to see if he was senile or brilliant:

Speaking without any notes, Eastwood recalled the good feelings the whole nation had when Obama was elected, but said they had been dashed as the economy stayed in the doldrums despite massive stimulus spending. He decried the “stupid idea” of closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay and putting terrorists on trial in New York City, joked about Vice President Joe Biden’s intellect and quizzed empty-chair Obama about what he says to people about his failed economic policies. He pretended Obama told Romney to do something “physically impossible” to himself, said it’s time to elect a “stellar businessman” as president instead of a lawyer, and, as a final point, told the people, “You own this country.”
When an elected official doesn’t “do the job, we’ve got to let ‘em go,” he said, and the crowd ate it up.
“They really seemed to be enjoying themselves,” Eastwood said.

The crowd loved it, although the MSM dickbreaths thought it beneath Clint's dignity:

Originally, he was told he could speak for six or seven minutes, and right before he went on, he was asked to keep it to five, but he said, “When people are applauding so much, it takes you 10 minutes to say five minutes’ worth.”
Also, there were no signals or cues of any kind, so “when you’re out there, it’s kind of hard to tell how much time is going by.”
He also said he was aware he hesitated and stumbled a bit, but said “that’s what happens when you don’t have a written-out speech.”
As he wrapped up his remarks, he was aware his presentation was “very unorthodox,” but that was his intent from the beginning, even if some people weren’t on board.

If you want to read the rest of the Carmel rendition, the link above finishes with all the condemnations from the usual suspects on the left----varying from snooty condescension to outright ridicule---and the backlash which had chairs from conservatives in all sorts or unusual places on Twitter and other social networks and blogs. The article sums it up neatly by Clint:

Eastwood said people, including reporters, who were shocked by his remarks “are obviously on the left,” and he maintained that, while many Americans didn’t like the way he handled his convention appearance, millions more have something else on their minds.
“A lot of people are realizing they had the wool pulled over their eyes by Obama,” Eastwood said.

Roger that, Clint, and thank God that plane crashed on the way to Korea back in 1950.