McCain’s muddled message to the NRA

May 17, 2008

John McCain, still hoping to shore up the Republican Party’s far-right base, spoke to the National Rifle Association of America’s annual meeting in Kentucky yesterday, and sought to prove that Barack Obama doesn’t understand guns.

After Mr. Obama made his remarks last month that small-town voters cling to guns and religion because they are “bitter” over their economic circumstances, Mr. McCain recounted, Mrs. Clinton quickly affirmed her support for the Second Amendment right to bear arms. This, Mr. McCain said, drew the derisive comment from Mr. Obama that Mrs. Clinton was acting “like she’s on the duck blind every Sunday, packing a six shooter!”

Mr. McCain paused, then said to laughter: “Someone should tell Senator Obama that ducks are usually hunted with shotguns.”

Given the apoplexy over criticism of McCain’s “100 years” comments, you’d think he’d want to be a little more careful and avoid misquoting people. As Jonathan Chait noted, here’s what Obama actually said:

“She’s talking like she’s Annie Oakley. Hillary Clinton’s out there like she’s on the duck blind every Sunday. She’s packing a six-shooter. C’mon, she knows better.”

I mention this, not because McCain is misquoting Obama in a mindless joke, but because we’re likely to keep hearing this nonsense and it’s best to take note of reality now before the myth takes root and “everybody knows” that Obama said six-shooters are used to hunt ducks.

As Chait explained, “Obama was saying that Clinton is pretending to be a gun aficionado, someone who hunts every week and packs a six-shooter. He wasn’t saying that Clinton hunts with a six-shooter. McCain is just making that part up. Now, the whole controversy is monumentally stupid. But the McCain campaign has been repeating this false account, and it’s one of those empty lifestyle moments that get endlessly repeated and spun into GOP electoral gold.”

On a related note, I’d just add that the whole dynamic of McCain cozying up to the NRA is itself rather jarring.

The NRA had once branded McCain, who does not own a gun, “one of the premier flag-carriers for enemies of the Second Amendment.”

And while the NRA never liked McCain, McCain never liked the NRA.

“The NRA is entitled to their advocacy. I don’t think they help the Republican Party at all, but I don’t think they should in any way play a major role in the Republican Party’s policy making,” McCain said.

And yet, McCain now feels comfortable pretending to be a champion of the Second Amendment, and a long-lost friend of the National Rifle Association.

Is anyone buying this nonsense? Is there anyone who doesn’t see this as shameless, transparent pandering?

Muddy message – are you referring to what he said or the “mr. hankie” that he left behind the podium.

  • So when Democrats quote John McCain directly on the “100 years in Iraq” business, he gets his panties in a bunch and insists his words — replayed by video — were somehow misquoted. But he can make up shit about Obama?

    Must be nice to be such a straight-shooter so you can get away with such rampant hypocrisy. I wonder if anyone else in his media base aside from Chait will call bullshit on this. Doubtful.

  • Is anyone buying this nonsense? Is there anyone who doesn’t see this as shameless, transparent pandering?

    And once again, it proves that if you can’t dispute what they said, dispute what they didn’t say.

  • The republicans make up quotes, the media relays them, and the poor American pubic buys them. Since it is apparent that the media will not do their homework (and actually seem to think it is their duty to be the republicans’ water carriers) – the Democrats need to immediately refute both the repubs and loudly point out how the media is ALWAYS giving the republicans a free ride.

  • You know, I had a typo in the previous comment – and guess I also should clear up my “poor American public”. I don’t mean the “poor”, as in economic class – I mean “poor” as in no time or not understanding the importance of really being informed.

  • The political machine of the Demos is bereft of real intelligence, and have to wait until at least until McCain can make another comment like the 100 year of Iraq. But, both candidates have no mention of Afganistan, which seems to be importing more heroin than oil from Iraq. Of course, McCain will misquote Obama and Hillary’s six shooter, it is convienant. The GOP gave us Karl “Executive Priveledge” Rove and Swift Boaters, you really expect honesty in a political campaign? Better stick to American Idol, at least thier voting doesn’t seem too skewed (except for Ohio and Florida, of course).

  • Firstly, the NRA does not truly represent gun owners. Only Gun Owner’s of America does that. Secondly, McPain is just about as ready to ban those mean looking black rifles as Hitlery or Yobama. Someone has to say it….Ron Paul 2008.

  • “Is anyone buying this nonsense? Is there anyone who doesn’t see this as shameless, transparent pandering?”

    Yes. Diehard Republicans love this stuff. They believe every word.

    They make their own reality.

  • Take it easy on McCain. At his age it’s easy for things to get a little muddled.

  • McCain, Clinton, Obama – all stooges of the same banking elite. Not one of them would have made it there without the nod of the real power, like David Rockefeller. You wonder why the press treated Ron Paul like a leper?

    These elitists, all of which who want to take down the US, own every pony in the race. Each president aftrer Reagan has further eroded our individual rights and further, our sovereignty as a nation. Ask yourself, could America really be fighting a real war on terror if the pioliticians permit the borders to be wide open?

    Time to stop listening to Fox and CNN and for American to start to think for themselves. If it does not make sense for America, it is not because they are stupid, it is because they have another agenda!

  • Seems no one gets it: EVERY politician lies, cheats and steals. You think Obama or Clinton or any off them is different? Each will say what they need to say to get elected and do what they want to do when they are.
    What we need is to have them accountable for their promises after they are elected, by lawsuit. Currently, even if your “politician of choice” promises one thing, before being elected, then outright does another after, he/she/it is not liable in any way legally. Don’t you think it’s time they were?

  • McCain isn’t conservative enough for me…I have a constitutional right to own an RPG…

  • Oh stop complaining. A republican candidate has no option not to speak with the NRA. It’s not like he’s selling out like Hillary and he’s not being a pompous tool like Obama. McCain respects the 2nd amendment–and subtly backs his stance of supporting rifles over handguns.

    The misquote is minor and I can’t believe people are really wasting time blogging about this. In no way does it compare with how the dems twisted and distorted McCain’s ‘100 years’ comment.

    I’m sick of all the political whiners–you people continue to get upset whenever McCain says something against Obama or Hillary, like he’s going to compliment them?

  • “you people”

    Well, at least he’s not a concern troll – clearly recognizes and announces that he doesn’t support the majority of us here.

    Guess ya gotta respect the honesty of that admission, but not the dishonesty of his message.

  • The liberal media’s all-hell is breaking loose. Guess what? Just like they did for Gore and Kerry; their effort will turn out futile. McCain is going to win. Go Mac Go!

  • A liberal president? Oh no! gay marriage, more killing of innocent babies, more taxes, more, more, and more of everything negative. America, do we need a president like this?

  • What ever happened to balanced reporting. You can just feel the reporters spin against McCain. C’mon.

  • Do we need a President who plans to “negotiate” with the Cuban, Syrian, Iranian and Afghan terrorists?

  • Whatever happened to Jim Lehr, the (in)famous moderator of 2000 Presidential debates? I think the Liberals need to bring him back for an (im)balanced reporting.

  • Mike said:
    . . . You can just feel the reporters spin against McCain. C’mon.

    You’re a tough sell, Mike. The *ahem* neutral *ahem* Associated Press bringing McCain donuts wasn’t enough for you?

    (by the way, you may as well save yourself the bother of changing handles between Mike and Matthew if you’re just going to make the same points.)

  • “He’s an appeaser…It’s all about appeasement Tim”. That’s the extent of their intelligence. Give it a name and say it nasty even if you don’t know what it means…it must be bad.

    btw…when has McCain’s millionaire duck hunting club ever shot a duck? Running into them with his wife’s jet…yeah…or bombing them at one of the duck blinds he placed at one of his 8 mansions, yeah…but he can’t raise his arms high enough to fire a shotgun

    Pandering is all this phony does…my friends. Thank God he will never be president.
    Republicans are out. Cemented by the “white pride”, “Edwards and Obama are cute girls” Washington Post op ed by Dorothy “the he-whore, I’m not from immigrants, I’m a full blooded American” Parker which had the effect of turning all non republicans into activists to ensure no republican sits in any elected office anywhere. What nerve, especially after those huggy kissey photos of Bush and McCain all over the internet.

    An example of the only principle the republicans have left…Hypocrisy. Republicans don’t even want to be republicans anymore. The absurdity is disagreeing with these far, far, far right conservatives immediately makes one extreme left. Just pathetic.

  • Dems are like little babies who say, “Momy, he said like t…h…i…s.” They do not understand what McCain meant behind certain comments. Come on Dems, grow up a little. Give your brain a bit training. Don’t be dumb, Dems.

  • Here come the uninformed talking points stupids…the M&Ms. More wars McCain doesn’t equate to killing innocent babies, Gay marriage has what to do with anything? and the best is after destroying a nation for profit, encouraging terrorism all over the world and strengthening our enemies, almost completely destroying our economy, torture, corruption, destroying the bill of rights, letting the very wealthy not pay taxes…”Democrats” are going to bring back everything negative? Trying to impress someone who’s feeding this kid such bullshit. The “liberal” press does not exist…it is the corporate media now…infotainment…that’s how you know he’s full of mis info and swallowing Right wing talking points.. Early republican tactics, if you don’t like it try to make sure it doesn’t work

    The landslide Democratic victory was so large that even with “caging”, voter ID laws and other means to disenfranchise democratic voters and the attempts to steal precinct votes republicans could not walk away with a single victory, yet their official response was “most Americans really agree with us, they were just mislead by the “liberal” press.

  • 17. Mathew said: A liberal president? Oh no! gay marriage, more killing of innocent babies, more taxes, more, more, and more of everything negative. America, do we need a president like this?

    Yes, we do. Desperately. Though just having a President who isn’t giving away all our money to cronies and contributors would be a huge improvement. Your mileage clearly differs, but I’m guessing John “all my advisers are lobbyists for corporations and foreign dictators” McCain isn’t capable of being that person.

  • 21. Mathew said: Whatever happened to Jim Lehr, the (in)famous moderator of 2000 Presidential debates? I think the Liberals need to bring him back for an (im)balanced reporting.

    It’s Jim Lehrer. All you have to do is mindlessly repeat other people’s talking points and you’re too stupid to even manage that correctly.

  • As everyone should know by now, and they make no secret of it as a party, the Republican movement is comprised of a variety of special interest groups, most of whom have no particular interests in common with each other, other than money.

    There are the anti-tax republicans of Grover Norquist’s stripe; the military-industrial republicans who make up a sizable proportion of the DC Beltway culture already, this includes AIPAC a lethal and increasingly influential adversary; the Wall Street/corporate Republicans including the state Chambers of Commerce and real estate as well as corporate builders/developers; and there are the banking and insurance Republicans who deserve a special mention of their own. The social conservatives with their fanatical belief in guns and god that are such easy targets for anyone with even a modicum of intelligence are simply a convenient and intentional screen for these larger and better-funded interests who pour money into them as required to maintain social chaos, particularly at election time.

    These special interests groups are bullet proof politically because they really don’t CARE about the social interests they claim to represent. Each time a socially conservative paragon is found in a men’s room soliciting sex from the other poopers, or in a fraud scheme on Wall Street, or in the back of a limo with 4 prostitutes, it has no significant impact on the “party” because the “party” doesn’t actually care about social issues; the “party” cares only about money and the making thereof (see membership roster above.) When Elliott Spitzer goes down for frequenting prostitutes, however, we Democrats are intellectually required to go into a three month period of self-flagellation, (which, come to think of it, former Governor Spitzer might enjoy?)

    No one in the Republican party (see membership roster above) gives a damn if Obama von Trapp knows which end of a six-gun is up, they don’t care which end is up either, for Christ’s sake, (the board of Aetna Insurance is not made up of southern Baptist hand-gunners,) all they care about is that petty, and relatively unimportant social issues keep the ground in front of them cloudy enough for them to sneak a little closer to total power. They USE the rabid, rural hand-gunners and allegedly Christian conservatives to sneak up towards Washington DC like so many grease-painted Indians in a cowboy movie hiding behind tumbleweeds.

    John McCain, I’m told, was willing, and, in fact, did drop bombs on people he never saw for reasons he didn’t care about or question. For this apparently thoughtless obedience he is regarded among his own kind as a hero. Sound familiar? He BELONGS at the head of a party which owes its success to an unquestioned commitment to unthinking obedience in the pursuit of self-interest. It’s called: “getting ahead.” And, in case you didn’t know, the idea is to do it, “by any means,” which is what the Republican functionaries are doing in this case once more.

    Working people do not vote republican; that is a form of insanity like putting the chains on your own wrists. Working people identify the neighbors who do vote republican and then work to punish them without discussion for they are our stated enemies; they make no secret of it these doughy, white boys. When someone TELLS you he is your enemy and intends to destroy you it is in your own self-interest to take them seriously, and to take whatever steps necessary to defend yourself from them. It makes no difference if that person is wearing a turban or carrying a briefcase.

    It is not possible to re-educate or intellectually engage someone who believes they have the right to sell your job overseas and to put an entire nation’s workforce into relative poverty for their own greed. It matters not whether they think these rights were ceded to them by God or Mammon.

  • WOW

    They must be gettin’ scared = never saw such a troll attack here before! I actually prefer the trolls that are clear that they are not on our side than the concern trolls that pretend to be, and then share their dishonest “concerns”

  • guess it figures, posts that include the term NRA would draw all the wackos

  • Am I the only person who thought, that even the quote that McCain used was true, his quip was stupid anyways? Lets use a different example…

    This, Mr. McCain said, drew the derisive comment from Mr. Obama that Mrs. Clinton was “bringing a knife to a gunfight”

    Mr. McCain paused, then said to laughter: “Someone should tell Senator Obama that guns are usually used in a gunfight, not knives.”

    Either way, McCain’s comments are stupid.

    I mention this, not because McCain is misquoting Obama in a mindless joke, but because we’re likely to keep hearing this nonsense and it’s best to take note of reality now before the myth takes root and “everybody knows” that Obama said six-shooters are used to hunt ducks.

    I know it is good to nail people for misquoting so things don’t get ingrained into conventional wisdom….but I think things could work both ways…an effective counterpunch to a situation like the above would be:

    “John McCain, thinks his audience is too stupid to get the punchline to an obvious joke, as an additional insult, he had to misquote Obama to do so”

  • TAO (#8) said: Firstly, the NRA does not truly represent gun owners. Only Gun Owner’s of America does that

    Right. The droolers don’t represent the gunwhackos, it’s the southern-fried whack jobs of GOA who do.

    Please, sir, leave us your address. I want to come pry your penis replacement from your cold dead hands personally, Mr. Minidick.

  • I want to thank today’s righty trolls for proving once again that computers are now so user-friendly that bipeds lacking frontal lobes and opposable thumbs can use them just like real people.

  • I told you so! They caught onto my little spelling mistake. OK it is Lehrer or whatever. It is the same person I had in mind, the biased reporter/moderator of NPR. Is it clear now? I am not “flip-flopping.” Remember that term? I meant Jim Lehrer. Oh yea, you need more money to fund abortionists so that you can kill our own innocent children within our own country, instead of eliminating the terrorists who want to destroy our citizens, buildings and bridges.

  • You must mean Jim Lehrer of the Marine Corps? The guy who never votes in an election because he does not wish to show favoritism towards one argument or another, one party or another, for he feels that action would jeopardize his effectiveness as a journalist. Is that the guy you mean, dummy-boy?

    It is not your spelling weakness that defines you, rather it is your willingness to make an accusation for which you neither have, nor, amongst your own seedy kind, need proof. You associate Jim Lehrer with liberalism because you sense he’s smarter than you are and that scares you. You seek to muddy the water, not because you know anything about Jim Lehrer or even care about him, just because in muddying the water your neighbors can’t see you for the scum you are. See you soon, neighbor.

    Incidentally, Mr. Moderator, oranges spend most of their existance green, like the Republican money that drains the swamps to grow them.

  • Hunselort, we will see you at the polls, until then keep calling those bad names and keep using those bad languages, if you choose to remain uncivilized. Dear neighbor, I am scared of no one, no, not even you.

  • you can shoot ducks with a revolver (6-shooter). you just have to be close. Or have the Taurus Judge, a new revolver that shoots .410 (shotgun) shells.

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