chieftain
Member
What a putz.
For your consideration.
Fred
For your consideration.
Fred
The New York Times:
February 23, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
A Bad Year to Be a Mallard
By GAIL COLLINS
“I shot a banded duck,” said Hillary Clinton.
Who says we have heard everything there conceivably could be to say from the presidential candidates?
There is something about an election year that makes politicians start bragging about how many furry or feathered critters they’ve killed. Otherwise, God forbid, voters might think they were interested in doing something about gun control.
So far, the most memorable gun comments during this campaign have been:
“I’m pretty sure there will be duck hunting in heaven, and I can’t wait.” — Mike Huckabee
“I’ve been a hunter pretty much all my life.” — Mitt Romney
“I’ve always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints if you will.” — Mitt Romney, amending the record once it was pointed out that he had never had a hunting license.
“Maybe he can get out his small varmint gun and drive those Guatemalans off his yard.” — John McCain
“My father taught me to shoot 100 years ago.” — Hillary Clinton
This last, which we believe to be a slight exaggeration, came last week in Wisconsin. At another stop, when someone asked about gun control, Clinton told a story about how she went duck-hunting when she lived in Arkansas, and how the rest of her group, all male, made her shoot first in an effort to embarrass her.
Thence followed a happy ending for everybody except the duck.
During this presidential campaign the nation has experienced an extraordinary number of grisly shooting incidents, including four mass murders on college campuses, two at suburban shopping malls and the slaughter of city officials at a Missouri town meeting.
Yet the subject of gun control never comes up. If people ask, politicians who have not been outdoors in months start tossing out hunter-talk in a manner that suggests that they’re driving around in a pickup with a deer carcass in the back.
Clinton used to be very vocal about gun control when she was running for Senate in New York, but now there’s nothing about it on her Web site. Barack Obama has a 64-page “Blueprint for Change” manual that you can download if you feel burdened by an excess of both leisure and paper. It does not mention gun control once.
Obama, to be fair, does not tell any stories about shooting waterfowl, and his campaign says he has never been hunting. However, he shares the general enthusiasm for avoiding the subject of gun control. In the old pre-presidential days, Obama indicated support for a ban on handguns in response to a questionnaire. Asked about that in Idaho recently, he said the form was filled out incorrectly by a staff member.
John McCain ran afoul of the National Rifle Association when he tried to close a legal loophole that allows gun sellers to avoid doing background checks if they conduct their business at gun shows. That was then. More recently, he was quoted as saying he believes the Second Amendment means “no gun control.”
Clinton hit a new peak of obfuscation when she suggested the issue be handed over to a gun control summit “where everybody comes together on all sides of this issue.” Really, the one potential downside of a Hillary Clinton presidency no one has discussed is the threat of summit overcrowding.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he sent a questionnaire to all the presidential candidates asking what they would do to help get illegal guns off the street. Only John Edwards and Ron Paul responded. (Maybe Obama was worried the rogue staff member might get his hands on it.)
There was a time in this country when we seemed within reach of a sane gun policy that would have included licensing, laws against multiple gun purchases and bans on weapons that were of no use for sports or personal protection, like say, assault rifles. There was vast public support for these ideas, but they were extremely unpopular among critical pockets of voters in swing states. Many people believe Al Gore lost West Virginia — and the 2000 election — because of National Rifle Association attack ads.
Since then, we’ve had the sound of silence. When Tim Russert brought up gun control during a Democratic debate in Nevada, the candidates seemed to stiffen, as if he’d made a tasteless joke.
“Well, I am against illegal guns,” said Clinton, unnecessarily, before getting to the point: “I am also a political realist, and I understand that the political winds are very powerful against doing enough to get guns off the street, get them out of the hands of young people.” For a finale, she retracted her former support for a national licensing registration plan.
Russert pointed out that as a state senator, Obama had talked a lot about licensing and registering gun owners, and he asked Obama if he would pursue that goal as president.
“I don’t think that we can get that done,” Obama responded.
Yes We Can’t.
Some things just write themselves...