TAMPA–Clint Eastwood delivered a loopy and rambling speech–more like a stand-up act– Thursday night at the Republican Convention–as he tried to make the case to elect Mitt Romney.
Tweeted Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert, “Clint, my hero, is coming across as sad and pathetic. He didn’t need to do this to himself. It’s unworthy of him.”
Eastwood’s name leaked out earlier Thursday as the surprise “mystery guest.”
When he took to the stage–at a convention where everything is highly scripted and speeches vetted–Eastwood riffed.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, what’s a movie tradesman doing out here? You know, they’re all left-wingers out there, left of Lenin. At least that’s what people think, but that’s not really the case. There is a lot of conservative people, a lot of moderate people, Republicans, Democrats in Hollywood. It’s just that conservative people, by the nature of the word itself, are — play it a little more close to vest. They don’t go around hot- dogging it.”