By now constant reader you’ve figured out I identify as liberal and I plan to vote for President Obama in November.  Some will say that it automatically disqualifies me from objectivity but I certainly disagree.  I give credit where it is due, and I can disagree with your philosophy while acknowledging that something you’ve done is right.

Today though all I’ve got is outrage at something I witnessed on the final night of the Republican National Convention.  Actually outrage might be too tepid of a word, but let’s roll with that for the moment.

The issues that I have with the GOP are many, especially with this current version that is lead by the Tea Party caucus and the Birther movement. What I was willing to do was to ignore (to a point) the misrepresentations and misdirection.  I am used to those things in a political campaign.  Both sides engage in this activity, and while it is not my preferred method of communicating to voters, I will not throw stones at one side while allowing the other side to skate through untouched.

What I witnessed with the Clint Eastwood appearance was the absolute most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen at a political convention.  I’ve been watching them since I was about the age of my child, so I can literally say I’ve not ever seen anything like that in 30 years.

So many things were wrong with this idea one wonders how it happened.  I have suspicions but let’s just talk about what happened.

Clint Eastwood, all 7,433 years old of himself, shuffled out onto the stage. Now mind you, those in my age range have gotten used to seeing our childhood heroes grow old and look pitiful as they tell the world they vote Republican.  Charlton Heston and Dick Clark spring to mind immediately.  It is painful to watch, but we’ve seen it and we understand that one day we also will get old.  Our hope though is that our kids love us enough to make sure we take out medication every day.

Clint wore an expensive suit, that fit so poorly one had to ask if it was actually his suit or did he just borrow it from Romney in the hotel on the way to the convention.  His hair was teased more than the bouffant of a Texas beauty pageant contestant and I can not prove it but that tie sure looked like a clip on.  Considering that I’ve had to wrestle a child to put a clip on to his shirt I qualify myself an expert in this category.

Despite being poorly dressed Mr. Eastwood is old Hollywood and a legend, so I simply sat back to see what he would say.  It took about a minute for Mr. Eastwood to mention that in the empty chair to his left, he had Mr. Obama.

This was the first sign for me that things were going to go badly.  There is little that can annoy me more than the reference to our President as Mister. This man is the President of the United States of America and regardless if you will vote for him the office itself must be respected.  Anyone in that position is Mr. President period. Well, at least until we elect a woman who is, then it will be Mrs. President or Madame President.

I am unsure if any of this performance was scripted, it appeared to be Mr. Eastwood’s attempt at improv. Improve should be reserved to our most talented.  Mr. Eastwood….you are no Wayne Brady.  ::: blink :::

It took until about 2:45 to truly understand that this skit was going to go downhill, swiftly, and there was not anyone onstage talented enough to turn it around, or no one brave enough to pull the plug.

It was the ugly segue from the tears on inauguration night to the tears he’s allegedly shed over the unemployment rate. Things started to roll downhill much faster after that.

At about 4:00, after a stammering and stuttering and where the hell was I clusterfuck, Mr. Eastwood spoke about the detention center at Guantanamo Bay still being open and it failed….BIG TIME…at which point Mr. Eastwood turned to the empty chair, looked down at it, and pretended that he heard Invisible Obama tell him to shut up.

The crowd laughed.

What the fuck?

President Obama is a lot of things, good and bad, but what is not is disrespectful to his audience, to Americans, to women and children.  President Obama would not ever speak in that way in a public setting.  Now, what happens in staff meetings I will not speculate, but President Obama would not disrespect anyone in public in that fashion.

After speaking about it being a bad idea to try terrorists in New York City, and pulling out of Afghanistan immediately, Mr. Eastwood found himself without an audience, so he went back to his empty chair.

Mr. Eastwood pretended, as he looked down at the empty chair, that Invisible Obama then told him to go fuck himself.

 

Sir?????  SIR??????????????

I then sat with my mouth open as this skit jumped the shark, or tried to, but the shark ate him, digested him, shat him back out onto the stage so that this train wreck continued.

Mr. Eastwood took his shots at Mr. Romney as well.

He called Mr. Romney a “stellar” businessman.  The quotes are Eastwood’s not mine, he added them himself in the skit.

Apparently the RNC thought that Eastwood would go under 4 minutes, at minute 10 the cameras panned over to Mr. & Mrs. Paul Ryan in the crowd as Paul’s face was a tight line, and  Mrs. Ryan could not smile until she noticed herself on the jumbotron.

The 12 minutes of hell as I will now refer to the Eastwood appearance as ended with the following:

 

“We do not have to be mental masochists and vote for someone we don’t want in office just because they are nice guys.”

I think he meant it to be a knock against President Obama, but it made more sense to apply it to Romney.  Any leader of a political party that thought allowing an 82 year old man to speak unscripted on the same night they were accepting the nomination of their party for President might be a nice guy but they are obviously not fit to lead.

Considering that at the RNC two people were ejected for throwing peanuts at a Black woman and taunting her by saying this is how we feed animals, I suppose I should be thankful that Clint did not allow the word nigger to accidentally escape from his mouth.

I am not really though, nor am I ready to say that this ugly – disrespectful – race baiting in the campaign is over.  It is not.

The CEO of the birther movement Donald Trump is still waving the President was born in Kenya flag.

A movie called “Obama’s America”, which is not favorable to the President is making millions of dollars at the box office.

The Presidential nominee of the party manages to stay silent though as all of this skin color stuff flies around him.

One might wonder why until you recall that Mr. Romney is a Mormon and one of his biblical texts is The Book of Mormon.  No not the Broadway show, but an actual sacred text to those who belong to the Church of Latter Day Saints.

According to the Book of Mormon, a Lamanite is a member of a dark-skinned nation of indigenous Americans that battled with the light-skinned Nephite nation. The Mormons at one time believed that the dark skin of a person was a sign of a curse and proved that they could not be a Christian.

In the Book of Mormon, Lamanites are described as having a “skin of blackness” caused by God’s curse on the descendants of Laman for their wickedness and corruption: “And he had caused the cursing to come upon [the Lamanites], yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, and they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.

 

Oh… okay.

I am not in a forgiving mood right now ….nor will I ever be as long as attacks on a Black man, THE Black man, THE MOST POWERFUL Black man – President Barack Obama continue.

After that bullshit I saw last night…actually I am feeling a little, a lot militant.