The Republican Convention Through the Looking Glass

It’s weird how the reporting on the Republican convention and its speeches differs depending on which outlet you consult. If you go to any right-wing outlet, say, National Review, what were the best speeches of the convention? Probably the most excitement is about Paul Ryan (“fading Obama poster”), Clint Eastwood (“the empty chair presidency”), and Mia Love. If you go to any of the MSM guys, or the officially left-wing press, what were the great failures of the convention? Paul Ryan’s speech (“he lied”), and Clint Eastwood’s speech (“bizarre and embarrassing; a train wreck”). (See, for example, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sean-carman/lies-and-the-lying-liars-_b_1848894.html) And Mia Love? Her speech was cut by NBC; never shown nor mentioned. A search on Google News shows few references to it anywhere in the left-wing or mainstream media.

Both perceptions cannot be true; someone must be either scamming their listeners/readers, or delusional.

That last factoid, the odd absence of Mia Love from NBC and others, makes me believe that it is the right that has it right. (Of course, I could be accused of partisanship. I am Catholic.)

Another factoid that makes me believe this: Slate Magazine, definitely leftist, ran a snap internet poll right after Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech, asking whether Romney’s speech made readers more or less likely to vote for him. The result showed a strong jump in Romney support. Yet the Slate readership is presumably predisposed towards Obama. This reaction, inevitably, also reflected the results of the Eastwood speech immediately before Romney’s. SurveyUSA ran a similar snap poll, and detected a 10% swing from Obama to Romney over the night. (http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/01/new-florida-poll-shows-vindication-of-eastwood-strategy/). So Eastwood seems to have hit home.Rasmussen is also detecting movement Mittward.

So we have solid, objective evidence that Mia Love and Clint Eastwood really were good. What about Ryan? Did Ryan lie in his speech? It really ought to be possible to determine, objectively, whether what he said was in violation of the facts or not.

The main or marquee claim is that he lied about the closing of a plant in his home town. But a careful reading of what he actually said shows that it was precisely accurate, and his words seem to have been extremely well-chosen.

The second claim is that he lied in accusing Obama of “doing nothing” in the face of the Simpson-Bowles debt report. The critics point out that Ryan himself voted against that report. But he did not blame Obama for rejecting Simpson Bowles per se, but for “doing nothing”—in other words, presumably, it would have been okay if he had had any alternative plan to reduce the deficit, if not Simpson-Bowles. Did Ryan himself vote against it in favour of “doing nothing”? No—he had his own plan, as everybody knows well. Again, his words seem to have been truthful, and carefully chosen.

Of course, it is not literally true that Obama "did nothing" about the deficit. But it is true that the deficit has grown exponentially on his watch. Seems like fair comment, well within the realm of normal political discourse.

Was there an intent to mislead? Possibly, possibly not. I don’t see it. Everyone is free to judge that for themselves. You can’t prove intent.

And you cannot fairly accuse someone of lying when their words are true.

So, given that the mainstream and left-wing media are well off the beam here, what is going on? As noted before, they must either be deliberately conning their readers and listeners, or they must be delusional. Either reflects poorly on the prospects for the left this time around. If they have resorted to the con, they have lost the moral mandate of heaven, and must themselves be feeling desperate. If they are delusional, they are not going to be able to respond to events sensibly and intelligently. They are likely to do things that are not in their best interests, and fail to do things that are.

Dirty Harry on the Campaign Trail - The Sequel

The Joker

Everyone seems to be talking about Clint Eastwood’s speech at the Republican Convention, and opinion seems to be split right down the middle: either it was a stroke of genius, or a terrible embarrassment.

I myself am of both opinions, in a way. The first time I saw it, on YouTube, I had to cut away; it was too wince-inducing. Then I read a transcript. Impressive. The transcript is so good, especially considering that it was ad libbed, that I cannot believe Eastwood is really the doddering old man he pretended to be in the speech. No, he’s an actor. He was deliberately playing the part, and so well that at least half the audience thought it was real. Why?

Because old folks, like fools and children, have a special license to tell the truth. The problem is that because Obama is black, one cannot criticize him without immediately being accused of racism. Hence the entire Republican Convention had to be rather muted, lacking in oratorical “red meat.” Notably, Obama is never the butt of jokes among late-night comics. One does not dare.

For the same reason, many people may feel obliged to vote for him or at least say they are going to vote for him, or be accused of being a racist.

Eastwood got around that by pretending to be a senile old man, complete with disheveled hair. Can’t blame him for what he says, then, can you? But he took that issue on head-on, and he said it at the climax of his speech, showing this was all deliberate:

when somebody does not do the job, we got to let them go.

… we do not have to be … masochists and vote for somebody that we don’t really even want in office just because they seem to be nice guys or maybe not so nice guys, if you look at some of the recent ads going out there, I don’t know.

There you are. The emperor has no clothes. He gave folks permission to joke about Obama, and he gave folks permission to vote against him.

Sure, he made half the audience think he was a doddering old fool. Does that matter to him personally? Perhaps, perhaps not. As an actor, as an artist, it might well have been worth it to him as a choice role; he really is pretty old and probably past caring what people think of him; it is unlikely to hurt his box office, on the standard premise that no publicity is bad publicity in his business.

And that does not matter in the least to the political effectiveness of his message. It helps. Now everyone who is told Eastwood made a fool of himself is going to have to watch the speech for themselves, and discuss it. Damned effective for getting the message out.

The first iteration of the speech I find on YouTube already has over a half a million hits, and likes are outpolling dislikes 2 to 1. Looks like most folks got the joke.

 OK, we knew Eastwood was not only a pretty decent actor, but also a pretty decent director.

I’d say he’s carved himself a place in political history with this one.