The Liabilities of Adlibbing

Clint Eastwood's rambling performance at the Republican Party convention last night brought back memories of Chevy Chase's similarly rambling and awkward Senior Day speech at Princeton University a few years back. Chase claimed to have accidentally left his speech at home in his bathroom, which was about as funny and informative as anything else he could think of to say, his imagination failing to respond to the spur of the moment. Eastwood addressed some of his words to an empty chair placed to the left of him, in which he pretended President Obama was sitting. The effect was of a ventriloquist with his sidekick puppet, though it came off as hard-hearted because usually the puppet pokes fun at the ventriloquist, instead of the other way around.

Eastwood also poked fun at Obama's environmentalism, as did Romney later in the evening. Climate change got a good laugh, and caring for the planet was portrayed as contrary to the needs of families. There is always a need to split the world into competing kingdoms and then stage a fight. People oppose nature to nurture, environment to economy, capitalism to governmental regulation, when these opposites are in fact complementary parts of a whole.