Thursday, January 17, 2013

NRA Gets Its Tits Caught in Its Very Own Wringer

If the National Rifle Association needed to convince Americans, including staunch Republicans, that it was an extremist and perhaps truly unstable outfit, it could not have done better than it did by releasing an outrageous TV ad questioning why Obama's kids get security at school and others don't.



Even rank-and-file right wingers are putting as much distance as they can manage between themselves and the NRA.  Here's how Joe Scarborough reacted:

What's wrong with these people, Mika? What's wrong with these people? You have, you have children that had no say in the decision on whether their father is going to step forward to be President of the United States, to run for President, one of the most bone-crushing sacrificing things any husband or wife can do to their family, and the second they make that decision, their children and their entire family have targets on their backs. And the NRA is putting something out like -- what's wrong with these people? Putting out apps that four-year-olds can play on the anniversary of the Newtown murders, and now putting out an ad talking about the President's daughters?
[...]
They need new leadership is what they need. Their leadership has dragged them over the cliff. They are now a fringe organization with millions of mainstream Americans gun, you know, hunting, guys and women that love to hunt, and believe that they have the right to protect their families, and what the NRA once was it no longer is. This extremism is so frightening and just, over, over, over the line."
David Frum chimed in with this:

[T]he NRA's sneering references to the president's family are beyond the pale. As the makers of the NRA ad should know, and probably do know, the First Family has come under years of racially coded attack for their "uppityism," as Rush Limbaugh phrased it. This latest attack ad looks to many like only one more attempt to inflame an ancient American wound. 

Generally speaking, a president's family should not be subject to political criticism. That rule was honorably upheld in the case of the Bush daughters, who grew into fine young people, and the rule should be same for the Obama daughters - especially if it's true, as has been widely reported, that this first family has faced a unique degree of threat.

The bastards at the helm of the NRA might actually have done themselves in this time.  It's now a rogue, extremist and dangerous outfit.   Watch to see how long it takes before the NRA comes under new management.

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