Clint Eastwood’s speech burns up Twitter— the good, bad and ugly

By Ira Kantor
Friday, August 31, 2012 - Updated 21 hours ago

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Clint Eastwood’s 12-minute rambling Republican National Convention speech endorsing presidential candidate Mitt Romney isn’t going “Unforgiven” in the viral world.

After Eastwood — the 82-year-old grizzled actor/director of such blockbusters as the “Dirty Harry” franchise, “Million Dollar Baby,” and “Gran Torino” — directed pointed questions at an empty chair representing an invisible President Barack Obama, several celebrities took to their Twitter accounts to heckle the movie star.

“I heard that Clint Eastwood was channeling me at the RNC. My lawyers and I are drafting our lawsuit,” tweeted comedian Bob Newhart.

“Clint Eastwood on the phone with Obama now, ‘It all went according to plan, sir,’” tweeted comedian Chris Rock.

Pointing at the chair, Eastwood — whose catchphrase “Go ahead, make my day,” has been seared in public consciousness for decades — asked “Obama,” “So, Mr. President, how do you handle promises that you have made when you were running for election, and how do you handle them? I mean, what do you say to people? Do you just – you know – I know – people were wondering – you don’t – handle that OK. Well, I know even people in your own party were very disappointed when you didn’t close Gitmo (Guantanamo Bay). And I thought, well closing Gitmo – why close that, we spent so much money on it. But, I thought maybe as an excuse – what do you mean shut up?,” said the four-time Academy Award winner.

A new Twitter account, @InvisibleObama, amassed close to 40,000 followers within hours of Eastwood’s speech.

“Quick. Turn on MSNBC. I’m going to be all over it right now,” said one account tweet. “Well just my chair, unless u have invisible glasses. Or ur Clint Eastwood.”

Twitter users also started posting pictures of themselves gesturing angrily at empty chairs under the hashtag of “Eastwooding.”

The Obama camp was quick to get in on the joke, tweeting a photo of the back of the commander in chief’s chair with Obama’s head peeking over it with the line, “This seat’s taken.”