May 05, 2008
Was Hillary Betrayed?
Over the weekend, The Clinton campaign came under fire for a mailing that attacked Barack Obama's horrific record on guns. The ad was inaccurate—it didn't go nearly far enough in describing the number and kind of firearms Obama would like to see banned—but as Hillary's record is every bit as suspect regarding the ubiquitous and yet poorly misunderstood semi-automatic action, I can understand why should wouldn't want to undercut her own less-than-credible position.
Almost immediately after that story aired, however, Clinton came under fire for the choice of gun used in the add, a rare Mauser 66 with double-set triggers. Rifles with double-set triggers are rare in the United States, but are a feature more common in Europe. The problem was further compounded by the fact that the image was flipped to show the gun as a left-handed model, and the Mauser 66 was never released as a left-handed gun. The picture therefore portrays a gun that has never been made.
This is all very amusing for everyone but the Clinton camp, but you have to wonder if the gaffe wasn't a gaffe at all.
With literally millions of stock photos to choose from "in the wild," including hundreds of thousands of hunting rifle photos, including expensively-produced high-resolution photos that typically would be provided by manufacturers for public relations campaigns, the Clinton campaign "accidentally" ends up with a high resolution image of decades-old rare European firearm for an American political mailer, and compounds that gaffe by flipping the image so that it portrays a gun that was never built?
I'd like to know very much how that picture was selected for the mailer, who selected it, and why they chose that particular photo to mirror image.
It could very well be that the mailer is merely the perfect storm of coincidences.
Or...
How s this situation different from the thing a while back that showed a Russian helicopter (ala Saigon) rescuing the last survivors in Baghdad?
Posted by: Larry Sheldon at May 5, 2008 10:12 AMC'mon Bob - this is just a curiosity side-show to the main event. I didn't notice the flipped image until I read about the "gaffe" on another site. There's nothing here - a graphic artist needed a stock photo of a gun - the only specification prob'ly was that it must be a "hunting" rifle - and flipped the image for composition purposes. This screw-up is no more relevant to the campaign than Hillary "picking" the ill-fated Eight Belles in the Kentucky Derby.
Hillary attacking Obama for his stance on guns is amusing enough in and of itself. Kettle?? Black??
Posted by: Diogenes at May 5, 2008 10:57 AMYeah, there's just a whiff of tin-foil to the theory. What, is someone trying to embarass Hillary in the eyes of, not just gun owners, but gun experts, thus driving them to vote for.... Obama??
Occam's Razor stands. This is just someone going, "Ooh, here's a cool picture of a gun, let's use it." It got flipped, knowingly or unkowingly, by someone who (in the case of the former) probably correctly assumed it wouldn't matter all that much in the end.
Nothing that we don't already know to see here. Democrats know little about guns, probably care less. Move along.
Posted by: Andrew X at May 5, 2008 02:46 PMThis isn't sinister, it is just another example of clueless people working for incompetent managers working for a lier. Liberals have NO CLUE about guns and the gun culture, and so when they venture into the arena they look like asses. Just like Barbara Boxer sweeping a crowd with an AK-47 during a press conference. These people are idiots, but are also s damn arrogant that they still think they know all that they need to know.
Posted by: Smarty at May 5, 2008 04:40 PMPrecisely, Smarty... there is probably no one in the Clinton campaign that knows much about guns, so they just searched for an "evil" looking gun on the "intertubes" and found that one, and ran with it.
Of course, this brings up another interesting point that Bob has made over and over again... the concept of "fact-checking" seems to be foreign to most lefties.
Posted by: C-C-G at May 5, 2008 05:39 PMmaybe flipping the gun to a left handed rifle was a poke a the conservatives like the left knows about guns too see. i dont know if they were smart enought to know there are left handed and right handed guns. there was a post on here about the bans on assault rifles due to the barrel shroud and when the woman getting interviewed was asked what the shroud was she said "the thing you put against your shoulder". democrats are ignorant so they can get away with stuff like this because the dem voters are ignorant enough to believe them.
Posted by: Brett at May 9, 2008 02:47 PM
