If the gun debate gets any more juvenile, the participants will need strollers.
The National Rifle Association took the first shot in this latest pursuit of the puerile. Not only did it release a political ad late Tuesday about the president’s children — a bipartisan taboo of long standing — but it made Sasha and Malia’s security the subject of a brutal attack on President Obama. “Are the president’s kids more important than yours?” asks the NRA’s male announcer. “Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school?” The ad goes on to call him an “elitist hypocrite” who wants only his own children to be safe.
“Repugnant and cowardly,” said Jay Carney, Obama’s spokesman. Indeed, the word “despicable” would not go too far in this case.
Unfortunately, Obama would have had more standing to denounce the NRA’s childishness if he hadn’t been about to launch a children’s crusade of his own in the rollout of his gun-violence initiative Wednesday morning. The White House packed the audience and the stage with kids, some of whom the president singled out during his speech. His aides even released handwritten letters children sent.
It’s awful enough that 20 first-graders were among those killed in last month’s massacre at a school in Newtown, Conn. Is it really necessary for both sides to put them on the front lines in this political fight?