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Gun control: President Obama’s biggest loss
Never before had President Barack Obama put the moral force and political muscle of his presidency behind an issue quite this big — and lost quite this badly.
The president, shaken to the core by the massacre of 26 innocents at Sandy Hook Elementary School, broke his own informal “Obama Rule†— of never leaning into an issue without a clear path to victory — first by pushing for a massive gun control package no one expected to pass, and then sticking through it even as he retrenched to a relatively modest bipartisan bill mandating national background checks on gun purchases.
I guess the Politico thinks that Obama’s push for Obamacare wasn’t a big issue. Furthermore, they forget that it was never a certain pass, requiring quite a few bribes (which would have been illegal in the private sector) to get it passed through the Democrat controlled House and Senate. Nor were the (failed in practice) Stimulus and (mostly failed in practice) Dodd-Frank easy, yet he put his weight behind them. And one has to ask why the POTUS would push to violate his oath of office by infringing on Constitutional Rights so heavily, particularly when the legislative pieces wouldn’t have stopped any of these mass shooting.
It was a bitter defeat for a president accustomed to winning, a second-term downer that may — or may not — foreshadow the slow decline suffered by so many of his predecessors. Obama seems to have the public behind him, but it illustrated his less-than-Johnsonian powers of personal persuasion, the possible shortcomings of his decision to wait a month after the killings to present a plan and above all the limits of his go-to “outside†strategy of taking his case directly to the American people.
He spent his time demonizing and insulting 2nd Amendment supporters and never told the American people exactly how his gun law prescriptions would have stopped the shooters. He brought the argument to his far left base which is anti-gun and want guns taken out of the hands of (Other) law abiding citizens.
In a break from protocol — Obama seldom talks publicly about what other politicians say to him privately — the president called out the Senate, including members of his own party, for succumbing to bullying of the National Rifle Association in the Rose Garden about an hour after the vote.
“Most of these senators couldn’t offer any good reasons… there were no coherent arguments about why we couldn’t do this… it came down to politics,†a visibly agitated Obama said, flanked by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a clearly shaken Vice President Joe Biden and family members of Sandy Hook victims.
He threw a major league tantrum. If only he’d get as pissed off that his economic policies have been such failures.
Anyway, he forgets the other part: why we should enact these laws. Emotionalism is not an excuse to infringe on the Rights of Americans, especially when, as has been written and said multiple times (including this post), the legislation would not have stopped any of these mass shootings. Plus, they would infringe on the privacy rights of those with “mental illness”, which was poorly defined, and would have infringed on their right to own a firearm without benefit of a trial. As to a good reason, well, just like I tell any anti-gun Progressive I talk to: “because I can own one. My Right.”
Within an hour of Obama’s Rose Garden remarks his political arm, Organizing for Action, announced it is launching a “day of action†Saturday. Supporters in states with what OFA believes are persuadable senators will hold events and be urged to contact their senators.
Yeah, that’s the group which is supposedly separate from Obama, pushing his agenda seemingly at his direction.
Plenty of other Progressives had stompy foot fits, including Gabby Giffords in a NY Times editorial. She failed to note that none of these laws would have really stopped her shooter.
More: Bruce at Gay Patriot catches something else interesting in the story.
Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.
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