Dartblog
Special Feature: Give a Rouse
Whither the College on the Hill? Dartblog brings you news and commentary from Hanover and the world at large, including deep coverage of the maturing tenure of Dr. Kim.
Archived post
This is an archived post. Please click here to see the latest entries.
Now here’s an image for you…
Sen. Hillary Clinton as Annie Oakley?
That’s the image Sen. Barack Obama invoked yesterday in Pennsylvania. Obama and Clinton are currently exchanging harsh words over which candidate has the more “traditional” values. Certainly neither has a traditional life. I find it hard to imagine that any voter truly believes Clinton’s tales of learning to shoot with her dad as a young girl. It just does not fit with the image that we all know and [recoil from?]. Even if the tales were true, her record on gun control in her adult political life is abysmal. For once, I agree with Obama:
“She is running around talking about how this is an insult to sportsman, how she values the second amendment. She’s talking like she’s Annie Oakley,” Obama said. “Hillary Clinton is out there like she’s on the duck blind every Sunday. She’s packing a six-shooter. Come on, she knows better. That’s some politics being played by Hillary Clinton.”
Clinton is hardly the only one playing politics at this stage though. On his wesbite, Obama empty rhetoric to appeal to the need for sportsmen in his coalition. Such a response is typical for Obama’s campaign. His expanded “plan” states that he respects the right to own firearms, but that he also believes it is “subject to reasonable and commonsense regulation.” This is political double speak intended to appease sportsmen in the election cycle but allow him to sign sweeping gun control legislation when in office.
I find it offensive that Clinton is also distorting her background on the Second Amendment. Her husband signed into law some of the harshest gun control legislation that this country has ever seen. During the 1990s, she repeatedly supported harsher gun control laws including the Brady Handgun Bill and the Assault Weapons Ban. In 2003, she co-introduced the reauthorization of the assault weapons ban along with Senators John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, and Diane Feinstein. This new version of an already harsh piece of legislation would have banned my semi-automatic shotgun (thank goodness some of our legislators respect constitutional rights).
No matter how these legislators attempt to muddy the waters of their record, the truth will out.
Featured posts
-
October 18, 2009
When Love Beckoned in 52nd Street
We were at San Francisco’s BIX last evening, enjoying prosecco, cheese, and a bit of music. A full year of inhabitation in Northern California has unraveled to me no decent venue for proper lounging, but… -
October 9, 2009
D Afraid of a Little Competish
So our colleague and Dartblog writer Joe Asch informed me that the D has rejected our cunning advertising campaign. Uh-oh. The Dartmouth is widely known as a breeding ground for instant New York Times successes,… -
September 4, 2009
How Regents Should Reign
As Dartmouth alumni proceed through the legal hoops necessary to defuse a Board-packing plan—which put in unhappy desuetude an historic 1891 Agreement between alumni and the College guaranteeing a half-democratically-elected Board of Trustees—it strikes one… -
August 29, 2009
Election Reform Study Committee
If you are an alum of the College on the Hill, you may have received a number of e-mails of late beseeching your input for a new arm of the College’s Alumni Control Apparatus called… -
August 23, 2009
Fare Thee Well, Tom Crady
And now Dean Tom Crady has precipitously announced his departure from the College after only 20 months on the job. How to read this? By way of background, prior to coming to Dartmouth, Crady had… -
May 31, 2009
Kangaroo Court, Indeed
In an interview with The Dartmouth, alumni-elected trustee T.J. Rodgers ‘70 explained his reasons for declining to participate in future evaluations of trustees up for “re-election,” namely the “kangaroo court” nature of such discussion in…