On the final evening of the Republican
National Convention in Tampa, during the 10 o’clock hour, Clint Eastwood took
the stage. There with him was an empty
chair.
With his hair disheveled and his voice
halting, he spoke of the hope this president promised. He turned to the empty chair and theatrically
had a conversation with it.
Many of my brethren in the dextrosphere
felt Eastwood behaved like a “crazy old uncle” or that he appeared to be
rambling and incoherent. Some even said
they found his Q & A with the invisible president “painful to watch.”
One
blogger wrote, “What followed was a rambling, bizaree (sic),
disjointed, jarring, seemingly off-the-cuff performance. It was almost like the
ghost of Bob Dole had appeared.”
One commenter
added, “This was
embarrassing. It killed the energy of
the party and the people looked puzzled at times who witnessed it, and I felt
they felt they needed to applaud but weren't sure when. I felt sorry for Clint
Eastwood.”
Please do not mistake what I am saying
here. I am not being critical of that
blogger or anyone else who shared his thoughts on the performance; on the
contrary. I merely seek to have those
who share that insight view that seminal moment in a different light.
The empty chair was the Right’s Rule 5
taken directly from Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. Eastwood’s roughest mockery of this regime
has the Left seething over it to the point of being irrational.
If you are not
familiar with Rule 5, it states, "Ridicule is
man's most potent weapon. It is almost
impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, which
then reacts to your advantage."
The single most vital point to remember when conservatives
attempt to utilize Rule 5 is to never use it in anger. For ridicule to be effective it has to
be done calmly and usually with a sense of humor. His
searing scorn was even-tempered and light-hearted. It drew blood.
If you want to
understand the role that ridicule plays in the Alinsky method, and particularly
in the way in which the Obama Administration uses Alinsky, you need look no
further than Sarah Palin. From the moment that she was introduced as John
McCain’s running mate, the Alinsky machine within Obama’s campaign flew into
action at full speed to find ways to mock, denigrate, and ridicule her. Obama’s
campaign dispatched a slew of vultures to descend on Alaska in an effort to dig
dirt, stir trouble, and uncover any malcontent who might have the tiniest bit
of salacious information on the Governor.
“The messages
and tactics of Alinsky, long the monopoly of the Left, have been discovered by
the Right,” writes J.
Christian Adams.
“After
Eastwood obliterated Obama and reminded everyone of the lost hope of 2008,
Romney’s positive vision gave Americans something that has been
lacking for three years—a constructive, positive alternative vision for
America. The vision reminds people of an age before Obama, when the entire
nation watched Neil Armstrong step foot on the moon. Pride and
confidence are the alternative to diminishment and fear.”
[snip]
"In 2012, the Romney
campaign recognizes what it is up against, and last night made it
clear they know how to fight."
And so I’ll ask you, can you see it now?
