Sunday, November 18, 2007

Another NRA "A" Rated Candidate

Some facts that surprised me: between 80 and 100 million Americans own guns, NRA membership soared after the shootings at Columbine, and Bill Clinton received an "A" grade from the NRA.




Well, I guess I don't feel so bad about Bill Brown now...

6 comments:

SamenoKami said...

Doesn't an 'A' rating for B. Clinton make the NRA's rating of candidates about as useless as tits on a boar hog? If the NRA doesn't hurry up and make a stand for something they are going to fade into oblivion. Some other factors need to be put into the equation. I might can see a mistake in rating before a candidate is elected. There is no excuse after election. You can very clearly see where someone goes on RTKABA issues. Idiots!

SamenoKami said...

Don't read the comments on the article unless you want to hurl chunks.

Anonymous said...

Is there a way to verify the truth of R. Feldman;s assertion? I have no reason to believe the author of this book. Perhaps he knows that there is no way to check what rating Clinton got in 1982.

What was Clinton's actual record on gun rights while he was Governor of Akansas? Perhaps he hid his gun-grabbing ways while he was still in Hot Springs.

David Codrea said...

I think if he told an out and out lie like this he would be very easy for NRA to expose. So yeah, there's a way --all they have to do is prove Feldman wrong and discredit this assertion. Doesn't matter if Clinton changed his ways or not, since it's clear he changed his questionnaire at NRA's coaching and they then modified his grade.

Anonymous said...

In what way is it "clear [Clinton] changed his questionnaire at NRA's coaching and they then modified his grade."

Richard Feldman is the one asserting this. What record might we expect the NRA to keep of this alleged insider negotiation?

I feel dirty by having anything to do with what might seem a defense of Clinton, but I have no reason to trust anything that I can't verify in Feldman's self serving polemic.

David Codrea said...

I think it's pretty likely that if NRA could show a mortal enemy was lying about something so easily disprovable they'd publicly discredit him. Why don't you think that? Wouldn't you, if it was your reputation being smeared, and you could prove it? Why no challenge from "The Winning Team"?

Here's my bottom line--over the years, I and many colleagues have personally witnessed and reported on numerous incidents of undeserved high ratings to where this fits seamlessly into a well established and documented pattern--I even link to my Bill Brown series in the main post, and that's just one of many I could rattle off. That's why--combined with the disprovability factor-- I find this report very credible.

Your only argument presented so far to counter all of this is that you don't like or trust Feldman. Granted, but based on my years of looking into this, it fits the pattern and reputation NRA management has established for itself.

I don't care for Feldman either, and I've found the parts of the book I've read so far (first 40 pages) to be self-serving and colored to portray him as the aggrieved hero, but an outright lie like this in a published "mainstream" book would be very problematic not only for the authors but also the publishers.

So I can either go with the weight of all the above that I just stated, or I can dismiss all that because you say you don't believe it. Sorry, get me a quote from NRA repudiating this and I'll post it and evaluate it. Until then, I know where I'm placing my bets.