Clint Eastwood does a Romney ad.

"In the last few years, America's been knocked down..." It's reminiscent of Eastwood's Super Bowl ad. Remember? "This country can't be knocked out with one punch..."



Many people perceived that Super Bowl ad as implicitly pro-Obama. Here's Slate, back on February 6th:

Did the first Obama re-election ad run during the Super Bowl? You might have missed it since the president wasn't even mentioned. It was a Chrysler ad, although even that wasn’t obvious. Instead, more than 111 million viewers were greeted by that tough-talking American icon Clint Eastwood as he delivered what amounted to a locker room speech to the country. “It's halftime in America,” he intoned... He heralded the auto industry’s revival and said it is a model for a nation poised for a comeback....

[A]s everyone knows, it’s hard to argue with Clint Eastwood. “This country can't be knocked out with one punch. We get right back up again, and when we do, the world is going to hear the roar of our engines. Ya, it's halftime in America, and our second half is about to begin.” If Clint agrees with Obama—that America is on the edge of a return—how can Obama be wrong?

How? If Clint says so.

"One on One" — the New Yorker cover by Barry Blitt.

"This image seemed like a proper response to the first Presidential debate... but I’m not sure I realized how hard it is to caricature furniture.”

Remember Blitt's famous cover from the 2008 campaign.

"The window is narrowing for Romney, and he’s in deep, deep trouble."

Said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, who worked on the  POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Poll, which showed Obama ahead but not beyond the margin of error. Thanks for your highly professional opinion there, Ms. Lake! She burbles on:

"Ultimately, people don’t like this guy. If they don’t like someone, it’s hard to get people to vote for him — particularly to fire someone they do like."

Deep, deep. Like... like... like. Here's an opinion-taker/shaper who seems to need to say her key words at least twice. So, thanks for the info! What a terrible, terrible man this Mitt Romney is! We do not like him. No no no no no.

But, speaking of liking and not liking to fire people, old man Romney — the villainous wretch! — said it well:



"I like being able to fire people who provide services to me."

Clint Eastwood said it well — if real-time grappling for thoughts is good — in his empty-chair speech:

[Y]ou, we -- we own this country. We -- we own it. It is not you owning it, and not politicians owning it. Politicians are employees of ours. And -- so -- they are just going to come around and beg for votes every few years. It is the same old deal. But I just think it is important that you realize , that you're the best in the world. Whether you are a Democrat or Republican or whether you're libertarian or whatever, you are the best. And we should not ever forget that. And when somebody does not do the job, we got to let them go.

We are the 99%/You are the 47%.

Yesterday was: 1. The 1-year anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street protest movement, where the chant was "We are the 99%," and 2. The day we got the video of Mitt Romney talking to his affluent donors and saying "There are 47% who are with [Obama], who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. These are people who pay no income tax."

The percentages are different, but the us/them attitude is similar. It's a way of speaking politically: There are X% of us and Y% of them, and the recognizing the comparative size of the 2 groups tells us what our politics should be.

The people within group X and group Y aren't all alike, but the speaker is choosing to portray them as alike, because it's a step in an argument about what supposedly needs to be done. The claim of representing 99% is especially ludicrous, but the effort is to focus anger on the evil 1%, who elicit no sympathy at all. But it doesn't make sense for other people near the top not to worry that the greedy mob — the takers — are coming after them... which is why the 99% can't possibly be the 99%, because the top end of the 99% can see that it too is under attack, and they won't want the bottom end of the 99% speaking for them.

That's the flaw in the 99% chant: There's no credible threat that all 99% will vote together. Some of those Occupy protesters dreamed of revolution, but we've still got a democracy, and the only serious question is how many of the 99% will vote for the Democratic Party's candidates. The Democratic Party used a modified version of what the protesters were saying. That's what Elizabeth Warren articulated in her famous "underlying social contract... take a hunk of that and pay forward" rant. Obama was trying to make the same move when he inelegantly said "You didn't build that" — the 4 words the Republicans built their whole convention around.

Romney supporters can hardly complain when Obama supporters seize upon his 47% quote and use it any which way they can.



It's the most knuckle-bustin', gut-wrenchin', brain-scramblin', butt-bruisin', lip-splittin' brawl of all time.

"[W]ith 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."

Clint Eastwood reveals. He'd flown in just that morning, reassured the campaign that "everything I would say would be nice about Mitt Romney," took a nap in the hotel, and then began thinking about what his remarks would be. He came up with 3 points: “That not everybody in Hollywood is on the left, that Obama has broken a lot of the promises he made when he took office, and that the people should feel free to get rid of any politician who’s not doing a good job." But he didn't figure out exactly how he'd say it. He got to the convention site "just 15 or 20 minutes before I was scheduled to go on," went through security, said hi to Archbishop Dolan (who sought him out), and was taken to the backstage area to wait for the cue.

“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.’”...

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.”

He went back to the hotel, ate some room-service dinner, and went to bed — apparently without checking the TV or the internet and not knowing we were all talking about him. He's seen it now, and he says the media folk who disparaged him "are obviously on the left."

Beautiful! I'm glad he waited a week to say that. And that he said it to The Carmel Pine Cone. 

Rasmussen polled of public opinion about Clint Eastwood.

Because the poll was conducted before and after his unusual performance at the convention, you get some insight:

While Republican officials were uncertain about Eastwood, 78% of GOP voters have a favorable opinion of him. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that Democrats are evenly divided: 42% favorable and 44% unfavorable. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 58% view Eastwood favorably, and only 21% have a negative view....

The survey was conducted on the night Eastwood gave his speech and the night after.  Interviews conducted on the first night were mostly completed before the actor’s prime time speech. Comparing the two nights shows virtually no change in perceptions of Eastwood among Republicans voters.

However, on the first night, 49% of Democrats had a favorable opinion of Eastwood. That fell to 34% on the second night after news coverage of the fact that Eastwood was making jokes at President Obama’s expense. The number of Democrats with an unfavorable opinion of Eastwood grew from 31% to 56%.  Put it together and the Democrats’ net assessment of Eastwood went from a +18 before the speech to a minus 22 after. 

Among unaffiliated voters, positive reviews of Eastwood showed little change over the two nights. However, negative views of the star grew from 12% before the speech to 29% after.

So, what does this mean? Why did only the Democrats' opinion shift — and shift so much? I would conclude that Eastwood's performance was successful. Democrats feel bad about that. It's also possible that some Democrats were unaware of Eastwood's political preference, and having found out, they don't like him anymore. The quality of the performance — in that light — doesn't matter.

"The right rallied on Labor Day to celebrate 'National Empty Chair Day'..."

"... a show of solidarity with Clint Eastwood after his infamous address to an invisible President Barack Obama at the Republican National Convention last week."

Seems to me the world is full of empty chairs. How is any given chair supposed to acquire the meaning intended if meaning is intended? And contrariwise, isn't it unfair to all the other chairs that are just hanging around being chairs and not meaning to say anything?

AND: This has got me thinking about horror vacui:

In visual art, horror vacui (/ˈhɔrər ˈvɑːkjuːaɪ/; from Latin "fear of empty space", which might be represented by white spots), also cenophobia (/sɛnəˈfoʊbɪə/, from Greek "fear of the empty"), is the filling of the entire surface of a space or an artwork with detail.

The term is associated with the Italian art critic and scholar Mario Praz, who used it to describe the suffocating atmosphere and clutter of interior design in the Victorian age....

Research suggests there is currently an inverse relationship between horror vacui and value perception, and commercial designers are advised to favour minimalism in shop window displays and advertising to appeal to affluent and well-educated consumers, on the premise that horror vacui appeals more to poorer and less-educated audiences.

Perhaps I'm letting my education and affluence show, but I think empty is good. An unfilled space is complete in itself and yet also an opportunity. I think the horror vacui is somewhat male, and I am speaking from a vagina'd perspective.

"'I am,' I said/To no one there/And no one heard at all/Not even the chair."

A propos of the Clint Eastwood empty-chair performance, Palladian reminds us of that horrible Neil Diamond song.

Click for the full lyrics, studded with links to appropriately evocative photos, e.g.:

But I've got an emptiness deep inside
I've tried, but it won't let go
I'm not a man who likes to swear
But I never cared for the sound of being alone

And here's the tune to play in the background.

How the Democratic Convention should retaliate against the GOP's Clint Eastwood "empty chair" routine.

Get your own great American movie director who supports your side and knows how to be funny in a 1-man empty chair routine.

Bring on Woody Allen to do a political version of his hilarious courtroom scene in "Bananas":



IN THE COMMENTS: creeley23 said...

My bet is that they'll go to Tom Hanks or George Clooney or maybe double-team them.

The bit will be smooth and rehearsed, it will affect an insouciant air (like our trolls), and it will attempt to ridicule Clint Eastwood's performance, but it won't have his edge.

I bet you're exactly right! My suggestion was a joke. Obviously, you can't have Woody Allen when you've got your war-on-women theme. (Even though they will have Bill Clinton.) But I do think they will have some kind of a response — if only in the form of numerous references to Clint Eastwood (e.g., regular speakers with little asides about how they just saw Clint Eastwood talking to a chair, somebody else talking to a chair, Clint Eastwood talking to some other inanimate object, Clint Eastwood talking to some other person, possibly Mitt Romney, who is less animate than an inanimate object like a chair).

Bill Maher defends Eastwood: "He went up there without a net, on a tightrope... he did a bit with just an empty chair and killed."

"He committed to it, it was consistent, and it worked."

Maher is speaking as a standup comedian, knowing how hard it is. Halfway through the video clip at the link, Jason Alexander — wearing William Shatner's toupee — breaks in to say famous people could "urinate" on themselves and people would accept it as a good routine. Maher says no, at most they'd give you 1 minute to get funny; Eastwood worked that comic routine 10 minutes, successfully, and that was impressive. And Maher loathes Eastwood's political position. So that's impressive.

Also on last night's show, Maher talked to Dinesh D'Souza about his movie "2016: Obama’s America."

"Empty-chair technique or chairwork is typically used in Gestalt therapy to explore patients' relationships with themselves or other people in their lives."

"The technique involves the client addressing the empty chair as if another person was in it, such as President Obama. They may also move between chairs and act out two or more sides of a discussion, typically involving the patient and persons significant to them. A form of role-playing, the technique focuses on exploration of self and is utilized by therapists to help patients self-adjust."

A passage on the Wikipedia entry for Gestalt Therapy, linked to by kentuckyliz in the comments on the previous post. She says:

It was therapy.

I like how "such as President Obama" was added to the wikipedia entry.

LOL!

Since we were all watching, it was group therapy. A primal scream.

"Eastwooding" — the meme.

The term "Eastwooding" — referring to talking to an empty chair — popped up on Twitter and got retweeted — by Ana Marie Cox — with the incitement "INTERNET you know what to do."

Do a Google image search for it — here — and tell me if this is working against Eastwood or against Obama. Even if it's half and half, it's not against Romney. As far as the election is concerned, the harm to Eastwood is irrelevant. And at some point, I think it's giving Eastwood currency. It may not be true that in showbiz any publicity is good publicity, but the kind of publicity that's not good needs to be a lot worse than rambling inappropriately. (It has to be even worse than this. Maybe even worse than this. Let's say: this.)

Anyway, Clint will be fine. He's so much tougher than internet meme-dweebs that it's not worth worrying about him. And I don't think Clint wants us to worry about him. He wants us to worry about the economy and the election.

And so the question is, does all this "Eastwooding" activity help or hurt Obama? I think it's intended to help, but the meme is that Obama is an empty chair, and that like saying he's "Zero" or an "empty suit," which people have been saying for a long time. 

IN THE COMMENTS: Rhhardin says: "There's an empty suit passage in Carlyle's Sartor Resartus that fits." Here:

What still dignity dwells in a suit of Cast Clothes! How meekly it bears its honors! No haughty looks, no scornful gesture: silent and serene, it fronts the world; neither demanding worship, nor afraid to miss it. The Hat still carries the physiognomy of its Head: but the vanity and the stupidity, and goose-speech which was the sign of these two, are gone. The Coat-arm is stretched out, but not to strike; the Breeches, in modest simplicity, depend at ease, and now at last have a graceful flow; the Waistcoat hides no evil passion, no riotous desire; hunger or thirst now dwells not in it. Thus all is purged from the grossness of sense, from the carking cares and foul vices of the World; and rides there, on its Clothes-horse; as, on a Pegasus, might some skyey Messenger, or purified Apparition, visiting our low Earth.

Neither demanding worship, nor afraid to miss it... So then Obama's not an empty suit!

Why the criticism and mockery of Clint Eastwood will backfire.

Obama supporters are straining to nullify Clint Eastwood's GOP convention performance, but it's not going to work. Take, for example, Michael Moore, writing in The Daily Beast, which embeds the full-length video of what it labels "Clint's Crazy Speech." Moore — who everyone knows is a left-wing propagandist — says:

The footage of Eastwood rambling and mumbling to his "Harvey"—President Obama—will be played to audiences a hundred years from now as the Most Bizarre Convention Moment Ever. The people of the future will know nothing about Dirty Harry or Josey Wales or Million Dollar Baby. They will know about the night a crazy old man hijacked a national party's most important gathering so he could literally tell the president to go do something to himself (i.e. fuck  himself). In those few moments (and these days, it only takes a few moments—see Anthony Weiner), he completely upended and redefined how he'll be remembered by younger and future generations....

Who won't watch the video now? Most people didn't watch the convention and therefore didn't see the speech in its context, within which it was anomalous. Eastwood wasn't speechifying to the huge crowd from a teleprompted script. He was seemingly speaking straight from his head — you know, the illusion actors know how to create. It had an intimacy and riskiness that you just don't expect from a convention stage. That's what made it so much fun for people who are rooting for Romney, but it also the invited ridicule from those who want Obama to win.

Accepting that invitation is taking the bait. And look what is happening. Millions of folks who didn't bother watching the convention are watching Eastwood's performance out of the context within which it was anomalous. They're watching viral video.

You expect viral video to be surprising and weird in some way. And the intimacy and riskiness of the performance is cool in the context of a little window on your computer. You listen to exactly what Clint says as you hang in there waiting for it to be as crazy as the Obama promoters are claiming. And you have whatever love for Clint Eastwood you happen to bring to this little project of watching a viral video. And there is a lot of love out there. These people are throwing hate at a guy you have loved, so, okay, let's see what's so terrible.

Should Obama supporters be spreading this viral video? Should they want the moderate undecideds of the country sitting at their computers attending to lines like:

But — you know about — I remember three and a half years ago, when Mr. Obama won the election. And though I was not a big supporter, I was watching that night when he was having that thing and they were talking about hope and change and they were talking about, yes we can, and it was dark outdoors, and it was nice, and people were lighting candles.

They were saying, I just thought, this was great. Everybody is trying, Oprah was crying.

I was even crying. And then finally — and I haven’t cried that hard since I found out that there is 23 million unemployed people in this country.

Now that is something to cry for because that is a disgrace, a national disgrace, and we haven’t done enough, obviously — this administration hasn’t done enough to cure that. Whatever interest they have is not strong enough, and I think possibly now it may be time for somebody else to come along and solve the problem.

Imagine some uncommitted voter clicks on the embedded video, predisposed to laugh at the crazy old man, and then — alone at the computer — encounters the beloved elder talking about things that have made him cry. They might not laugh. They might be drawn in by Eastwood's performance. They might not take direction from people like Moore who've instructed them to mock. That uncommitted voter might prefer the direction of the far greater director, Clint Eastwood.

***

I thought of a new slogan: Putting the Mitt in uncommitted.

"MSNBC pundits said Clint Eastwood’s GOP convention speech Thursday night was a 'bizarre' and 'embarrassing' 'disaster'..."

Key word: MSNBC.

“Clint Eastwood was a disaster,” Lawrence O’Donnell said.

“I thought Clint Eastwood was bizarre,” Ed Schultz said. “It was demeaning to the presidency.”

Ha ha ha. That wasn't even a comedy routine (as Eastwood's performance was).

ADDED: I hope if anyone does any comedy at the Democratic convention that Ed Schultz will be fair and balanced enough to say it demeans the presidency. Maybe he should be a little more concerned about what demeans journalism.

AND: Here's the whole Eastwood performance. Is it really that hard to get? No, they're merely playing dumb (and humorless), even though they want the other party to be known as "the stupid party."

UPDATE: I just rewatched the performance. It was great! Hilarious... subtle... well-paced.... The haters are totally bullshitting and playing dumb (assuming they are not actually dumb). And what they are trying to do is scare other celebrities: Toe the line or we will destroy you. That crushing repression is the opposite of what the performing arts should be about.

ALSO: "Why the criticism and mockery of Clint Eastwood will backfire."

624 comments on the live-blogging thread last night.

Did the spam-bots find out I'd turned off word verification for commenting? I'll check it out. There's our liberal commenter Lindsey Meadows, who said (at 6:24 PM):

I think I'll just have casual sex tonight. After Romney, I couldn't possibly feel more violated (or bored).

When Clint Eastwood came on at 9, the liberal commenters, offset by Meade, went ageist:

elkh1 said... Clint is really really wobbly old.

Meade said... Clint looks great.

Alex said... Clint looks old and jittery. Remember folks he's 82. When he was in his 40s, it was scary.... Clint is just embarrassing right now. There is a reason for the old folks home and you're seeing it. Shoot me before I ever get like this. Senile.

2 of the long-time conservative commenters picked up the age theme:

Pogo said... Old, jittery, but vicious as hell.

Shouting Thomas said... Unfortunately, Clint is really struggling. Sad to see the great man suffering the humiliation of old age.

Pogo said... No way, ST, he's an elderly man whose body betrays him a bit, but he's hitting a million right notes. Hurrah!

What I liked about Clint's routine — which you had to trust not to feel nervous about — was when he said "We own this country... Politicians are employees of ours... When somebody does not do the job, we've got to let them go." As I said in this post, this was a play on something Romney said, something that's been used against Romney: "I like being able to fire people." Clint imposed the correct interpretation on that: When somebody does not do the job, we've got to let them go.

I didn't say much about Romney's speech last night, because I was way too tired by then. Our liberal friend Alex said: "ROmney talking too much about his family and church. Where are the policy initiatives? Obama is going to be speech-ifying policy like crazy next week." (Yeah, lotsa policy wonkery, that would have kept me awake.)

And our liberal Lindsey said: "I just watched Mitten with the sound on...sound on/sound off...same amount of policy specifics. Meade must be in seventh heaven." Oh, she wants policy too. If only they'd have bored us all to tears all week with specifics.

Shouting Thomas continued his lugubriousness:

Romney played small ball. I think that's what we need. He doesn't have an overriding theme, only the promise that he has the technical and managerial skills to lead.

Obama will promise social justice and payoffs to his favored groups.

The debates should be interesting.

Meade responded:

Exactly right. What we need now is boring small ball competence. Time to put obama's failed presidency behind us. Romney will be a fine president.

Lindsey with the liberal lady's focus on sex not baseball had no trouble seeing the opportunity to say:

Well by all appearances, you got a guy with small balls. I was actually hoping that all the non-policy fluff was just to woo the far right but I am now pretty locked into that being all he has. Sad really.

If a man had said something equivalently sexual about a woman, Democrats would cry "war on women." If that kind of rhetoric is okay, we ought to call out Lindsey for her "war on men."

Ah! No spam. Maybe some not-so-admirable comments in there, but nothing robotic, and so Morning on the Althouse Blog continues (i.e., no word verification for commenting). And I just want to say one thing about this supposed lack of policy specifics from the GOP and the implication of Democratic superiority on said specifics. I mean I want to quote something from Paul Ryan's speech:

[President Obama] created a bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report. 

It was loaded with specifics.

He thanked them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing.

Ryan put a long pause between "did" — the action word — and "exactly nothing."

Live-blogging Day 3 of the GOP Convention.

6:04: Settle in. It's going to be a long night. Are you looking forward to anything other than Rubio and Romney?

6:30: A Mormon invocation, from Ken Hutchins, thanking God for "the beauty of the heavens and the earth... a lasting testament of Thy love for us."

6:43: "Once again, it's morning in America!" announces Connie Mack, gesturing exuberantly.

6:47: Another story of an immigrant who started a business. It's the American Dream, Mack tells us. "It's morning in America," he repeats, and the tribute video to Ronald Reagan begins.

6:53: "Whatever else history may say about me when I'm gone," says the  voice of the departed President, "I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears, to your confidence, rather than your doubts. In this springtime of hope, some lights seem eternal. America's is." And so, we hear the theme of the night: hope, dreams... the very words that won the last election for the other party.

6:59: It's Callista and Newt Gingrich, here to liken Romney to Reagan and Obama to Carter. It's like 1980 again, you must understand, and it's striking how President Carter and President Obama both wrecked out hopes and dreams within only 4 years. They're speaking in this slow, methodical way. I think this would have been livelier without Callista, but she's bringing the woman... and the beauty... very crisp beauty.

7:03: Hispanics: We love you! We really, really love you. Your values are Republican Party values. Hard work. Entrepreneurship. The American Dream. The successful Hispanics have been Republican.  Identify with success, o Hispanic people! [This was a video. I'll post it here when I find it.]

7:06: It's Craig Romney, the youngest Romney son. He speaks at some length in Spanish, and it sounds fluent to me. He's really handsome too, by the way.

7:12: Jeb Bush comes out and speaks his first few words in Spanish. I'm picturing the Democrats suddenly scrambling to put more Hispanic in their convention.

7:40: Grant Bennett, a friend and fellow church member of Romney's, explains the work Romney did within the LDS Church. This is beautifully stated, explaining a life of service to others. Meade says, "Community organizing!" And I say, "No, he was ministering to individuals." There was no organizing.

7:47: An array of church members testifying to Romney's religious ministry. [This is very touching, parents with children who suffered and died.]

8:37: More testimonials from businesses that were helped by Mitt Romney and from Olympians who benefited from Mitt's leadership. This section is well-done. I'm not particularizing it, but let me say I'm impressed by it.

9:03: Clint Eastwood!

9:10: Clint's talking to an empty chair representing Obama. Oh, I don't think it's possible for him to do that to himself.  

9:13: We own this country... Politicians are employees of ours... When somebody does not do the job, we've got to let them go. Note the echo with Mitt Romney's famous: "I like being able to fire people."

9:14: Marco Rubio! About Obama: "Our problem is not that he's a bad person. It's that he's a bad President."

10:42: And now, Romney has given his speech. It was a Romney speech.

"I said, God this guy is too handsome to be governor but he does look like he could be president."

"As the years have gone by I'm beginning to think even more so that."

"I would take a Johnsonville brat from the hand of a Koch brother if it were offered with the proper condiments and a good beer."

Citizen Dave explains Wisconsin values.

IN THE COMMENTS: The Farmer said: "Bravo, ex-Mayor Dave! And MadisonMan said: "Yes, Bravo -- except for the no ketchup part, you heathen!!!!" Original Mike said: "Ketchup on a brat??? MM, you're kidding, right?" Mr. D said: "Mayor Dave is right. No ketchup on a brat." And David-2 said:

MM - meet DH!

The man who says "marvelous," Part 2, the Clint Eastwood version.

Via EDH, in the comments to "Romney, the man who says 'marvelous,'" where we are talking about the extent to which it is unmanly for a man to say "marvelous."

"I’ve been wondering for a while now when we were going to see an Obama-inflected Hollywood cinema."

Writes J. Hoberman in a New York Review of Books blog post that begins with an analysis of the "Halftime in America" Super Bowl ad.

The longing for Obama (or an Obama) can be found in two prescient 2008 movies—WALL-E (the world saved by an endearing little dingbot, community organizer for an extinct community) and Milk (portrait of another creative community organizer—not to mention a precedent-shattering politician who, it’s very often reiterated, presented himself as a Messenger of Hope). Nothing comparable has appeared since Obama’s inauguration although there is a mildly Obama-iste aspect to any movie featuring an unconventional protagonist, like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Haywire (both with very tough gals) or even The Social Network (celebration of world-historical nerd), as well as the not undeserved love showered on The Hurt Locker—a two-fisted, Howard Hawks-type war movie directed by a lady!

Seems like, for Hoberman, Obama is always there and always not there. Movies about "very tough gals" have to do with Obama? Movies directed by a lady are Obama-iste?! Hoberman's longing for an Obama tinged world is somehow all about women. And robots and gay guys. Intimations of Obama, leaving us still longing for Obama, wondering where he is. And now, suddenly... Clint Eastwood!

Ha ha. That was the most fatuous thing I've read all day. Including a few Supreme Court cases.