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Go Home Mccain's Hunting Distortion

THE PLANK MAY 16, 2008

Mccain's Hunting Distortion

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

John McCain, speaking to the National Rifle Association today:

After Senator Obama made his unfortunate comment that Pennsylvanians "cling to guns and religion" out of bitterness, Senator Clinton quickly affirmed her support for the Second Amendment. That drew Senator Obama's derision. "She's running around talking about how this is an insult to sportsmen, how she values the Second Amendment," he said. "Like she's on the duck blind every Sunday, packin' a six shooter!" Someone should tell Senator Obama that ducks are usually hunted with shotguns.

In fact, McCain altered Obama's quote in a crucial way. What Obama actually said was:

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.

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.

--Jonathan Chait

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13 comments

Obama needs a response strategy to shoot down - pun intended - every one of these distortions as they pop up. As you note, Jonathan, the Republicans have been very good at spinning false tales and scoring points.  They have piggy - backed on the old adage that a lie can travel half - way around the world before truth gets its boots on.

- liberal reformer

May 16, 2008 at 5:23pm

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Oh, how I wish McCain was just having another Senior Moment...

- GSpinks

May 16, 2008 at 5:23pm

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Chait, only a foaming-on-the-inside Clinton(s) hater like yourself would put those quotes under a laser microscope, find a distinction, and magnify it to find some outrage.  And it's not all that clear McCain is wrong -- you'd have to be an Obama mind reader to know what he meant by the juxtapositon of "on the duck blind" and "she's packing a six-shooter."  

- Lymon1

May 16, 2008 at 5:24pm

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Something to remember the next time a handgun ban is proposed and the NRA cries foul on behalf of the millions of hunters who prefer to take game with handguns. Typical have-it-both-ways Republicans; mock Democrats for associating handguns with hunting but then protest that handguns are essential for hunters.

(To be fair, some folks really do hunt with handguns, and many hunters carry a handgun as a backup weapon. If you cross the path of a grizzly while you're hunting turkey or whatever, and it gets the idea to attack you, you're a lot better off defending yourself with a decent handgun with five or eleven shots than trying to stop the bear with birdshot.)

- rhubarbs

May 16, 2008 at 5:30pm

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Lymon, to be fair, it was still a dickish, snarky meaningless comment by McCain.  Typical Republican stuff.  And he can't be a hunter himself, I would think.  If he can't even win in a dogfight with a bunch of jungle-rotted Soviet planes, how will he beat real nature?

Man, it would be fun to be a Republican and be able to say things like that and not feel bad.

- boneill

May 16, 2008 at 5:47pm

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lymonl,

"you'd have to be an Obama mind reader to know what he meant"

unless you listen to the previous sentence of that speech, where he slams Hillary for "talking like she's Anne Oakley", then apply a little common-sense to see the merging of the parodies being painted regarding Clinton's new found love and respect for the 2nd Amendment, and her long forgotten history of duck hunting.

Like it or not, McCain is obviously engaging in his own parodical interpretation of Obama's speech to detract "Gun" points from Obama.

- GSpinks

May 16, 2008 at 5:57pm

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Also, this might be an opportune moment to point out that Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry has a lifetime A rating from the NRA.

- rhubarbs

May 16, 2008 at 5:58pm

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lymonl, get over it.  Your candidate lost.

Obama's comments are clear and McCain and the GOP are distorting them purposefully.  And you should be ruing this because???

- bcbaird

May 16, 2008 at 6:04pm

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boneil:  "If he can't even win in a dogfight with a bunch of jungle-rotted Soviet planes, how will he beat real nature?"  Oh snap!  (has that become outdated by now?)  I think somewhere there's a rule that bad p.o.w.'s have a greater license to wisecrack than bad bowlers (or hunters).  I dunno, and even if I agreed, I say when you have *real* slurs like the lie that Obama said "Israel is a stain," things like this post just dilute and muddle.

GS -- I don't see it -- I think the parody of Hillary would work just as well the way McCain portrays it  

bcbaird -- sorry dude, I voted for Obama and railed against any Dem who won't fall in line in the fall for the nominee.  I just think Hillary Clinton got a number of raw deals in the campaign and that many of TNR writers have Obama blinders on.  I'd talk more about his Darfur windsocking except the only person on TNR online (the blog parts at least) who writes about Darfur is Marty Peretz, and he's so off the rails he makes J.C. look like Howard Wolfson.  Actually in his wikipedia photo J.C. does look a bit like Howard Wolfson...

- Lymon1

May 16, 2008 at 6:34pm

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lol, its like that awesome Hillary flyer with the bolt on the wrong side of the weapon.

Its funny how gun owners tend to be richer and whiter than the rest of the population, but that gets lost on politicians who on both sides of the isle fire into the air when they think about the actual implications of the Second Amendment and the strange insistence of citizens to be armed against threats foreign and domestic.

- cthulhu2008

May 17, 2008 at 5:30am

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If McCain wants to give a lecture on shotguns, I suggest he start with Dick Cheney.

You know the part that really blows me away about that Cheney shooting, he was "hunting" clipped winged, pen raised quails that were placed in the brush by hunting guides. It's like going to the petting zoo and executing the animals as they feed from your hand. It's not hunting, it's killiing. Christ, these guys are a bunch of fakers.

- mpatrickhendri

May 17, 2008 at 10:16am

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Both the Washington Post and the Associated Press reported this weekend on John McCain's speech before

- Anonymous

May 19, 2008 at 12:08pm

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I had sort of resolved to stop blogging about the election, but couldn't let this one slip. Liz Bumiller

- Anonymous

May 28, 2008 at 1:35pm

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