I laughed like a hyena during the chair thing last night,

[reflection]

as I watched the Twitter feeds scroll across my tablet during the speech. But at 24 hours, I'm kind of torn.

There is obviously a lot of usable ammunition to be had in the Eastwood speech. It was a bad knife twist in the back of Romney's big night. Romney's Intrade stock dropped shortly after the acceptance speech. That's got to be unusual.

But the narrative is this constant "he is old, what do you expect," "crazy old man yells at chair," etc.

The narrative is obviously true, Eastwood was unhinged and pathetic for 15 minutes.

But after awhile (and maybe already) a lot of seniors are going to get annoyed with the HAW HAW LOOK WHAT THAT OLD FOOL DID, and start to resent it. And we need seniors to turnout big against Romney/Ryan.

I almost wish Obama would say something nice about Eastwood's effort, even in the face of that disrespect he got. The whole "fuck yourself/himself" thing I found grossly offensive.

Obama has always been class. It would make Obama seem like so much more of a gentleman than the hateful old Eastwood that showed up. Plus it would resonate with any older person who is dealing with mental lapses, normal or otherwise.

Eastwood's execution was so bad that it speaks for itself.

Does anyone see this thing needing to have a short shelf life, or am I looking at it wrong?

[TlalocW]

1. The DNC, including any celebrity speakers

Should ignore everything from the RNC except what the candidates say. Don't come to the defense of Clint - the meme will be, "Who the hell comes to the aid of Clint 'Mother-Effin' Eastwood?" Don't make fun of him either. It will be an old joke, and the DNC needs to show that after the RNC, that they're the adults.

TlalocW

[reflection]

2. That is a damn good point about being the adults

Considering they are playing the "time for an adult" card over and over lately.

[hedgehog]

3. Here's the scary part for me:

Aide: Romney laughed at Clint Eastwood’s gig

http://tucsoncitizen.com/usa-today-news/2012/08/31/aide-romney-laughed-at-clint-eastwoods-gig/

[Waiting For Everyman]

4. I'm a 'senior citizen' and I don't identify myself with what he did.

He didn't have dementia or anything. He did it consciously, he made the choice to do what he did and blew it.

Besides, if we back off from what's true and right because somebody won't like it, that's pandering. There's no crying in politics. These Repubs are the kind of people that once you have them down, you'd better keep them down, or they'll get up and be attacking you again. We should've ended the credibility of their 'brand' forever in 2008 and we didn't do it, and now look what we've got. No more of that.

I agree with Obama and close staff being gracious about it, and they've done that -- very well.

[reflection]

5. Yes, as another poster opined today,

Obama can use a two-pronged approach to accomplish both of these things. He's already done the first part, which is to say something gracious about Eastwood. This elevates Obama and diminishes Eastwood, and I still maintain is it a net plus for seniors to see Obama do this.

The surrogates, the rank-and-file, they can deliver some body blows to make sure people understand what happened on that stage. I have no problem with it, though I think to dwell on it too long will bring our party down to their petty level.