RUSH: Yeah, I loved Eastwood. I even thought that was bold and good. I’ll tell you what, folks. Let me just give you a little hint on how to translate the left today.
The left — and this is predictable. They’re destroying Eastwood, and Hollywood types are destroying Eastwood. “Oh, Clint! What’s happened to poor old Clint? Oh, he looks like he’s got Alzheimer’s. Oh, no. Did you see how old Clint was? He didn’t even know where he was.” They were dumping all over Eastwood, and you know why? Because they can’t hit Romney, and they’ve gotta hit something. But Romney’s speech doesn’t have a whole lot hittable in it. Oh, they were sending out their e-mails last night.
We’re on their mailing lists. Every five or ten minutes, they were sending out e-mails asking for three bucks. The various Democratic fundraising organizations were asking for three bucks. “That Paul Ryan, he lied through his teeth and now Romney? He’s lying through his teeth!” But that stuff is pro forma. The target that Eastwood’s become…? By the way, let me tell you something. Eastwood succeeded in getting under Obama’s skin.
At 12:30 last night, somebody on behalf of Obama (and for all I know it was Obama himself) tweeted a picture of Obama in an official presidential chair. Looks like it’s in the Cabinet Room. It might be in the Oval, but, regardless, it’s the official presidential chair, and it’s got a little miniature plaque on the back of the chair that says, “President US 2009.” And the tweet is, “This seat is taken.” Now, we’ve talked about this. So here they needle Obama. He’s so transparent!
We can depict this guy as an empty chair. And it must have gotten to him because he tweeted at 12:30 or somebody did in his name — that, “Nope, sorry. This seat’s taken,” rather than ignore it. See? See, here’s somebody who chose the philosophy of responding, of replying, of fighting back, and now a lot of people are saying, “A-ha, it worked! It got under Obama’s skin,” and it did.
You know, I wondered what the heck was going on. I didn’t get it for a while because my hearing is such that I had to wait for closed-captioning to catch up with what Eastwood was saying at the beginning, and whoever was doing the transcribing didn’t know what he was saying because it was ad-lib. They didn’t have it on the prompter so they couldn’t have preloaded it for the captioners so I’m starting to get nervous. I saw that empty chair, and I thought, “What is that doing there?”
It took me awhile to figure out that Eastwood was looking at the empty chair. It was Obama there. He’s having this imaginary conversation. Then, I realized what was going on. This is a great bit, and Eastwood was the essence of simplicity. How, if somebody’s not doing a job, you let ’em go. Just simple as it could be. Real world simple. Plus, it was hilarious. It was funny. Of course, we are people who like laughing at Obama. The other side doesn’t.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Clint Eastwood and the empty chair. Improv. This, I loved. I thought this was the essence, as I say, of simplicity. I thought Eastwood was funny. I thought he was great. Brevity is the soul of wit, and Eastwood demonstrated that last night. Let’s go to the audio sound bites and hear him making fun of Oprah on national TV. Who does that? Well, outside of us, of course, but who? Nobody does that. But we all do.
EASTWOOD: 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 and it was outdoors and it was nice and people were lighting candles and they were saying… I just thought, “This is great.” I mean, everybody’s crying. Oprah was crying, and —
CONVENTION: (laughter)
EASTWOOD: I was even crying! And finally — I haven’t cried that hard since I found out that there’s 23 million unemployed people in this country.
CONVENTION: (laughter)
EASTWOOD: 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.
RUSH: Now, I don’t know about you. I love words. Words mean things. Even words that sound like throwaway words. When Eastwood said, “I was watching that night when he was having that thing,” people said, “He’s senile! He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He couldn’t even remember what that was.” No, no, no! “Having that thing” is perfect. Yeah, “they were having that thing.” This is the perfect way to diminish it.
He was talking about Obama and Grant Park after the election. All these people, the zombies, are lighting candles. They don’t even know why they’re there. They just feel good. But if you ask ’em why, you’d get spaced-out, Oprah-type answers. And then to throw in Oprah was crying? I mean, I’m sorry, that hits me right in the heart because I have a theory that Oprah’s success is directly related to how much she cries, and I’ve told you this over and over again.
So that one, when I heard it, just made my day. You talk about emotional connections? Clint and I were on the same Zen-like astral plane with that one. “Yeah, I was watching that night and they were having that thing.” (laughing) That just cracked me up. That’s the kind of thing I wish I had said, and to most people it’s a throwaway or some senile old guy who can’t remember what he’s talking about. And he also ripped, appropriately so, Vice President Joe Biden.
EASTWOOD: (asking the empty Obama chair) What do you want me to tell Romney? (pause) I can’t tell him to do that. He can’t do that to himself.
CONVENTION: (laughter)
EASTWOOD: You’re… You’re absolutely crazy.
CONVENTION: (whistles and laughter)
EASTWOOD: You’re getting as bad as Biden.
CONVENTION: (wild laughter and applause)
EASTWOOD: Of course, we all know Biden is the intellect of the Democrat Party, so…
CONVENTION: (roaring laughter)
EASTWOOD: He’s kind of a grin with a body behind it.
CONVENTION: (roars continue)
RUSH: I tell you, folks, when I saw that empty chair, at first I didn’t know what was going on because of my hearing. As I said, I had to wait for closed-captioning to catch up, so I was lagging behind ’til I figured out what was going on. But when they panned the crowd after Eastwood said, “I can’t tell him to do that. He can’t do that to himself. You’re crazy. You’re absolutely crazy. You’re getting as bad as Biden.” They panned the crowd.
We didn’t hear anything, but I know what I saw. I saw a bunch of people explaining what he was talking about to other people. I saw a guy laughing, telling a woman who had a look of total confusion on her face what Clint had just said. And vice-versa. But there were some people who didn’t quite get it. I got it right off the bat, and most people did, but it was funny to see it being translated out there. The camera stuck on some people long enough that after they had had it translated, you saw their mouths fall open.
“Really? (Gasp!) Is that what that means?”
Where else are you gonna get this stuff? This is real. Critics are talking about such lack of dignity, so beneath the image that the Republicans want to put forward. No, this was real. Everything about this convention this week was real. Eastwood, he did ramble some. I mean, it was ad-lib. There wasn’t a prompter up there. Well, actually, if you look at a still shot or two, you’ll see a prompter for the empty chair. Yes. You will see a prompter for the empty chair. If you look, if you see a picture or a still shot (even a live shot at the right angle). But he did ramble.
But then he eventually got to another point…
EASTWOOD: We own this country.
CONVENTION: (cheers and applause)
EASTWOOD: We own it. And it’s not you owning it and not politicians owning it. Politicians are employees of ours, and
CONVENTION: (cheers and applause)
EASTWOOD: So they’re just gonna come around and beg for votes every few years. It’s the same old deal. But I just think that it’s important that you realize that you’re the best in the world, whether you’re Democrat or whether you’re a Republican or whether you’re libertarian or whatever. You’re the best, and we should not ever forget that, and when somebody does not do the job, we gotta let ’em go.
CONVENTION: (cheers and applause)
RUSH: What could be more sensible? What could be simpler? The fact-checkers, by the way — some of the lib fact-checkers — are actually testing to see if you can do that to yourself, to see if Eastwood was lying. Some of these lib fact-checkers are actually trying it. They’re desperately trying to catch Eastwood in a lie. No, here’s another of what a lot of people would consider a throwaway line. He says, “Politicians are employees of ours.”
Everybody’s laughing, and everybody’s chuckling and applauding. And then he says, “So they’re just gonna come around, beg for votes every few years. It’s the same old deal.” Amen! That’s exactly how a lot of people look at politicians: “They’re gonna come around and beg for votes. Same old deal.” But you’re the best. You’re the people who make the country work. And when somebody doesn’t do a good job, we gotta let ’em go.
It’s just that simple.