HRC Runs Out Of Propaganda Ammo

In a shameless attempt to resurrect every bit of Repug demagoguery against Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton tells us the following here (re: the ridiculous Clinton charge that Obama is an "elitist" for speaking the truth)...

“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 me how to shoot when I was a little girl,” she said.

“You know, some people now continue to teach their children and their grandchildren. It’s part of culture. It’s part of a way of life. People enjoy hunting and shooting because it’s an important part of who they are. Not because they are bitter.”

OK, "Calamity" Hil (apt, considering your campaign), we get the picture.

But when pressed on the point here...

After a weekend spent making direct appeals to gun owners and church goers, Hillary Clinton said Sunday a query about the last time she fired a gun or attended church services "is not a relevant question in this debate” over Barack Obama’s recent comments on small town Americans.

“We can answer that some other time,” Clinton said at a press conference held in a working class neighborhood here. “This is about what people feel is being said about them. I went to church on Easter. I mean, so?”

Am I crazy, or is this Hillary’s “meaning of the word ‘is’” moment we have here (“some other time” being after November 5th of this year, I’m sure).

Because, when she was running for the Senate from New York in 2000, she said the following (here)…

The first lady reiterated her support to require trigger locks on handguns, to hold adults responsible for their children's use of guns, to raise the youth handgun ban from age 18 to 21, to limit gun sales to one per month per adult and to have the Consumer Products Safety Commission regulate guns.

"It doesn't make much sense that we regulate toy guns but not real guns," Mrs. Clinton said.

And she also supported the following, originally endorsed by former Repug New York governor George Pataki…

Mrs. Clinton also announced her support for the creation of a "ballistic database" for all new guns, requiring gun makers or sellers to fire guns before sale and send that "ballistic fingerprint" to law enforcement.

All good ideas that I wholeheartedly support, by the way, among others.

But getting back to the supposedly “not relevant” question of when she first fired a gun – did she do so before she turned 21? I mean, she must have if her grandfather “taught her to shoot when she was a little girl.” And since he practiced gun safety, he could not have started her out with a rifle, could he?

Well then, if she was firing a handgun at that early age (and there’s no way she could have obtained a license yet, even in this state – I think you can actually get a license to hunt at 12…read that on a bulletin board from ’04…but I’m not positive), then her childhood recollection now stands in direct opposition to her stated common-sense gun policies articulated in 2000 when she first ran for the U.S. Senate.

Which leads me to believe that Senator Clinton would talk common sense to her home states’ constituents (speaking what I believe to be her true sentiments, which I applaud), but then in turn shamelessly pander to the voters of this state, apparently believing that our votes could be won so easily with some cheesy photo-op in a blind with camouflage hunting small game or, absent that, some now-unverifiable recollection of a childhood encounter with a loaded weapon.

Registered Democratic ladies and gentlemen of the state of Pennsylvania, I have news for you – Mrs. Clinton truly thinks that you and I are stupid.

Now who’s the elitist (and kudos to Bob Casey for this).

Update 4/14/08: Another "elitist," I suppose...