What do you think of when you think of "Karl Rove"? Okay - leaving out anything that couldn't be printed in HIGHLIGHTS FOR CHILDREN, that is? Well, hold on to your seats, folks, because Karl Rove is about to show you a side of him you've never seen:
KARL ROVE, DEFENDER OF THE CONSTITUTION!
No, wait, I'm serious. Why are you kneeling before the toilet like that?
Yes, folks: the man who brought you the administration responsible for Abu Ghraib, warrantless surveilliance, and "enhanced interrogation techniques that some critics contend amount to torture" spoke at a gathering of the National Rifle Association in Kentucky, where he informed the crowd that Obama intends to pry their AK-47s from their cold, dead fingers.
Through a transcription provided by the wonderful Jamie Farnsworth of CBS News, it seems that Rove pulled the old anticipate-the-response card: "We know what he's going to say-- it's divisive, distractive, keeps us from coming together. After all, he says, we are the change we have been waiting for. what the heck does that mean?"
"Does it mean we've been keeping ourselves waiting? Why was change late anyway? I don't get it. let me tell you what's divisive. It is divisive to undermine the Second Amendment, to undermine to constitution of the United States."
That damn Barack Obama - undermining the Constitution of the United States before he's even secured the Democratic nomination. The dude's been busy!
In a sick and twisted way, you have to admire Rove for his ability not to let facts muddy his rhetoric. Obama's "hyperliberal" campaign stance on gun control is the same rational line that many Americans support: ban the sale of semi-automatic weapons, and toughen up enforcement of existing regulations to prevent "dumping" of weapons in our inner cities. Obama's official (I guess one could say "academic") stance is a novel approach that acknowledges the individualistic interpretation of the Second Amendment - but with caveats:
"There's been a long standing argument among constitutional scholars about whether the 2nd Amendment referred simply to militias or whether it spoke to an individual right to possess arms," Obama said. "I think the latter is the better argument. There is an individual right to bear arms, but it is subject to common-sense regulation just like most of our rights are subject to common-sense regulation."
He declined, just as the Bush Administration did, to take a position on whether the DC gun ban violates the 2nd Amendment. He said instead that states and cities should have broad latitude to regulate guns—even if the Constitution guarantees an individual right to own them.
Referring to the "gun culture" in the United States, Obama said:
We should be able to combine respect for those traditions with our concern for kids who are being shot down. This is a classic example of us just applying some common sense, just being reasonable, right? And reasonable would say that lawful gun owners – I respect the Second Amendment. I think lawful gun owners should be able to hunt, be sportsmen, protect their families.
Obama's been accused of wanting to hold Republican hands and chant "Kumbayah" all the live-long day. Please. His message hasn't been about pretending we have no differences with Republicans, but about ridding our nation of absolutist political rhetoric. As Rove ably demonstrated at the NRA, this is a game at which Republicans excel: take your opponent's call for some restrictions on individual behavior, or for some semblance of a social safety net, and pretend she's the Second Coming of Stalin. Only in Republican thinking (?) could you argue that a ban on semi-automatic weapons is the moral equivalent of the SS dragging Anne Frank out of your attic.
Saner politicians have seen through this strategy, and called bullshit on it. A once-semi-sane politician named John McCain saw it so clearly that he once called for the NRA's influence on Republican policy to end. See, the Republican nominee for President once agreed with Barack Obama on such "reasonable" measures as closing the gun-show loophole. These days, Maverick McCain is too busy taking the same stage as Karl Rove to remember that he was for closing the gun show loophole before he was against it. (And the MSM seems to be having its own "senior moment" when it comes to McCain's reasonable past.)
It's galling that the allies of a man who derided the Constitution of the United States as "a goddamned piece of paper" would even attempt to use that same Constitution to derail the election of a man who wants to prevent America's inner cities from resembling Swiss cheese.
Don't let them get away with it.