A surreal moment during last night’s Republican National Convention festivities wherein surprise speaker Clint Eastwood engaged in a heated debate with an empty chair (one the internet has taken to calling “Invisible Obama”) has been elevated to meme status as Americans attempt to parse the bizarre and said-to-be off-script moment broadcast during primetime.
The Romney campaign was forced to do a bit of damage control after many viewers indicated that Eastwood’s behavior seemed a bit unvarnished or even unbalanced. As reaction filtered in, the Romney camp was forced to issue a statement regarding Clint Eastwood’s “Invisible Obama” bit, and the politicos said:
“Judging an American icon like Clint Eastwood through a typical political lens doesn’t work. His ad-libbing was a break from all the political speeches, and the crowd enjoyed it. He rightly pointed out that 23 million Americans out of work or underemployed is a national disgrace and it’s time for a change.”
Of course, while Invisible Obama gave the Romney campaign a job to do, it also gave the internet a new joke, and fun was had with the meme as pictures began appearing of people fighting with chairs all over the place. And President Obama himself was not above the fray, tweeting the following rebuttal with the picture above:
This seat’s taken. OFA.BO/c2gbfi, twitter.com/BarackObama/st…
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 31, 2012
Of course, perhaps one of the larger stars of Invisible Obama mania was the Invisible Obama twitter account that inevitably appeared shortly after Eastwood’s speech:
One nation! Under God! Invisible!
— Invisible Obama (@InvisibleObama) August 31, 2012
The greatest trick
@invisibleobama ever pulled was being in every picture hashtagged#eastwooding. — Invisible Obama (@InvisibleObama) August 31, 2012
Someone should tell Marco Rubio he’s standing on my foot right now. — Invisible Obama (@InvisibleObama) August 31, 2012
I wish this band was invisible so I didn’t have to hear them. Wait.
— Invisible Obama (@InvisibleObama) August 31, 2012
What did you think of the “Invisible Obama” segment of Eastwood’s speech at the RNC: crazy, brilliant, or crazy brilliant?
The invisible Obama stunk was typical of the crap the Republicans are capable of trying. Instead of getting to the point they will beat around the bush and tell lies about the years Obama has been president. If they told the truth they would mention that the reason that Obama did not accomplish his agenda was because of the roadblocks the Republican House threw up preventing bills from passing. The one bill that did get passed (the Healthcare Bill) passed because some of the Republicans actually saw that the bill was good for out country. Now they say things like I was forced to vote yes or come up with some other lie for their reason to vote for the bill.