Wayne LaPierre's State of the Union Response Brings Back Same Old Crazy

[SecularMotion]

A day after signaling that the National Rifle Association's messaging on gun legislation might go wide and wild, Wayne LaPierre stuck it straight to President Obama during the lobbying group's official response to the State of the Union, calling the President a master of "deception" on more than one occasion — and accusing Obama, falsely, of doing "nothing... [to protect] one child in any school in this country."

During a 14-minute address at a convention in Nashville, the NRA executive vice president said that Obama had "displayed a level of public deception that simply cannot be ignored." Later in the speech, LaPierre dug in even more deceptively himself: "The President has taken the art of public deception and manipulation to a whole new level."

LaPierre took Obama to task for not mentioning the words "school safety" — a classic NRA turn of phrase — during the most memorable (if politically impossible) moment of the State of the Union, when Obama said that legislation on universal background checks, high-capacity magazine limits, trafficking restrictions, and an assault-weapons ban "deserve a vote," whether the Republican-majority House (no doubt heavily lobbied by the NRA) passes them or not. Failing to use an NRA talking point, apparently, revealed the President's true agenda. "It's not about keeping kids safe at school," LaPierre intoned. "That wasn't even mentioned in the President's speech."

Which, of course, isn't true: According to the official transcript of the State of the Union, president Obama opened the section on guns by talking about just that. "Of course," Obama said, "what I've said tonight matters little if we don’t come together to protect our most precious resource, our children."

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/02/wayne-lapierre-state-of-the-union-response/62166/

[Cary]

1. I find myself conflicted here.

On the one hand the crazy and stupid of these people has been one of our best assets, so I think it's good that they persist.

On the other hand, or rather lurking somewhere in the back of my mind, is the notion that they can simply keep piling on the crazy and the stupid and that this could ultimately have a lulling and numbing effect.

I mean they were able to inflict their crazy and stupid on us for about 25 to 30 years largely by lulling and numbing. We've managed to overcome that in an impressive way but not after sustaining a lot of unnecessary damage vis a vis the fleecing of the middle class and being lied into unnecessary war.