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Clint is the king of clenched-teeth acting, and “Get off my lawn” will join his other famed utterances, “Do you feel lucky?” and “Go ahead, make my day.”

That little line of bile-inflected speech will be this week’s catch phrase that political hacks can pick up and regurgitate instead of saying anything of substance. So, “Grand Torino” is number one at the box office, which makes the catch phase all the more appetizing to hacks and no-brains. That means lots of people have heard it and will think it’s a really cool expression, just like, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more,” the catch phrase Peter Finch shouted in “Network.” But “Network” was more honest and introspective about the use of cheap catch phrases than is Clint, who likes to exploit them for their meat-head appeal. In “Network,” Finch urges the public to lean out their window and shout “I’m mad as hell.” But that was as far as their rage carried them. They didn’t take action. They didn’t phone their congressman or so much as follow that thought up with another thought — maybe one thought is all most people can handle at a time. Instead, they pulled their heads inside the wondows, turned on the TV and zoned out. So much for outrage.

The problem with Clint’s newest hackneyed catchphrase is that people will mistakenly think that it really means something important or relevant and will repeat it into infinity.

Here’s a hint: If you’re faced with a no-brain who won’t shut his face, take another tip from Clint and load up the shotgun. It has a way of making that type scatter.

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