I have a hunch. The conventional strategists would have been wiser to send Clint out to wing it. Giving him a single Talking Point was an error. Here is a man who knows who he is and what he does, and has never been comfortable with anybody’s party line. In his mind was the flow of what he wanted to say and do, and then an undertow of Talking Points that threw him off his own message.

Clint Eastwood is one of the most admirable men in the history of motion pictures, and one of the few who has continued to grow in his art with every passing year. I’ve seen his new film, “Trouble with the Curve,” and it is wonderful. Let me be clear: I love this man. I don’t give a damn what his politics are.