NATIONAL INTEREST: The car ad is a classic Rorschach test. The average person likely sees it as a nonpartisan paean to resilient American greatness – and, at the very worst, an overly slick attempt to sell new cars. But anti-Obama ideologues are so hooked on their hatred that they see the ad as leftist trickery. They hear Eastwood say “it’s half time in America” (the ad ran at half time), and they think it’s an endorsement for a second Obama term. Most importantly, they’re totally invested in pessimism; they abhor any suggestion that things might actually be getting better. Teamwork, community, comebacks – apparently they’re against those all-American themes. […] The right has always viewed Eastwood – a lifelong Republican who voted against Obama in ’08 and reportedly intends to do so again in ’12 – as one of its own. Back in the ’80s, for instance, Ronald Reagan frequently invoked Dirty Harry (“Make my day!”). So it’s apparently a shock that someone like Eastwood would presume there is still some middle ground in America, because, after all, the right doesn’t want to believe there is any middle ground. It doesn’t want to believe we can get knocked down and “get right back up again.” At least not while Obama is in office, anyway. MORE