“It’s halftime in America.”
Clint Eastwood’s Super Bowl commercial for the Chrysler Corporation stirred up a hornet’s nest of debate. There’s been shrill criticism from those who saw his appearance as shilling for the Obama administration – in an election year, no less. But there’s also been appreciation from those who heard a a genuinely patriotic (though, perhaps, self-serving from a corporate standpoint) effort to point out some good things that have happened in a nation where a lot of bad stuff has gone down in the last few years.
What it really showed was the pathetic lack of leadership on the part of the opposition – the GOP, which is trying to mount a credible alternative to Barach Obama.
One of the loudest complainers was Karl Rove, former deputy chair of staff under the Bush administration, who said on Fox News that he was “offended” by the commercial, which he said is “a sign of what happens when Chicago-style politics, and the president of the United States and his political minions are, in essence, using our tax dollars to buy corporate advertising.”
What is offensive is that Rowe and the other Republican leaders, who seem to have their fingers in the wind and appear to be more interested in perpetuating their version of the status quo (big government giving out big handouts to big business with big tax money) than actually taking off their gloves and addressing the very real problems we are experiencing: crippling national debt and our resulting financial crisis, pervasive unemployment, increasing invasion of privacy and threats to liberties such as freedom of speech and religion, overseas wars that are beginning to smack of other pointless and costly campaigns we have engaged in since the last war we actually won – World War II, etc. etc.
Even though Eastwood was reading a script for pay for a company that has had strong links with the Obama administration, which blew a reported $1.3 billion of our tax money in bailing out the automaker, then selling it to Fiat, it might be wise for the GOP to consider what the actor actually said.
Things like working together in tough times, rallying around what is right, acting as one. Sure, it sounds like the rhetoric we’ve been hearing for the last four years, but despite the credibility lack that some of us feel when we listen to such words, they’re still right in many ways. If Americans don’t address these problems with some singleness of mind, that fix will never come.
Detroit may not be the shining poster child of economic turnaround that Chrysler seems to want us to think it is, but there have certainly been some improvements in the auto industry there and we’re talking about one of the most depleted cities in America – one that literally has been on the ropes. It’s still a mess – massive crime, bad blight, failing schools – but progress has been made, especially in the factories, where unions have come to the table to negotiate changes that have helped turn the tide for GM and Chrysler.
Yes, the Detroit example might be a little hollow, but the message is the right one.
It’s up to us to make changes if we want to turn it around. They may need to start at the ballot box.
As Eastwood put it, “All that matters now is what’s ahead. How do we come from behind, how do we come together, how do we win?”
That’s the question both Democrats and Republicans should be thinking about right now as we ponder our $15 trillion national debt, which increases by a million dollars every minute or so, and all our other challenges.
What Eastwood is talking about in that commercial is focus, common sense. While Karl Rove flails away at the Other Side, Clint Eastwood’s message is one that actually resonates. It has historical inegrity. As any of our older readers know, Americans used to solve problems – win wars, build bridges, conquer looming obstacles of all kinds – by believing in themselves and applying some ingenuity and operating according to principle.
Some have suggested that maybe Clint should run for president.
Frankly, we like his tone a lot better than the shrill voices we’re hearing from the sidelines here in the United States of America.