Cliven Bundy let a lot of people down. Especially the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre
by digby
Poor Wayne LaPierre. It was supposed to be his week. And then Cliven Bundy imploded. My piece over at Salon this morning:
It’s always tough when a speaker has to alter his or her address at the last minute due to some big change over which they had no control. For instance, imagine what Wayne LaPierre’s speech to the National Rifle Association leadership forum on Friday must have been before right-wing hero Cliven Bundy donned a metaphorical white hood and declared himself a racist cretin in front of the entire nation.
It must have been a rousing cri de guerre summoning up the ghosts of great Americans from Patrick Henry to Wyatt Earp to Charlton Heston to illustrate the patriotism of Real Americans like Bundy. (Well, probably not Wyatt Earp — he was a notorious gun-grabber.) After all, the Second Amendment guarantees their right under the Constitution to declare the federal government illegitimate and threaten it at gunpoint. Or something.
Anyway, one can certainly imagine him laying out the thrilling scenario of a grizzled old cowboy and his friends and neighbors out on the range holding off the government thugs and finally forcing them to retreat rather than risk losing like the lily-livered cowards you just know they are…
Too bad old Cliven showed up on TV with dead animals in his arms and carrying on about how black people were better off slavery. It put a bif kink in the program.
So what did LaPierre do? He pulled an old trope off the shelf, dusted it off and pretended like it still meant something. That’s right, he declared war on the “liberal media.” Again. Still.
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