Eastwood speech
Like I said last night, I can’t watch speeches anymore, but Clint Eastwood got so many bad reviews in the “unbiased” media, I had to watch it this morning. While I’ll admit that it was a little odd that he was talking to an empty chair (which was supposed to represent the President with whom he was supposedly conversing), I didn’t think he did a bad job at all. He hit on all of my complaints about this administration. Well, if you didn’t watch it, here’s the 11 minute video;
He didn’t give me many reasons to vote for Romney, but he gave me a lot of reasons to vote against Obama, and I guess that’s the whole point this year. The speech would have better if he had channeled Gunny Highway, though.
Category: 2012 election, Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan
@35. “Chalk it up to the chaos of the English language.” Oh, okay. And to what do I chalk up THE ONE’s whisperings to Putin. And what about the reference to those who cling to guns or the Bible? While we’re at it, what of his bankruptcy threat to coal-fired power plants? I could go on, and I will do so if you like, but I hope I’ve made my point. It’s that the only chaos in our native tongue is spewing from obama’s own mouth.
@50- We’re not “bemoaning” Eastwoods performance, we’re thrilled. The guy not only wasted 11 prime-time national television minutes but he sucked all the oxygen out of Mitt Romney’s big moment. In fact some Democrats are wondering if this was his ninja technique of getting revenge on Karl Rove for his comments regarding the “half-time in America” commercial.
It’s the Republicans that are “bemoaning” his performance and the 11 minutes of free prime-time space they’ll never get back.
As to the speech itself- speaking to a Barack Obama that does not exist and putting words in his mouth that he never said is the perfect metaphor for how the Republicans have been acting since he got elected. It’s also the main reason why you’re going to lose in November.
Hey, AirCav, what was that about counting beans that aren’t in the pot yet?
Insipid, the ONLY reason we MIGHT lose is a campaign based on public misinformation, fear, and negativity. I have not seen anything from this administration that shows they care about the well-being of Americans, or America itself. You can say “It was the Republicans fault, they passed nothing!” But you can’t get past the fact Dens owned the Senate and House! If you can’t pass bills with a supermajority, then don’t blame the other Guy. But I forgot, blame is all this Administration does.
@50 – It’s hysterical that you HATE political correctness- until someone is politically incorrect towards one of yours. It’s perfectly OK to characterize Nancy Pelosi or Willie Nelson as dottering old fools, but how dare you paint Eastwood with that brush. If Willie, or Carl Reiner or Norman Lear or Mel Brooks or any other liberal octegenarian spent 11 minutes looking confused and talking to his stool on national television you wouldn’t be lamenting the fall of a great artist or tut-tutting how uncivil the media is to old folks. You’d all be rushing to make fun of him.
Hypocricy- thy name is Conservative.
@ Ex-PH2: They made the tweet not because it hit a nerve, but because it was so strange that it was going to get mocked by Democrats anyway, so the tweet was to charge up the base.
Again, I think the tweet itself was pretty childish, but look on any liberal-leaning sites and you’ll see people love it. I hope the President himself had nothing to do with it because I’d really like to believe he’s not so lame as to comment on things like this.
@54- we passed a LOT of great legislation in the 2 years we had both houses. In fact half of what Romney is campaigning on is undoing what President Obama did. And the economy was advancing at a pretty nice clip. Up until fools gave the Republicans the keys back.
@56- The tweet was “childish” but pretending that Obama is cursing and telling peple to go fuck themeselves is not chldish? You guys really do live in an alternate universe.
@ 2-17 AirCav: I was just talking specifically about the ‘You didn’t build that!’ nonsense – it’s pretty clear to me that he was talking about infrastructure, unless you take the quote out of context.
To make a willful distortion on the sentiment a rallying cry for the Republican party is pretty pathetic. There are plenty of things one can hammer the President on that are NOT said distortions, as your other examples indicate. As an independent voter, seeing such incredibly dishonest portrayals of things is off-putting. Surely we can agree that a Republican party that has substance is better than one that resorts to making things up?
57- obviously the public didn’t like your great legislation, eh? People don’t get unseated for no reason.
They didn’t like what was said about it. But the actual legislation they like. I doubt if there’s too many 21 year olds that want to give up their health care, too many senior that want to re-instate the donut hole or get rid of wellness visits, i doubt if there’s anyone eager to go back to the days where banks could charge you 37 dollars on a .37 cent overdraft.
@ insipid: Yes, I feel it’s childish for the President of the United States of America to respond to such things. Someone else in his office? Sure, fine. But not the President. He tends to have a lot more important things to deal with, in my opinion.
And ‘you guys’? I’m one of the liberal-leaning types here.
I thought the tweet funny. Certainly funnier than Eastwood’s speech. I doubt if the President actually did the tweet himself. Sorry to assume you were conservative. Either way, i still disagree with your point.
Problem is Spud, it’s not HIS chair. It’s ours, and we’re fixing to kick his ass out of it.
It doesn’t look like it’s going to happen BR. Nate Silver gives President Obama a 73.1% chance of winning the electoral vote:
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/
Obviously a lot can happen in the next 66 days, but his analysis is pretty much in-line with huff post, electora-vote and real clear politics.
Granted a lot can happen in the next 66 days. President Obama can blow it in the debates, the economy can fall apart, but none of that is likely. In fact considering the inompetance of the Romney campaign thus far, if it breaks largely in one direction it is far more likely that it will break towards an Obama landslide than in a Republican victory.
Rasmussen shows Romney with a slight lead over Obama at this point. I do not take a lot of faith in polls, but will take those over someones made up method of determining who will win in November.
Obama could not even take the time out to go to Louisiana because it is not a “swing state”, he’ll wait until Monday to go and see how the folks who lost their homes are doing… meantime Mutt Romney who will likely walk away with the vote there cancelled a trip to a swing state to go and see how those folks were doing…. I think people may begin to see what type of character “the One” has…or doesn’t have.
Add this to your list of so called haters you moron!
BRAVO ZULU!
The only poll that matters is in November. While the current momentum is swinging away from Obama (up 4.7 pts 2 weeks ago, now 0.3 pts), only an idiot would proclaim the “winner” at this stage of the game.
Insipid is right about one thing though: If Obama is re-elected, it is 100% the fault of a poor campaign on Romney’s part. Unemployment remains higher than when he took office, and is only statistically lower than some points since, because people have fallen off the radar. Those “3 Million jobs he created” disappeared in a 3 card monte trick, pushing temporary Census workers right back into the unemployment lines. Obama has proven time and again that he wants to cut the Military, to throw Troops into the unemployment lines, and patch together old equipment rather than provide them with modern technology, while using the DoD budget to subsidize failing “green energy” like Solyndra.
So, when the left attacks an aging entertainer, it is an acknowledgement that what the politicians on stage, that are actually running for office were spot on and correct. They know the record is bad. They know the RNC message of ending divisiveness and taking responsibility is spot on. They know Americans are tired of sexual assaults at the airport, and high taxes in their paychecks. So, since they can’t defend their own record, and they know they’ll find no mercy if they attack the message, they attack an 82 year old entertainer.
@WOTN, we’re all told when we are in the military that we are not supposed to participate in political events, such as campaigning for a candidate.
So what is the justification for any president to appear at a military installation with uniformed troops stacked up behind him, on a campaign stop, never mind making a speech while he’s there?
There is none.
They are not HIS troops, they are OURS. They do NOT belong to him. They belong to US. He does NOT have the right to use them for his own political benefit for any reason.
We’re not “bemoaning” Eastwoods performance, we’re thrilled.
I would suggest to you, insipid, that you keep pushing that. Bashing an 82-year old American icon is gonna work wonders with those moderate voters you’re so desperately going to need come November.
Go on, go on–keep bashing him! By all means, do it!
Thanks for letting me know what you excuse this time will be, WOTN. At least it’s better than “affirmative action”. President Obama will win re-election because people remember that we were hemorrhaging jobs at 750k a month when he came into office and that we stopped hemorrhaging jobs when the stimulus took effect. They remember whick party killed the dream act and which party likes to parse the definition of rape and regards rape as just another method of conception. He’ll win re-election because people know that we’ve tried the Republican way for 6 years and we know what it led us to. But if it makes you feel better to tell yourself it’s Romney and not your own policies, i’m fine with that. The less you self-evaluate the easier it is for Dems to win in 2014 and 2016.
As far as the alleged abuse of the Stool Whisperer goes, 1. thell me with a straight face that if an elderly liberal had done the same thing Rush Limbaugh wouldn’t be spending his entire show with sound bites loaded for bear? 2. You can’t call for civility when the guy spent 11 minutes characterizing President Obama as a foul mouthed brute who tells people to fuck themeselves. Civility for me and none for thee doesn’t work in reality.
By the way, the covention bounce you are extolling is pretty pathetic WOTN. It’s customary to get a bounce from anywhere from 7 to 11 points. Four points is just sad.
Um, you do realize that the polls that are being discussed now not only don’t fully reflect the post-convention bounce but I for one would be VERY curious to see the polling internals. I mean, wouldn’t you?
So far, the MSM has been relying on polls that have oversampled women, minorities, Democrats (by as much as 10 poitns) in order to make it “look” close.
All the polls are really doing these days is making the race relevant. If the polls showed one candidate or the other leading by 30 points, who’d give a shit, and the ratings for the nightly newscasts would suffer as a result.
Remember, Carter and Reagan were supposedly neck-and-neck in 1980. How’d that turn out? They also had Mondale within six points in 1984. Again, how’d that turn out?
And actually, we haven’t “stopped hemmoraging jobs” either. We’re just not losing them as fast, and certainly not replacing the ones that were lost. Look at the U-6 figure if you really want to get an understanding of where we’re at from an employment standpoint.
14 million people unemployed is far from something to crow about, my little liberal “friend.”
Basically he is 3 times a moron! And Insipid is the hater, just read all the inflamatory words he uses!
Go Navy!
BRAVO ZULU!
Well, you cling tightly to your fantasy there, skippy. Nate Silver was accurate when it went our way in 2006 and 08 and he was accurate when it went your way in 2010. Stamping your feet and screaming LIBERAL POLLS is no argument, just petulence.
Unfortunately the Reagan come-from-behind story line is as fictional as just about everything else you say about the gipper. In almost all cases, how it looks in the Summer is how it winds up on election days. All during the Summer of 1980 Reagan was safely ahead of Carter. Yes, Carter surged in the Fall, but that surge fell apart. Re-write histor all you want but there was never much doubt as to who was going to win at the time.
http://bearingdrift.com/2012/06/25/summer-is-campaign-season-for-presidents/
Other big problems with the Carter = Obama comparison are:
1. Carter had third party Candidate John Anderson to deal with who took away 10% of the votes almost entirely from Carter.
2. There was a hostage crises going on at the time that had dragged on for over a year.
3. Carter had an approval rating in the low 30s.
Mondale may have had a good week, but the idea that it was ever close is just a fantasy.
In all honesty I’m not 100% sure Obama will win. Citizens United may make the difference (but being i a swing state i’ve already started to zone out on the commercials, and i barely watch tv!). But I am saying i’d MUCH rather be on my side than yours.
There’s already been more private sector job growth than there was in the entire Bush administration. The problem is with the public sector jobs and Conservative obstruction in regards to aid to the states.
PH2, I can’t disagree with you. Word on the street is that the captive crowd was less than enthusiastic though.
Insipid/Hater: I’m not a Romney fan, but I was quite clear: the polls don’t mean jack at this point, not even when they indicate a changing momentum. The fact is that NONE of the polls demonstrate either having a majority anyway, and ALL are within the margin of error. AGAIN, the ONLY poll that matters is in November.
With a broken economy, unemployment higher than the 8.2% statistics show, and sustained record deficits, if Obama wins re-election, it IS a failure of the opposition campaign. At this point Carter should be able to beat him. especially on his “strong issue,” of National Security.
@73
Sparky, here is some good reading from Ulsterman Report about internal pollings which highlight Dem oversampling by liberal politburos.
http://theulstermanreport.com/2012/08/27/even-biased-polling-cannot-hide-obamas-troubles/
http://theulstermanreport.com/2012/07/31/white-house-insider-how-mitt-romney-mentally-castrated-the-obama-campaign/
http://theulstermanreport.com/2012/09/01/data-shows-clint-eastwood-crushing-obama/
If Eastwood had done the same thing toward a GOP Pres, the left would be praising it. The left called Bush every name in the book, but God forbid anyone criticize Obama, that’s just “racist”!
( my apologies to the few normal Democrats and liberals that still exist out there)
I’m seriously getting sick of both “parties” and the constant hypocrisy. Obama is a turd and so is Romney, but I’ll vote for Romney because a) Anything beats what we have now b) I don’t want to see our military crippled and c) I’m hoping the few sane members of Congress can persuade him to work with them.
But I am saying i’d MUCH rather be on my side than yours.
Likewise.
And flaws in your logic:
–Anderson was an independent, but he was a former REPUBLICAN. The Dem strategy was to get him painted as a Republican, which they did, in the hopes it would draw more from Reagan’s pool than from Carter’s. In the end, the split was fairly even, meaning that had Anderson never run the final popular vote would have been closer to 54/43 (and notice how close to the 1984 results that was?) rather than the 50/41/7 it was.
http://www.amstat.org/sections/srms/Proceedings/papers/1981_011.pdf
Also notice that even in the last 1-2 weeks of the campaign, nobody had Reagan up anywhere near the final results–because of the assumption most would end up going from Reagan to Anderson.
Neener fucking neener.
–The hostage crisis was only ONE issue that sank Carter. Perhaps I can jog your memory as to a few others: “malaise”, boycotting Moscow Olympics, “Misery Index”, 15 percent inflation, gas shortages (remember odd/even days?), giving away the Panama Canal, etc.
–Um, actually upper 30’s by Election Day. His lowest approval was in 1979 at 29 percent. Obama’s approval has been as low as the upper 30’s, and currently stands in the low-mid 40’s. Not a good place to be if you’re an incumbent.
@ 77 Nice!
Insipd … You see you are a HATER! I am on ocassion a satirist … one who engages in satire. Other times I am serious. Your problem is you try to be serious and often use satire. The rule is pick one that you are good at. Serious intellectual intercourse or satire.
Oh … sorry … you are equally bad at both!
That was serious!
That’s a realy unbiased source you have there Devtun. Only problem is that they “oversampled” democrats in 2010 as well. Why? Because there’s more registered democrats than republicans- we just tend to vote less. They make up for this by polling likely voters.
Oh, our Octengenarians are actually funny:
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/romney-human-being-who-built-narrated-leona
Spock, Rocks!
And here’s Jon Stewart demonstrating just how “upset” we are about Clint’s speech:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/01/jon-stewart-clint-eastwood-romney_n_1848979.html?utm_hp_ref=comedy
And for a little balance (kind of sort of) here’s Bill Maher actually defending Clint:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/01/bill-maher-defends-clint-eastwood_n_1849097.html?utm_hp_ref=comedy
I have been honored in many ways during my career … but Insipid this is a highlight one which only confirms … YOU are a class “A” Jack Ass.
By the way what branch of service did you serve in?
Sparky, polls don’t count for much this far ahead of the voting date, as they are opinion polls and biased toward the party of the poll taker. When people call me and ask who I’m going to vote for, I tell them ‘none of your beeswax’ and hang up. It’s a secret ballot, you know. The only polls that actually count are the exit polls on election days.
BOL statistics for unemployment:
New claims: 374,000 up 2,000 (8/24 date)
Continuing: 3.316MM (8/18) V. 3.321MM (8/11)
This means that 5,000 people have lost their benefits, not found new jobs.
Jobless rates were up in 44 states, down 2 in July
Jobs lost in July 163,000 — not enough to offset the total unemployment claims
Unemployment rate highest level 2009 to present: October 2009 10.0%
Unemployment rate lowest level 2009 to present: April 2012 8.1%
Current monthly rate: 8.3% (July rate; August avail. Sept. 7)
Unemployment rates 2002 to 2008:
Highest level 6.3% June 2003
Lowest level 4.4% Dec 2006 thru May 2007
Hardly hemorrhaging jobs.
Oh, here’s a little statistic that should really get the tinfoil hat conspiracy crowd going:
An executive order has been signed by Barack Obama that give him power to bypass the Constitution and seize control of all resources, including food and fuel, restrict travel by everyone, as well as legislation allowing the arrest and imprisonment of US citizens without cause or trial. They are as follows:
National Defense Resource Preparedness, signed 3/16/2012
and
National Defense Administration Act was drafted in secret by Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and passed in a closed-door committee meeting, without even a single hearing. It allows the arrest and imprisonment of American citizens without trial and for an indefinite period, among other things. Signed November 2011 by Barack Obama.
59,
It doesn’t matter that he was talking about infrastructure. The people who built businesses, created goods and services that made an economy of our scale possible are the ones who made it possible for that infrastructure to be there in the first place. Either way, he’s economically illiterate and contemptuous of the people who made it possible for this country to have what it does.
Sadly for you, Obama’s approval rating is at 50%:
http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-approval-rating-hits-50-percent-in-abc-cnn-polls-2012-8
While Anderson was a Republican, he was a liberal republican (they did exist at one time) whose big idea was .50 cent a gallon gasoline tax. The fact that Anderson helped Reagan and hurt Carter is evidenced by the behavior of the two candidates. The reason why there was only one debate, instead of the scheduled three was Reagan’s inistence that Anderson be part of the debate. He finally relented and kept Anderson out, but in exchange they just had a debate a week before the election. In fact Reagan had two debates that year, one with Anderson and one with Carter. This is certainly not the behavior of a candidate who believes the third party hurt both sides equally.
It’s also funny how you all never tire of blaming Bush Sr.’s loss on Perot, but fall on your feinting couch the moment someone mentions Anderson.
As far as your other points about Carter, you’re only proving my point that Obama is nothing like Carter. Thank you.
@85. We lost 2.5 million jobs the last three months of Bush’s Presidency. If that does not meet the definition of hemorrhaging, I don’t know what does. Facts have a liberal bias.
Oops, sorry forgot to change my name back.
I was in the Army National Guard MCPO.
Sippy,
You can cling to your Nate Silver binky all you want, but the truth is that your teleprompter messiah is in trouble. He might still win, but there’s just as good a chance that he won’t. Silver says one thing and he’s been right before, but a University of Colorado election model that’s been right every time since 1980 predicts a big Romney win.
http://www.examiner.com/article/university-of-colorado-analysis-predicts-romney-win-presidential-race
Thing is, none of it matters until it’s really time to vote.
That study is not based on polling data but economic numbers. The only problem is that the economic numbers are skewed because of the fact that the vast majority of people blame the Republicans for the mess we’re in and not President Obama. If there’s an historical comparison to be made, it’s 1936. The economy was the worst it has ever been in history, the country was barely adding jobs at all and yet FDR increased his majority. That’s because people remembered who got them there.
There may be a miracle for your guy, but in all likelihood it will be Obama’s night on November 6th.
I have a feeling you wouldn’t be banging the “none of it matters” drum if the facts favored your side.
#91 You can cling to your “it’s Nate Silver” binky all you want. But the reality is that it is ALL the polling sites that put Obama as the likely winner in November, Huff Post, real clear politics, Electoral-vote ALL of them have President Obama as the prohibitive favorite to win.
I will concede that the only poll that matters is the one in November. But still there’s no doubt my side is up as of right now, and if history is prelude my side will be victorious in November.
I think the facts do favor the guy I support, but I’m also looking at the situation realistically by not discounting the effect of addlepated drones like yourself in large numbers.
It’s interesting that you bring up FDR, but I hate to tell you that this isn’t 1936. For someone who keeps saying that his opponents want to relive the past, you sure do plenty of that on your own. It’s also interesting how time adds some perspective, and things get a little clearer once we’re a little removed from the situation. One such instance is how FDR’s policies actually prolonged the depression.
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.aspx
Here’s two articles detailing why 2012 is nothing like 1980:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/why-2012-is-not-1980-ctd/2012/08/09/313fe6f8-e244-11e1-a25e-15067bb31849_blog.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/why-2012-is-not-1980-ctd/2012/08/09/313fe6f8-e244-11e1-a25e-15067bb31849_blog.html
The articles feature Ed Rollins and a Reagan biogropher as the main sources, so you can’t scream bias.
@ Insipid … OK ANG … I like you a little. Not much though!
@95- LOL. Forgive us for not being quite as efficient in cleaning up your messes as you’d like.
Oh, wait, i have an actual honest to goodness off-topic question for you army types. I’m looking for another job right now and put in a request for a DD-214 but it’s only showing that I left the Army as a Private! I KNOW i left as an e-5. How can you correct the record?
Ah yes, the objectivity and non-bias that is Greg Sargent of JournoList and Media Matters (“He’ll write anything you give him”) fame. I’m sure he wouldn’t take either out of context or just make stuff up like every other time. I don’t think it’s 1980 all over again, btw.
As far as your comment at 98 goes, I sure as hell hope that you aren’t a firefighter in whichever locality you lurk. I’d hate to watch some poor sap’s house burning down, only to see you bravely charging forward with a can of gasoline, given your ideas on cleaning up messes.