Clint, High Platform Drifting

by Cornelius Sullivan

Writers and commentators reveal a great deal about themselves when they express unease and even high anxiety about Clint Eastwood’s unscripted creativity at the Republican Convention. “Unscripted creativity” and “political convention” are seldom seen together. It was so unlike all television. We can all complete the sentences of politicians, weather casters, news anchors, and speakers in advertisements. This was different, we really did not know what was coming next, we had to pay attention.

It was a new and unsettling experience for those multitudes who are not often exposed to creativity or art where the form and content may be more than predictably banal. Film critic Roger Ebert should know better. Yes, there were lapses in audio and camera work, no close ups, no zooming in.

This was not Cinemascope. But then again, Ebert has dropped the ball more than a few times without Siskel to help him make sense.  

If you read the content of the not-speech performance it makes rhetorical sense. For those who agree with Eastwood’s politics it’s too bad that they say it’s too bad that he took away from Romney’s speech. Because, so did a tropical storm, and a myriad of other real life events, that cannot be scripted, not scripted by control freaks. There is no controlling responses on Youtube and Twitter, they measure interest. 

The liberals couldn’t handle the High Plains Drifter saying in plain language, “When somebody does not do the job we gotta let ‘em go.” 

Geraldo Rivera said that Ann Romney was biting her nails. She did not, that is a silly sexist remark. He should have his journalistic license revoked. Does that bizarre guy claim to be a mind reader now? Juan Williams could tell him that “corporate wives” don’t bite their nails.

I saw a convention that highlighted some young female and male stars, that offered some new ideas, and that was not mean spirited. Let’s see if the Democrats can refrain from saying that Romney killed a woman or that Paul Ryan threw his grandmother off a cliff. We learned that Romney helps people but does not talk about it, and that Ryan did, in fact, take care of his own grandmother.