John Kerry’s new ad, “Pilot,” is another of his ongoing efforts to make himself appear, as the New York Times put it, an “all around” guy.
Let’s roll the tape. “As the ad opens,” writes the Los Angeles Times
Kerry sits with his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, and laughs. Home movie footage is shown of him as a young father playing ball with his daughters, Vanessa and Alexandra. Then come pictures of Kerry shooting a rifle….”
And the Albuquerque Journal, since the ad was rolled out in New Mexico:
The spot shows a series of photographs— Kerry with his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry; Kerry playing soccer with his kids; Kerry flying an airplane; Kerry hunting with a rifle….
Virtually all of the extensive press coverage of this new ad says it pictures Kerry “hoisting a hunting rifle” (New York Times, cited above) or “with hunting rifle” (Washington Post).
There are actually several problems here, but the first is that the picture in the ad does not show Kerry with a rifle. Here is a larger version of that picture, taken from the Firefighters For Kerry web site. Kerry, as you can see, is holding a double barrel shotgun (the picture was taken during his photo op pheasant hunting trip in Iowa last fall). This is not a minor error, and I’ll come back to it in a moment. Meanwhile, Wait! There’s more.
Kerry may or may not be the avid hunter he and his ad proclaim, but this picture of him with the thumb of his left hand wrapped across the top of the barrels suggests that he hunts for photo ops rather than game. Trying to shoot with this grip is roughly akin to trying to write by gripping a pencil in your fist the same way you would grab a knife as though you were going to stab someone with an overhand blow.
Hold on; I’m not through. If you can view the ad itself (cited above), do so, and hit the stop button when Hunter Kerry appears. Those guys standing around off to the left but in front of him probably aren’t in the line of fire (if any firing were to happen), but I wouldn’t want to be standing there, especially not when the man with the gun is holding it with such an odd grip.
Now here’s the funniest part. I would have said that no hunting was actually going on here — just a photo shoot — but take a closer look at the still picture from the firefighters’ site. Doesn’t that look like a dog behind Kerry, pointing in the opposite direction from where he’s poised to shoot? Come to think of it, maybe this scene is deeply symbolic. Kerry is being provided with information (in the form of the point) on the location of sought after targets from a highly trained professional field operative (the dog), and he turns his back and looks resolutely in the wrong direction, under the watchful eye of his advisers off to the left. Think what Michael Moore could do with this if only Kerry were a Republican!
Now, as long as I’m being snide, there’s one thing I would like to know. Is the gun in Kerry’s hands a stage prop or, as he’s claimed, something that’s been in his family for years? If the latter, what exactly is it? If it’s a fine English double of the sort one might expect to find in any one of Kerry’s several multimillion dollar mansions, it might well be worth more than the annual salaries of many people “all around” motorcycling, hockeying, piloting, hunting guy Kerry would like to vote for him. Inquiring minds want to know.
So much for the fun. Here’s the serious part. I assume the reporters writing about this ad were writing not only from viewing it but also from material provided by Shrum and Donilon, who produced it for Kerry. I think this because most of the articles were written in similar if not identical ways using similar if not identical organization and phrasing. If so, it means that Kerry’s advisers (and even Kerry himself, since he announces, as required, that he approved the ad, though not necessarily the descriptive materials that must have accompanied it) don’t know the difference between a rifle and a shotgun or that rifles are not used in pheasant hunting. The fact that such a blunder occurs as a central part of an ad whose purpose is to make Kerry look like a regular guy whom hunters and sportsmen can trust to protect their interests is quite telling.
UPDATE
This post stirred up quite a ruckus, but I was prepared to let the comments speak for themselves and just let sleeping, or pointing, dogs lie (or not). But now Instapundit has added an update to his post linking mine to note that “a commenter at Pejman’s says that the story linked above [that is, mine] is wrong.”
Actually, what Oliver Willis said is that it is a “lie.” I — along with Pejman, Susanna Cornett, and several others who linked to my post — are “Spreaders of the lie.” And, alas, that deserves a reply.
Mr. Willis, like so many of his ideological colleagues, seems to have a habit of accusing those who disagree with him of lying, and in my case I’m still not sure what he thinks I lied about. My post pointed out some problems I found with Kerry’s recent ad portraying him as an avid hunter. As should have been clear (but if it wasn’t, I should have been clearer), that doesn’t mean I claimed Kerry had never been hunting. Indeed, I even said “Kerry may or may not be the avid hunter he and his ad proclaim,” although I followed that by saying, and still believe, that “this picture of him with the thumb of his left hand wrapped across the top of the barrels suggests that he hunts for photo ops rather than game.” (One commenter pointed out that this is the way you would hold the gun if you were going to bayonet the pheasant.) In other words, the picture looks transparently posed, and not posed very authentically, even if before or after it was shot he proceded to blast every pheasant in Iowa.
I also continue to find it amusing that Kerry’s ad people and virtually all the journalists who wrote about this ad, and the editors who reviewed what was written, apparently don’t know the difference between a rifle and a shotgun.
UPDATE II
Lane Core just sent this humorous link with more pictures.
The picture in the upper right is a clearer copy (on my monitor) of the one I cited. You can clearly see the left thumb over the top of the barrel, bayonet style, almost touching his index finger on the other side. Very odd. In the picture on the left, by contrast, Kerry is holding his gun in a way that raises none of these questions.
UPDATE III
See this post, and especially the UPDATE at the end of it.
Great post, very funny. I’m not a hunter so I can’t judge whether you’re right. But it hangs together well. And certainly wouldn’t be surprising.
Kerry: Endangering thumb?
John at Discriminations has a great post about John Kerry in an ad depicting him as “everyman”, including a scene…
I’m not a hunter either, but I know how you want to hold a shotgun when shooting something, and, well, it sure as heck ain’t how JFK’s holding it in that still.
I can excuse a lot in a photo-op, but if the man was really a hunter, he’d hold the gun right even for a photo-op, since he’d naturally hold it correctly.
Not that it matters, of course. I’m not sure I’d trust Kerry to tell me the time of day correctly twice in a row.
I’d love to see Kerry’s thumb after firing that “rifle”. That’s gonna leave a mark.
Oh, John’s right. Looked at biomechanically, that grip, should the gun be fired, stands a good chance of truly messing up Kerry’s wrist.
A large-bore shotgun goes off with quite a kick. The force is dissipated backwards through the shoulder and upwards through a lifting of the barrel. Holding the gun like that would expose the thumb ligaments and tendons to a very sharp upward thrust. The proper grip is to cradle the stock below the barrel. That way the strength of the whole hand can be used to arrest the upward thrust.
Shooting from the hip is of course different. (Not something I’ve done, but I heard Kerry was in the military, and maybe he remembers firing full auto with his left hand over the barrel to keep the gun from swinging up. Full auto generally isn’t used in hunting pheasants, though.)
Considering the butt of the gun is sitting in Kerry’s armpit instead of his shoulder or in the “firing from the hip” position, his stance may just be another case of waffling.
The best part, of course, is where the butt of the gun is. The still from the firefightersforkerry.com page shows it quite noticeably below his shoulder. If he fired from that position, he’d probably get a face full of barrel.
Yes an in addition to these other comments, no one parks the stock against their pect, it made for the armpit. And what is this combat stance, do the quail shoot back?
A real everyman. I know lots of people who pilot their own planes. And who the f*ck cares that he’s a hockey player? Is he running for president of Canada?
The entire hunting picture is bogus.
Problems:
He has the gun down too low on his shoulder, his cheek is not tucked into the stock. His shoulder cannot absorb the recoil in that position. (But you wouldn’t want it to obscure his face).
He’s holding the stock too far forward with his left hand and his right elbow is too low to give lateral control.
His left thumb is over the top of the barrel, how are you going to aim through your thumb?
Don’t even get me started on the orange vest (or is it a floatation device).
It’s been over 15 years since I’ve been bird hunting (dove, quail, pheasant) but I would never look like that, either at ready or while shooting.
Check out http://www.pheasantcountry.com/pheasants101/Detail.cfm?ID=20 for proper positions.
Just as a point of discussion, Kerry COULD say he was in the process of raising his weapon to his shoulder to fire.
Realistically, he’s a lamb in sheeps’s clothing.
Or maybe he changed his mind-again.
I looked at the photo before reading any of the commentary. Having done some bird hunting myself, it did look like he was bringing the gun up awkwardly and I would suppose he would have adjusted his grip on the foreend. As for the dog, it is common to hunt with more than one dog and when one points the others are supposed to ‘honor’ the point. It is odd that the dog is looking the other way though, usually they are looking in the direction of the point. If you look at the other pictures, the next to last in the series shows him from the rear with the gun up and with a better grip, but look at his feet, that is a prescription for getting knocked on your ass when you fire. Now I’ve had plenty of awkward moments in the field but if I were getting photo ops, those are NOT the ones I’d use.
It looks to me as if the butt of the gun is somewhat below his shoulder. I would think if he tried firing the gun in that position it would kick backwards out of his hands, possibly taking a finger with him
Is that the way they trained him to shoot when he was in the Navy?
When Kerry refused to cross the picket line, he told most of us all we needed to know. All the rest is just BS.
Compare Kerry’s grip with that of this Shiite militiaman.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40123000/jpg/_40123395_militiamanafp203.jpg
Well, there are picket lines Kerry won’t cross and picket lines he will cross. Pay your money, take your choice.
Well, the Shiite militiaman’s left hand is better, but unless an AK47 (?) has ZERO recoil he’s going to have get a very black eye from whatever that sight thing is.
Hey, I bet Kerry held his “rifle” properly before he held it like a goon…
http://www.firefightersforkerry.com/campaign/photo_gallery3_page5.php
In this one, from the same series, we can see that he can execute a proper pirouette while shooting.
-BF
Well, I cannot believe you right-wing extremist trolls. What the photo series is clearly meant to show is that the honorable Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts is fully cognizant of which end of a weapon the shot exits. Don’t you think this is somewhat critical knowledge for a possible future president? What if George Washington had not been as aware and up-to-date as the honorable Senator Kerry? Or, for that matter, Daniel Boone or Davie Crockett? Those in the Northeast would be spelling it “honourable”, Kentucky would still be full of bears and everyone west of the Mississippi would be speaking Español.
A new train of thought:
Was the Secret Service providing security for Kerry back on 10/31/03? I’m comfortable with the idea that neither Kerry nor anyone among his Help might know how to handle a shotgun, but any Secret Service agent worth his or her salt would know that pose just looks awful.
I guess it just goes to show what loyalty that man inspires….
It pains me to say this because I’d walk across hot rocks to vote against Kerry, but Kerry’s pose with the gun is the real deal. As the editor of two wingshooting magazines and the author of several books on the subject, I can tell you he is actually demonstrating pretty good form. Instinctive shooters (those who don’t “aim” but instead “point” in the English manner) grip the barrels with the left hand as Kerry is. His right hand is in the position it is because he is in the process of releasing the safety, which is located on the top tang just aft of the top lever. The gun is not yet to his shoulder because he is mounting it, the release of the safety always properly accompanying the mount. His posture pretty well sucks, but he’s in the heat of the moment. I can’t tell you what the dog is up to, maybe he’s on scent from another bird. It’s likely that the Governor’s Hunt organizers put Kerry into a real hotspot, and there could be a lot of pheasants right there.
Steve Smith
Editor
The Pointing Dog Journal
The Retriever Journal
Guys, you’ve got it all wrong. The dog isn’t pointing, he’s getting the hell out of there!
Man, he’s looking stiff. Ya the thumb, tsk tsk. The armpit, tsk tsk. He’s asking for some interesting bruises — but here’s yet something else.
It’s more and more required that you wear blaze orange while hunting so he is demonstrating safety in that regard. (Though a number of hunters just lost a lot of respect for him for actually wearin the stuff, heheheh….)
But are those SAFETY GLASSES/GOGLES up around his forehead??? That’s not safe!
Hey, maybe we can find some fault in his hockey stance? That’d make me vote against him for sure!
You guys don’t give Kerry enough credit. Suppose PETA gets on his case: “Oh, I don’t really shoot any pheasants, the pheasants were behind me. I was just visually demonstrating my, um, wish that gun owners would, y’know, support me.” Suppose the gun control people get on his case: “Didn’t you notice the date on that photo? That was just a costume. Prety scary, eh?” The man is always thinking ahead.
Steve, I’ll take your word for it. I grew up in West Virginia, and my shotgun experience was hunting rabbits with beagles and squirrels with patience. All I know is my daddy would not have approved if I’d handled my gun like that.
Would like to learn how to hunt with pointers though. I’ll look up your books.
INSIDIOUSLY CLEVER
We all remember the brouhaha that occurred when it was discivered that Antonin Scalia went duck-hunting with Dick Cheney, before Scalia and the rest of the Supreme Court had to hear a case about the constitutionality of Cheney’s decision to…
Hunting Smears
Instapundit links to John Rosenberg’s blog entry where he belabours the point of whether John Kerry really went hunting or not (obviously implying that he didn’t and doesn’t know how). Then the facts intrude. Shotgun in Hand, Kerry Defines His…
Yes, Kerry went hunting. Next lie, please?
I think this is the stance from bayonet drill — left hand around the barrel, stock under the armpit, knees bent, barrel pointed upward. Senator Kerry intends to stab the poor bird.
nerd
I’m sure that Kerry voted against this hunting trip before he voted for it …
That does it! I’m voting for that Joe sixpack, humbly born, working class, man-of-the-people, GW Bush.
Oops, scratch that Joe sixpack part. I am now informed that Bush is an alcoholic and no longer imbibes. Still, just a regular guy of humble roots.
Want to see what kind of hunter John Kerry is? Check out this link.
Is this the best you’ve got?
Go Fuck yourselves!
There, feel better having said it.
OK, I hunt around 100 days a year if you include shooting at field trials. Mostly pheasants. This is obviously not wild birds. Pointers are damned near no use on wild birds. He has walked past the dog to flush the bird. See the dog is steady.
I don’t think he is shooting from there – just bringing the gun up. The safety of most double guns is right behind the latch. Maybe he pushed it off. I shoot my O/Us with thumb on top or just to left of center but grip my Bretta 390 around the the stock. His left is in good position for shooting driven birds or a bird coming back and over.
Having said that I’ve been in a field with the VP and once with the pres. Dick is from Wyoming and South Texas and is one hell of a shot. Kerry is just not dressed like any of the guys I hunt with.
Yeah! That’s the spirit RS. A witty riposte, indeed. Not exactly Churchill, but still quite a zinger.
Well, not exactly a zinger, per se, though I’m sure it’s as well as Mike Tyson could say it–or at least as well as a frozen Tyson chicken could.
Oliver,
Stop being such a punk bitch…either that or put on a dress. Sheesh.
John didn’t say there was no hunting, but was wondering if this was just some sort of political ad with no actual hunting.
It looks to me like the “just raising the gun to my shoulder” excuse wouldn’t even work too well… He’s got his finger on the trigger. Not something that someone who’s been hunting for his whole life would do. Maybe he should have finished his tour in Vietnam…
Hey Steve, how about acting like an adult?
The Level of Political Discourse in Our Country..
Has gotten ridiculous…
Need proof?
I grew up in West Virginia, and my shotgun experience was hunting rabbits with beagles and squirrels with patience.
So, you’re critiquing Kerry when you actually have no experience of pheasant shoots? Interesting.
And Bartholomew? Plastic doesn’t miss you and your sad soft-porn home page.
Anybody but the other guy
Jeff Jarvis has a longish post on how Democrats aren’t campaigning for Kerry, they’re simply running against Bush. I would submit that this isn’t just a lefty problem: Bush is running the same type of campaign. Conservative blogs, as well, spend an awf…
Thanks to everyone, or almost everyone, for your comments. I should have put in the post that Kerry was reported to have shot two pheasants on what was probably that hunt. I did not mean to imply (if in fact I did imply, which I don’t think I did) that Kerry has never hunted. I didn’t mention the gun being off his shoulder for the simple reason that it is indeed possible that he was raising it when the photo was taken. My main point was that the photo used to demonstrate his hunting expertise (recall that that photo was labeled “Hunter” in the ad itself) left a number of unintended impressions. Although I will defer to the expertise of Steve Smith (the editor of gun dog magazines who commented above), I will say that his comment surprises me since I have never, ever seen anyone shoot a shotgun with his left thumb (or right thumb for lefties) over the top of the barrel(s). (I don’t want to turn autobiographical here, but I will say for this record that I have done a good bit of shotgun shooting and seen a good bit more.) Of course, the funniest thing (to me) about this ad is the virtual uniformity of the references in the press to Kerry’s “rifle,” which, as I stated, I suspect goes back to the material the ad’s producers supplied — though you’d think, or at least hope, that some journalist or editor would actually look at the ad, recall Kerry’s Iowa pheasant hunt, and know enough to know that one doesn’t hunt pheasants with rifles.
He did bag two birds with two shots. Must be doing something right.
If you really wonder what Kerry’s position is on guns, go to Sportsmen for Kerry?
You’d think for a guy who got an endorsement from Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, that he would put his commericals up in Quicktime.
Yo, Steve. You sold out pretty cheap.
Good advice Oliver, too bad you can’t seem to follow it. Running around calling everybody a liar on this is childish and whiney. Grow up.
Except when they… ahem… lie. But I don’t think you’d know one if it bit you in the rear.
The only thing wrong in the picture is Kerry’s stance. He should have his legs straight and be leaning forward. Everything else is normal for hunting.
Kerry’s House of Ketchup #16
Kerry speaks. Welcome to the July 4th Weekend edition of the blogosphere’s favorite (and probably only) John Kerry link-fest….
The whole thing was obviously staged, but he did get two birds.
But, more important to me is his stance while voting. If you think the Second Amendment has to do with a state militia, then Kerry is your guy. If the Second is about individual rights, like the rest of the Bill of Rights, then Kerry isn’t.
Sportsmen for Kerry?
yes, hes a moron. His thumb over the barrel would block his sights, and
he’d have to use the Force to aim, much the same way he’ll have to use the
Force to win this election.
Furthermore, using this shooting ‘style’ can lead to painful results for
this dimwit. The first successful repeating rifle is the Winchester, of
course. The earliest of these models suffered from two fatal flaws.
First, but not immediately corrected, was the fact that the receiver was
made from brass. This is not a particularly hard metal, which quickly
warped and suffered from other sorts of damage very quickly. The
appearance of these receivers gave way to the nickname ‘golden boy’. These
have great vaue to collectors but were very impracticle. The more serious
of the flaws, and the one that was most quickly corrected (the most
pertinent to this converstation b/t/w) is the fact that it had no fore-end
(the real word is slipping my memory for some reason). When gripping the
exposed barrel and magazine after 2 or 3 shots, the unlucky person firing,
would suffer soimetimes severe burns to his hand. The intense friction
created by firing a projectile through a barrel of the same exact diameter,
creates absurd amounts of heat, that get dissipated through the air. This
is not a quick cooling process either. When ye olde whitey’s would fire
round after round at ye olde yellow man, the barrel would get really hot
really fast, and whitey got really burned. Winchester quickly identified
the problem after 100’s of complaints, and started issuing golden boy with
a wooden forearm. Thsi made it much safer to hold a blazing hot barrel and
subsequently easier to rapidly shoot yellowman. It should also be noted
that there has been very little progress finding wasys to effectively cool
a barrel in the past 150 years. Our hero, John Browning, came up with an
ingenious way with his 192x issues .30 cal belt fed machine gum. He
wrapped the barel in an enclosed cylnder with water flowing through it. It
made cooling much more efficient, and made rapid fire much more economical
(less burned out barrels). Its downfall can be traced to its weight.
These fixed mg’s, weighed in excess of 60lbs which made manuevering
difficult. WWII was a much more mobile war than was WWI, so the weight of
these behemouths (spelling way off) quickly spelled their doom. This can
be seen as a successful but not practical solution to this conundrum.
It should also be mentioned at this time, that the barrel heating
conversation doesn’t exactly pertain to Kerry’s pose, since he is holding a
shotgun (one that fires shot, anyway) which doesn’t develop the barrel heat
that a rifle does, unless, of course, he is firing full bore rifled slugs
which aren’t legal for civlians to own, unless you’re a relative of mine.
Rather, this conversation can be seen as a way for me to avoid the monotony
of work. Thank you for the opportunity.
Oliver and others,
The trash-talking posts from “Steve” are not me — Steve Smith from the magazines who posted the stuff about shooting style (which, as you probably know or have guessed, these styles are about as individual as golf swings, so some of the stuff you’ve posted is as true as what I see). It’s someone else who has elected to use my name. I’m sorry for this confusion.
Steve Smith
I should have said using the same name, not “my” name.
SS
There is no way I’m voting for Kerry, but at least the man hits the species he was aiming at. Bush managed to kill a killdeer when dove hunting for a campaign op a few years back.
http://www.savethedoves.org/gwbush.html
Actually, the Dems could probably draw a connection between that incident and the Iraq part of the war on terror. Bush shoots indiscriminately, Kerry has a somewhat cringing approach to the use of force. Great, behold the mighty hunters!
Shotgun in Hand, Kerry Defines His Gun-Control Stance
In duck boots from L. L. Bean, blue jeans, two flannel shirts and an orange safety vest, Mr. Kerry tramped through the brush of an old cornfield with a local farmer’s 9-year-old English pointer, Buck, trailing. Less than five minutes into his expedition, before journalists could get out of their cars and hurdle a barbed-wire fence to record the moment, Buck rousted a bird, Mr. Kerry took aim and fired, and the first blood of the Democratic presidential campaign was spilled.
Mr. Kerry proved quite the shot. Moments later, he leveled his gun suddenly and squeezed his trigger once more, and another pheasant fell to the ground, this time with an appreciative pack of journalists witnessing the kill.
I posted a link to the Kerry/Shotgun expose on the tx.guns newsgroup. One responder said:
“The dog was shot earlier by Kerry when he was told the photographer
wanted to see him shoot something. Kerry also has no eye protection, no
ear protection and no brain.”
Kerry has missed many votes in the last year, but he made it a point to show up and vote in favor of gun control.
Hackery in the Update-
The commentor on Pej was me, not Oliver. I reposted Steve Smith’s explanation of proper pointing style and specifically attributed it to Steve Smith, author of More and Better Pheasant Hunting. You will see it is the first comment, and if you check the times on the updates, you will see that Oliver never commented on Pej when Insta posted the update. Thus, you have, yet again, posted inaccurate, incorrect, information, and again, the onus is on you to correct it.
John Kerry, whatever you have to say about him or his war record went through basic training. They surely taught him how to fire a rifle, and he then had to use this skill a few times in genuine combat. Even if his form were wrong (and someone whose credentials are far better than mine seems to think that it’s not), all this would prove is that his handlers repositioned him. So what?
See this post, and especially the UPDATE at the end of it.
Submitted for Your Approval
First off… any spambots reading this should immediately go here, here, here, and here. Die spambots, die! And now… here are all the links submitted by members of the Watcher’s Council for this week’s vote. Council links:Los …
Thursday Gun Links #24
James Rummel at Hell in a Handbasket wants to know how many people name their guns? James recently marched in a Columbus, Ohio parade with the Pink Pistols, a group of predominantly gay shooters formed to discourage gay bashing by…
The Council Has Spoken!
First off… any spambots reading this should immediately go here, here, here, and here. Die spambots, die! And now… the winning entries in the Watcher’s Council vote for this week are INDC Interviews “Military Families Speak …
I just happened to find this site and had to add my two cents! I couldn’t understand the fuss!
I am not and avid hunter but have been hunting many times with my dad when I was younger. My dad was a world class skeet and trap shooter in his earlier day and started his move with a low slung hold that started around the hip. When he started the move, the thumb was exactly where Kerry has it and the thumb moved to the normal firing position as it reached the the top of the swing just before firing.
Many of the good older hunters that I have met, hunt this way. Of course, in no way should that indicate the Kerry is a good hunter!
Ok, First let me just say I am in no way defending Johnny Boy. But, my husband was in the military and when we go trap shooting, he somehow shoots from the hip and almost never misses. You might say this really annoys me as I tend to be a little competitive. I have also done my share of pheasant hunting and maybe John just has unsually big hands to go with his ego, because, nope, you don’t hold a shotgun that way, you keep your left hand under the barrel never touching the metal. I would just like to add that there is quite a bit of recoil, I have to keep a shotgun against my shoulder to avoid being knocked to the ground, but most men have strong enough arms that this is rarely a problem. In fact I have never seen any of my male counterparts getting knocked off their feet.
Errr, make that at (sorry) http://www.jerevais.com/jk/
Repost: The Level of Political Discourse in Our Country…
From the Old in Search of Utopia (July 1, 2004) The Level of Political Discourse in Our Country… Has gotten ridiculous… Need proof? Instapundit links to John Rosenberg’s blog entry where he belabours the point of whether John Kerry really…
baged two birds huh, want to bet someone unshown shot them for him. i can’t believe anyone buys his load of bull.
YOU CAN’T FOOL A SPORTSMAN
In a last-ditch bid for battleground votes, John Kerry got a hunting makeover. Here’s the AP photo of his goose hunting trip in western Ohio hot off the presses: He wisely ditched the bright orange vest… …and the one-eyed stance……
John Kerry has had a lot of positive things to say about hunting lately, which is surprising knowing his record. There’s a great piece in the NY Post about some of his more…unorthodox hunting methods.
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/30170.htm
A lot of non-hunters will be fooled by his posturing, but for someone who actually knows what hunting entails, and deer hunting, specifically, his statements are nothing short of preposterous.
He might as well have said – “You know, I enjoy hunting deer and I’ve hunted them for many years using suspenso-gear. I float around in the tree tops, you know, using matter/anti-matter pods and imitate their mating calls with a series of clicks and chirps. Most deer, of course are asexual, like me, and you can only catch a really humongous 4 pointer by accelerating downward at speeds of up to 45 mph before using the trusty double barrel at point-blank range right to their skulls to microwave them. You have to be quick too, before they emit their mind-destroying shrieks. Of course, I play with them, taunt them, make their lives a living hell before brutally wiping out a whole village of Viet Cong, er, I mean deer.”
What strikes me as contemptible, however, is not his ignorance of any field craft, or his attempts to blend in as a hunter despite his record as one of the most virulent anti-hunters in Congress, it’s how he disregards his core anti-hunting values out of meretricious self-interest. By shucking and jiving to the hunting and 2nd Amendment crowd, Kerry seems to be acknowledging that one cannot hope to be president without acknowledging the power of hunters, shooters, and sportsmen.
I wonder what his base thinks such pandering? I would be appalled.
If Kerry is such a hunter, have him come to South Dakota and see how true americans have hunted for years!