So Clint Eastwood blew it. Wrong message. Bad tone. Stylistically awkward. The Academy Award winner gave a bumbling, even unprofessional, presentation.

With the Republican National Convention hoping for good, Eastwood brought the bad and the ugly.

But with his track record, who would have expected it?

If I were running the convention, I would have jumped at the chance to feature this iconic actor. The guy IS America. Authentic. Credible. The perfect third-party validator for a presidential nominee. Who knew he would throw out the script, as reported by Ari Fleischer? (And who would have dared to stop him?)

All the bed wetters and second guessers are now weighing in from the back bench. But, how many of them, really, would have turned down a chance to have Clint Eastwood make your day?

None, I’d venture.

So this will soak up some airtime today and over the weekend that might have gone to the nominee and the very successful convention itself. But I don’t think it will obscure what was an otherwise almost perfect convention that accomplished more than anyone, including me, thought possible.

This story will run its cycle. For a few day, pundits will pontificate breathlessly and inflate the significance of a moment that in the long run will have no impact on the outcome of the election.