Peter Gleick makes a complete fool of himself…again

For a few seconds, I couldn’t tell where Eastwood was going with that bit. But as soon as I recognized the empty chair was a prop to represent a conversation with the President, I realized he was ripping off Bob Newhart’s act. And yesterday, Bob tweeted that he was going to have his lawyers look into suing Eastwood for it (in jest, of course).
The low-key approach made it sound like an unrehearsed conversation, in which Clint was saying what most people would say if they had a chance to actually have that conversation. And most important of all, he showed that it’s possible to mock this President, as comedians mock every other President, but seem to be afraid they can’t do without being raaaaacist somehow. As Saul Alinsky put it in his Rules for Radicals, ridicule is a very potent weapon, which can’t be refuted. Just look at how many people believe that Gov. Palin said she could see Russia from her house, or who think Pres. Ford fell down every Saturday night, just because someone playing them on SNL did those things.
Eastwood was not exhibiting dementia or senility. He was doing performance art, and he emptied his entire magazine in the 10-ring. Every GOP candidate for any office should arrange to have an empty chair on stage at every event from now until Election Day. They don’t have to say a word about it. Just have it on the stage. Maybe when referring to the policies of the current Adminstration, allow the eyes to flick ever so briefly in the direction of the empty chair. It would really pump up the crowd, and as Alinsky said, there is no way to answer it.
Whenever warmists refuse to debate skeptics, I recommend the skeptics appear with a chair empty save for a hockey stick.

The Monster says:
September 1, 2012 at 9:58 am
“. . . he emptied his entire magazine in the 10-ring”
In a community where “it’s not surprising,” that we “get bitter and” .. “cling to guns” your analogy will be easily understood. There may be many readers of WUWT in need of a visual clue:
http://jeffersonian.therealgunguys.com/oldjpg/DSCF0893.jpg
In this image, note that its creator seems to have started in the lower right (about the 5 o’clock position) and beyond the 5-ring, seemingly to improve with many 10-ring entries. There is a hole just under the “6” on the 9 o’clock side. WUWT?

From SunderlandSteve on September 1, 2012 at 11:04 am:

Mods…. am I permitted to say what a dickhead?

The end of my male member wishes to protest such an insulting comparison, as opposed to Gleick it knows when it’s time to get out of a hole and which ones it shouldn’t be in to begin with.

kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
September 1, 2012 at 11:51 am
From SunderlandSteve on September 1, 2012 at 11:04 am:
Mods…. am I permitted to say what a dickhead?
The end of my male member wishes to protest such an insulting comparison, as opposed to Gleick it knows when it’s time to get out of a hole and which ones it shouldn’t be in to begin with.
It pays to have a “male member” with a mind of it’s own. Gleick’s, apparently, doesn’t.
So dick/head applies.

Disko Troop says:
September 1, 2012 at 1:56 am
andrewmharding says:
September 1, 2012 at 12:57
I totally agree with Mr Harding.
Gleick is not just a thief and a fraudster he now shows himself to be a nasty vicious, spiteful [snip]. My father, who WAS a genius, died after ten years of dementia.
Ivor Ward

Gleick suffers from a special kind: voluntary dementia.

Re: Mr. Eastwood and the (empty) chair, Gleick mocking the elderly. It struck me as the type of prop (method) actors use to get into the proper frame of mind. In this case, a certain Mr. O, a poorly performing, arrogant and sullen employee is about to get a dressing down from his boss, Mr. E in the role of we-the-people. Which (after disrespecting his employer with language and an attitude Mr. O is known to use) is going to end with “your measure has been taken and you’ve been found wanting, you’re fired, now get out of my sight.”
Mr. E even asks him to step aside to let Mr. R begin cleaning up the mess he’s created. Hmm.. Remember the clamor in the MSM in 2008 asking that Mr. B remove himself in November so Mr. O could begin to save the earth and earn his Nobel immediately? Certainly seems more deserved in this case.
Well done. I hope I am half as able when I’m 80. I suspect the leftists have yet to appreciate how Mr. E’s skit has exposed their emperor, and is inexorably destroying the facades of their entire Potemkin village.
Even better every response by the Left to Mr. E will expose how they really think about and treat the elderly (His zero-interest rate policies have halved the income of most the elderly, and Obamacare has promised to take trillions out of the elderly’s health-system – ending medical-innovation as we know it, leaving who-can-get-what treatment to a government panel who will also be telling us how we have to live, etc.). Remember Mr. O’s treatment of his grandmother? And his never missing an opportunity to neglect to ask his Muslim friends to emancipate women? (doubly striking given his own use of racialism and history). His family, brother in Africa? Even children, condemning many of the least of us to a worthless education in government schools, to say nothing of the ethnic cleansing we see of unborn children.
So Mr. E has pitched, and the Left has hit into a triple play – every retort showing the Left is at war with the elderly, with women and with the family.

Did anyone ask Mr. Gleick if he’s seen a doctor about his raging case of fraud?

There was a wonderful observation on Eastwood’s speech from Richard Fernandez at The Belmont Club:
http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2012/08/30/the-eastwood-speech/?singlepage=true

It was an old man’s delivery, but overstatedly so for effect. It was a cutting delivery and for that reason delivered in low key. But for all of Clint Eastwood’s rhetorical cleverness at the Republican Convention, the speech derived its effectiveness precisely because it wasn’t one of those “I take this platform tonight with pen in hand, bearing in mind the immortal words of Clancy M. Duckworth” type orations. It wasn’t the speech of someone who was running for office.Rather it might have come from Mr. Weller down at the corner office musing on simple things to not very important people. How it wasn’t good form to mess things up continuously. How one might lose faith in a man who made one broken promise too many. How at the end of the day everyone either did the job or quit out of decency. Even presidents.There was no malice in it. Just a tone of regret. But it was redolent of memory too. Of simple things a world away from the Mountaintop, of sentiments a light-year from dramatic arcs, and of ordinary happiness in a universe apart from grand bargains and high-flown rhetorical visions. They were truths that everyone who has ever worked knows but has somehow forgotten because they were so ordinary.But they were never known to those who had never worked a real job in their lives. And that is the wonder. That they never knew them. Thus the speech was at once us versus them; it was the check in the mail against the certainties of the heart. Every true challenge is built on the bricks of memory. And there were as many challenges in the Eastwood speech as the stones we stand on.

From Skiphil on September 1, 2012 at 9:48 pm:

Dementia jokes, really???

Oh, I dunno. My dad used to like jokes about people who got forgetful with age until he forgot how to chuckle or smile.

Stupid is as stupid does.