Was Clinton Eastwood the Fifth Column last night? Or had he just been drinking?

Normally, I can't wait for the Republican convention to end. The four day pack of lies that generally goes unchallenged by the media was such a gross display of falsehoods that even the press winced. In the meantime, the base of the Republican Party went wild.

But I'm sure I wasn't the only one who got a kick out of Clint Eastwood's "speech" last night. Was it even a speech? What was the deal with that empty chair?

After I saw the speech, I was scratching my head, too!!

For the few who missed it, the star of Unforgiven and  Gran Torino decided that he would crash the GOP convention with a speech between him and President Obama, the latter being represented by a chair. Was the chair some sort of metaphor? Like when a faux rancher is said to be "all hat and no cattle?" Is guess Obama is just another long-legged beauty queen who is silent on the issues that matter?

That's would I would have presumed, but apparently, this chair was quite talkative. Eastwood had to constantly remind the chair to "shut up." What was he basing this on? Has Obama been trying to keep the star of In the Line of Fire out of the public eye?

What made the Oscar winner's bizarre speech so puzzling is that Eastwood is no stranger to politics. He once served as mayor of Carmel-by-the-sea during the 1980s, and has spent the last two decades serving of various state commissions in California. How could someone familiar with both entertainment and politics be so bad? Was he trying to make Fred Thompson look good by comparison?

What had me must confounded was Eastwood's rant against lawyers serving in the Oval Office. "Take that Adams! And Jefferson! And Lincoln! And 22 other Presidents!

Maybe the chair represents the wooden nature of  . . . Oh I give up!

"Lawyers can see both sides of the issue," said Eastwood. "Always playing Devil's Advocate!" The crowd cheered--sort of. Perhaps many of them were subdued because they were lawyers themselves. Eastwood's loudest cheer of the night came from trumpeting Romney's tenure as a businessman, but was back to nervous laughter and subdued applause when he called for Obama to expedite troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. Weird.

Rachael Maddow, the most intelligent voice in broadcast journalism, was dumbfounded by Eastwood's conversation with said chair. "I guess he's 82," she said, trying desperately by figure out what we all had just seen.

I don't understand why someone in the crowd shouted out "make my day!" to Eastwood, either. Did that mean that said shouter wanted to shoot Clint Eastwood to shoot him in the face? Or was said person hoping that the Dirty Harry star would say the line, and then pop a few into the crowd? When everyone joined in, asking to "make each other's day," were they entering some sort of mass murderer/suicide pact? It wouldn't seem so far-fetched after watching someone have a conversation with a chair for ten minutes, speaking to a group of people who clamor for the right for schizophrenics to carry assault rifles into movie theaters.

I don't want to continue speculating, because it's just mean, and Clint Eastwood is a man I have respect for. Also, one of my reporters in the field enjoyed a soaking wet embrace with Newt Gingrich last night. I'll have more on that later. Until then, good day, and good luck!