So, hot off the wires, I just read Hillary's latest attempt to spin hay out of the "bitter people" silliness:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...
VALPARAISO, Indiana (CNN) — Hillary Clinton appealed to Second Amendment supporters on Saturday by hinting that she has some experience of her own pulling triggers.
“I disagree with Sen. Obama’s assertion that people in our country cling to guns and have certain attitudes about trade and immigration simply out of frustration,” she began, referring to the Obama comments on small-town Americans that set off a political tumult on Friday.
She then introduced a fond memory from her youth.
Ut oh...that can't be a good sign...
“I disagree with Sen. Obama’s assertion that people in our country cling to guns and have certain attitudes about trade and immigration simply out of frustration..."
Question 1: Did Obama ever say that people cling to these things ONLY out of frustration? I highly doubt it.
“You know, my dad took me out behind the cottage that my grandfather built on a little lake called Lake Winola outside of Scranton and taught be how to shoot when I was a little girl,” she said.
Question 2: Really. Did he now? And just how old of a "little girl" was she? Was her father violating gun safety regulations by doing so?
Extra point: Any time Hillary starts out a story with "You know..." lately, it almost always means she's about to say something that comes back to bite her on the ass. I believe this is what poker players call a "tell", yes?
Clinton said she has hunted ducks.
Question 3: Did she have a permit to do so? Any hunters know what the regulations are on duck hunting in Pennsylvania?
I know this may seem kind of petty, but the whole thing has gotten so petty anyway, and given her absurd Sniper Fire story, it seems like this is fair game. Normally I think it's pretty pathetic to pore over every trivial detail of a candidate's story like this, but Hillary has either flat-out lied or "misspoken" enough times that she's completely given up any right to the benefit of the doubt.
Oh, yeah, here's the best part:
Minutes later, in a slightly awkward moment, Clinton faced a question from a woman in the audience whose son had been paralyzed by a gunshot.
Ouch. "AWKWARD."
UPDATE: I just wanted to note that it's entirely possible that this particular story is completely true, and I personally don't have a problem with her learning to shoot as a kid. My larger points are a) she's exaggerated or flat-out lied during campaign speeches/rallies so many times recently that it's become impossible to take ANYTHING that she says at face value, and b) she's the one who's decided that every single infinitesimal detail of what a candidate says is fair game (pun intended) for parsing, so she's opened herself up for it in return IMHO.
On a personal level, while I'm pretty much Democratic party line on most issues, there's two areas where I'm completely neutral, one of which happens to be gun control issues--I have no problem with personal ownership of firearms, as long as they're completely trained, certified, registered and permitted 8 ways from Sunday. I draw the line at absurdities like assault rifles and so forth, but I don't really have enough first hand knowledge of the issue to have too strong of an opinion one way or the other.