HAHAHAHAHA......

Hillary Clinton, gun enthusiast. This woman is shameless.

She has absolutely no shame.

Good grief. Maybe Obama should "return fire" by saying he's spent many an afternoon baking cookies.

Not only was she pinned down by sniper fire, she actually shot back!

Eric left out the bit about how Clinton's pandering got her in trouble:

Minutes later, in a slightly awkward moment, Clinton faced a question from a woman in the audience whose son had been paralyzed by a gunshot. The woman asked Clinton what she would do about gun control as president.

Seizing the moment.

She will win PA by 20.

Note to Obama: Don't say anything true, John Hillary McClinton will spin it!

Saw this one coming. It wasn't a question of if she'd overreach, but when and how.

I didn't think she'd do it so comically, though.

Leno and Letterman now have half their monologues written, and it won't be about Obama.

Aaargh!

Cue footage of Kerry in the hunting outfit with the dead swan.

There is a great picture of her doing shots at the huffington er obama post.

what a ho!

guess she feels safe with this whooper cause she knows for sure there is no vidio.

are people really this stupid in america?

i know there are some here, but will the voters really believe this stuff?

well...bright side is a few more weeks and the clintons are finished in politics for good!

no second chance for the lier and poor bill is just a joke these days in public.

the lier can divorce him and come out of the closet.
ahhh fresh air!

I hope goatlife and Matthew Weaver are getting paid in cash. I sure wouldn't take a check from either the Clinton campaign nor McCain's.

Ok Hillary. I did not want to do this and it makes me feel kind of smarmy but you leave me no choice.

Do you not remember this:

"I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas.."

How do you think small town will like hearing that again? So please, please step away from the bitter bashing.

Well, the good thing about this long march to the PA primary is that all the spin cycles are going to lead to a fun debate or two.

Clearly, he failed to teach her to shoot STRAIGHT.

I must say, this is one of the more enjoyable threads I've read lately.

Not sure if I've calmed down, but it sounds like everyone has at least accepted the fact that Obama is going to win, like it or not.

She sounds like Romney, hunting "varmints". pander, pander, pander. God, if she wins I'll be so depressed. And bitter!

Gun pandering? Check.
Anti-elite pandering? Check.

What's next, Hillary, getting pregnant and going on Sean Hannity's show to underscore your refusal to abort, all whilst swathed head-to-toe in a poll-tested and committee-approved American American's flag pantsuit? You forgot to bash the gays and/or Mexicans, my dear. So much for the pandering trifecta.

No self-respecting citizen, much less Democrat, should support this opportunistic ghoul. HILLARY GO AWAY.

it's almost as if Obama is the only adult in this campaign. he's trying to speak to us about the issues as adults but he's stuck, weighed down by a clown to the left of him and a joker to his right . . .

Meanwhile, gun lobbyists are claiming tonight that Sen. Clinton has one of the most anti-gun voting records in the Senate.

I live in East Chicago Indiana.

Snuggled between Chicago's Southside and Gary Indiana.

- The Air stinks (7th most polluted region in the country based on USEPA TRI)!
- Home of the most polluted waterway in the country - Indiana Harbor
- 1/1000 people are murdered annually
- Home of poorest census tracks in the State
- Among the highest Property taxes in the nation at 8.43%
- Schools rank last in the state based on Standardized testing
- 9% of Hispanic Males are Unemployed
- 17% of African-American Males are Unemployed.

And the Politicians are Corrupt - e.g., Democratic Politicians. There is no democracy here. Yes, Democracy can be denied, even in America.

Your Damn Right I Am Bitter.

I do not want another Politician showing up here with their promises - The Clinton came here 16 years ago with their promises. Consequently, a lot of local politicians got rich and school kids got free lunch - That's all. I WANT CHANGE. And that is Obama

SO. . . this week we have the Reverse Cinderella Hillary!!!

The one time elite Wellesley and Yale college girl, one time First Lady, and only yesterday mulit millionairess has been magically transformed into a hard scrabble, gun toting, beer and shot drinkin' small town gal who likes to hang out a the local bars telling Bosnian war stories.

Un-f***ing-believable.

Did that just happen?

Oh that just happened! Shake 'n' bake!

Next week Hillary will be giving the opening prayer at the NASCAR race.

Fake outrage 101!!

I would have been happy if Hillary had done what I and most expected she would do, and secure the nomination. But, ah, she didn't, she hasn't, and (sorry but) --she won't. At this point its like watching a gambling addict double down, double down, double down... hand after hand after losing hand. It's just getting sad. I know Rocky wouldn't go down, but he did lose that fight you know...
Maybe Edwards should have won the nomination in 04, and Gore should have dumped Penn sooner (and recognized Lieberman as the manchurian republican he is), and maybe Bill Buckner should have blocked that line drive with his body instead of letting it go through his legs 20+years ago too...but none of that shit happened sooooooooo, now what?

"President Hillary Clinton"

Sounds like one of those "Bizarro World" episodes you would see in Superman comic books.

Sometimes the messenger is the problem. A few months ago (I don't remember the date), Tucker Carlson showed a video of Hillary pandering to the NRA. She spoke, just as she did in Indiana, about when she would go out hunting. It was Hill-arious. I have been looking for it on the internet, but cannot find it. Has anyone else seen it? or know where it can be found?

It's worth the effort. It shows how she customizes her message to different audiences - . In aggregate she panders and compromises herself.

Where is Sinbad when we need him?

Actually, I know where he is. He's given up on his scrappy underdog bid for veep. I just saw an ad in the paper for his upcoming show here in Oregon, at a casino at the coast ("Chinook Winds").

I am hoping that Hillary will be his opening act. She can entertain all the folks there in the casino, becoming, not unlike Celine Dion, a long-running attraction that will make her even richer than she already is today. And it will keep her the hell out of politics.

"Hillary Clinton further seized on the opening provided by Barack Obama's "bitter" remarks, telling a crowd in Indiana that she herself is no stranger to guns."

If this utterly shameless bit of pandering hasn't eclipsed Obama's gaffe by tomorrow night, I'll be amazed. She can't resist piling on all of these nontroversies (hat tip to NCSteve), and ends up looking like the soulless political hack that she is.

A simple "asking for people to vote for them by insulting their religion is questionable politics" would have sufficed, Hillary. For someone so intimately familiar with guns, you've apparently failed to learn how not to shoot yourself in the foot.

So are we going to try to change the subject from Obama revealing his elitist, condescending attitude to Hillary's experience with a gun? Good luck with that.

I would like to take this opportunity to celebrate the return of goatlife's avatar. Thank you for time.

seriously?

I heard she peeled out of the parking log in Fred Thompson's red pick-up swilling bud lite.

"she shouldn't go away until she dons an Elmer Fudd outfit and poses with a gun, hunting wabbits"

OOOH! Maybe someone can talk her into going hunting on camera. Huh? Huh? CAN they?

FYI, here's what the NRA has to say on Clinton and Obama:

http://www.nrapvf.org/AtIssue/Default.aspx

Neither is flattering (surprise!), but I must say that I find their complaints against Obama especially easy to take, even as a Texan. He doesn't want to protect gun manufacturers from lawsuits? He wants to ban the sale of semi-automatics? The fiend!

'Course, he's not saying "My grandpa took me hunting," either.

All of you hyperventilating over this are going to feel very silly in a week or so.

This is a tempest in a teapot. There's just no "there" there.

So he made an awkward statement about something that's indisputably correct. So what, this means the Republicans are going to accuse him of being "elitist" and "out of touch"? Well DUH. Of course they are. Or if it wasn't that it would be something else. The right knows how to do nothing but insult and try to marginalize Democrats.

So they'll use that attack -- and it won't stick. I mean, in this case the attacks are just so transparently silly, and Obama's slamming back so hard so immediately, it's gonna mean nothing. I thought the Rev Wright thing might be an issue; compared to that this whole SF "bitter-gate" is utterly hollow.

By mid-May, early June at the latest, Obama will be the consensus nominee. And in November he will win a convincing victory over Grampa McSimpson.

Every non-felon should own a gun if they so desire. Walk in unexpectedly into someone's home, bye, time's up.

This shoot to kill will save the taxpayers money to house and feed the bums as well as free up the courts. Just shoot (aim properly as we want to limit property damage) and it's over. Bad guy down. The Supreme Court will decide in May 08 and eliminate stupid gun laws in NY, DC, etc. where only the criminal can have a gun.

Maybe a conservative Supreme Court is not all that bad.

I have to do my part here and at the ObamaPost. The ObmaaPost has a Timothy Leary LSD like therapeutic and spiritual karma with Empty Suit Obama. TPM members for the most part, are just articulate leftists and shallow dreamers for Obama.

Anyway, I took a week off watching my dollar become worthless while in Europe. All Bush's fault. I'm back to watch Hillary beat Obama by 20% in PA.

Clinton Portrays Herself as a Pro-Gun Churchgoer

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/12/clinton-portrays-herself-as-a-pro-gun-churchgoer/

Unfortunately Hillary the duck hunter last year acknowledged in an MSNBC debate that she has not had a gun in her house her entire adult life:
http://www.docstrangelove.com/2008/04/13/hillary-clinton-from-tuzla-to-guns

The facts will get in the way of her pandering for the gun vote.

James Blunt lookalike, Hillary is a Democrat and she plays by Clinton's rules (as Obama uses race to deflect legit arguments against him). I personally have no problem with either as that is politics, not some sort of new BS Obama is spewing. The man is from Chicago, home to the Daley dynasty of Chicago politics. I want a POTUS and specifically if a woman POTUS in the Margaret Thacher mold. Excellent Politico piece which I think more than answers your question:

12 reasons 'bitter' is bad for Obama MIKE ALLEN:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9561.html

Here are a dozen reasons why:

1. It lets Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) off the mat at a time when even some of her top supporters had begun to despair about her prospects. Clinton hit back hard on the campaign trail Saturday. And her campaign held a conference call where former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, a Pittsburgh native, described Obama’s remarks as “condescending and disappointing” and “undercutting his message of hope.”

2. If you are going to say something that makes you sound like a clueless liberal, don’t say it in San Francisco. Obama’s views might have been received very differently if he had expressed them in public to Pennsylvania voters, saying he understood and could alleviate their frustrations.

3. Some people actually use guns to hunt — not to compensate for a salary that’s less than a U.S. senator’s.

4. Some people cling to religion not because they are bitter but because they believe it, and because faith in God gives them purpose and comfort.

5. Some hard-working Americans find it insulting when rich elites explain away things dear to their hearts as desperation. It would be like a white politician telling blacks they cling to charismatic churches to compensate for their plight. And it vindicates centrist Democrats who have been arguing for a decade that their party has allowed itself to look culturally out of touch with the American mainstream.

6. It provides a handy excuse for people who were looking for a reason not to vote for Obama but don’t want to think of themselves as bigoted. It hurts Obama especially with the former Reagan Democrats, the culturally conservative, blue-collar workers who could be a promising voter group for him. It also antagonizes people who were concerned about his minister but might have given him the benefit of the doubt after his eloquent speech on race.

7. It gives the Clinton campaign new arguments for trying to recruit superdelegates, the Democratic elected officials and other insiders who get a vote on the nomination. A moderate politician from a swing district, for example, might not want to have to explain support for a candidate who is being hammered as a liberal. And Clinton’s agents can claim that for all the talk of her being divisive, Obama has provided plenty of fodder to energize Republicans.

8. It helps Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) frame a potential race against Obama, even though both of them have found support among independents. Now Republicans have a simple, easily repeated line of attack to use against Obama as an out-of-touch snob, as they had with Sen. John F. Kerry after he blundered by commenting about military funding, “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”

9. The comments play directly into an already-established narrative about his candidacy. Clinton supporters have been arguing that Obama has limited appeal beyond upscale Democrats — the so-called latte liberals. You can’t win red states if people there don’t like you. “Elites need to understand that middle-class Americans view values and culture as more important than mere trickery,” said Paul Begala, a Clinton backer. “Democrats have to respect their values and reflect their values, not condescend to them as if they were children who’ve been bamboozled.”

10. The timing is terrible. With the Pennsylvania primary nine days off, late-deciding voters are starting to tune in. Obama and Clinton are scheduled to appear separately on CNN on Sunday for a forum on, of all topics, faith and values. And ABC News is staging a Clinton-Obama debate in Philadelphia on Wednesday. So Clinton has the maximum opportunity to keep a spotlight on the issue. Besides sex, little drives the news and opinion industry more than race, religion, culture and class. So as far as chances the chattering-class will perpetuate the issue, Obama has hit the jackpot.

11. The story did not have its roots in right-wing or conservative circles. It was published — and aggressively promoted — by The Huffington Post, a liberally oriented organization that was Obama’s outlet of choice when he wanted to release a personal statement distancing himself from some comments by the Rev. Wright.

12. It undermines Democratic congressional candidates who had thought that Obama would make a stronger top for the ticket than Clinton. Already, Republican House candidates are challenging their Democratic opponents to renounce or embrace Obama’s remarks. Ken Spain, press secretary for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said: “There is a myth being perpetuated by Democrats and even some in the media that an Obama candidacy would somehow be better for their chances down ballot. But we don’t believe that is the case.”

Politico's Jonathan Martin, Jim VandeHei and John F. Harris contributed to this story.

So Hillary:

1. Tells tall tales about her experiences.

2. Panders to whoever will listen.

3. Makes promises she knows will not be kept.

4. Sticks around long after she's welcome.

4. Does shooters.

Hillary Clinton is a barfly.

i eagerly await Paul Krugman's next column attacking Hillary Clinton for using right-wing talking points against a fellow Democrat.

..........

From the AP Wire:

"Clinton tossed back another shot of Crown Royal, raised the blunderbuss high in the air, and shouted, "From my cold, dead hands! From my cold, dead hands!" Cackling, she grabbed a full mug of beer from a nearby patron, downed it in one gulp, and screamed, "Now let's go show them goddamn ducks just how fucking bitter we are!"

The largely Republican crowd erupted in cheers.

Last week she was Rocky Balboa. Now she's Elmer Fudd.

Hillary Clinton's position on Gun Control: License and register all handgun sales. (Jun 2000)

Hillary Clinton's position on Gun Control:
Backed off a national licensing registration plan on guns. (Jan 2008)

http://ontheissues.org/Hillary_Clinton.htm#Gun_Control

Anyone surprised?

Bitterness, they drown their bitterness.

If she is such a gun enthusiast, has she taught Chelsey to shot a gun, too? Has she taken her hunting as well? If so, maybe that is why she was willing to take Chelsey to Bosnia...it was probably not more dangerous taking her there than to take her into the woods in WI during hunting season. Just wondering...

One more thing to consider...there is a way in which these comments by Senator Clinton actually bring up, either consciously or unconsciously, the issue of race. Sociologically and demographically, the experience of guns in many of white communities is very different than the experience of guns in many black communities. By embracing the "gun culture" with these comments, Senator Clinton sadly seems to be appealing to racially divided experiences with guns. It plays to the baser parts of her "base."

(I hope Senator Obama does not stoop to a potentially Dukakis-in-the-tank moment by going out hunting/shooting. Okay, I know he is smarter than that!)

This woman is a total idiot!

I don't if I should start calling her Joe Lieberman for moving so far to the right, or Mitt Romney for making shit up about how much she loves guns!

Shut the hell up you moron...

This is so ridiculous that of course the traditional media, and Clinton, is making this an issue. What Barack said is absolutely true, he just didn't say it as well as he said it to Charlie Rose in 2004 ( see the video on TPM). Does Hillary really think that he saying she learned to shoot as a child makes her appealing to rural voters? I wish the uncommitted superdelegates would hurry up and realize that this BS needs to stop, that Clinton is doing damage to our nominee, and needs to be forced out of this race.

A couple things here. First, I pretty much agree with Obama's statement about bitter voters and the whole scapegoat mentality. I also sympathize with Michele Obama's comment earlier in the campaign about never feeling pride in her country before (and you can spin it however you want, she said it and she meant it that way). I also understand where Jeremiah Wright is coming from and agree with much of what he said (except for complete crazy talk like the CIA engineering HIV to kill blacks). I also have no doubt that Hillary and Bill feel the exact way Obama does about the reasons white middle class voters don't trust government and vote on social issues instead of economic ones. I even appreciate the fact that Obama is the only national politician I have ever heard utter such words of truth in public.

But here's the rub. The things he and those close to him have said are the way you lose elections. It surely resonates with progressives and former apathetics, but it stings in the heartland. You may think its unfortunate that Hillary has been complicit in tarring him this way every time one of these things comes up, but he is going to get it tenfold in the GE. It wouldn't make one iota of difference if she just kept her mouth shut. Just wait for the endless 527 ads. I think the reason she isn't keeping her mouth shut is because its becoming clearer every day that he cannot win in the GE. He might have slight leads (or MOE dead heats) in national polls, but those are meaningless. It is because he has overwhelming leads in liberal states with large populations that skews the national totals. If you look at state by state matchups, McCain is beating him in all the states he actually needs to win (VA, FL, PA, OH).

Now, I have no reason to believe Hillary would have a better chance. But her campaign has been right about a few things. Obama has not been fully vetted yet, and he is an unseasoned politician who doesn't understand the base of the party. As a result, he and his minions make careless statements that reveal their true leanings and those leanings are not the leanings of the average joe. I seriously doubt there is anything Obama can do or say to repair himself in their eyes, which means he cannot win the GE. He really should have gotten a little more experience at politics before trying to play at this level (and I am not saying that his real world experience doesn't trump hers—in many ways, it does—he just clearly does not know how to play the game yet and no amount of popular enthusiasm among an elite demographic can compensate for that).

Its unfortunate. The more I heard the guy speak the actual truth, the more I warmed to him as a true progressive and not just a panderer. The true problem is one I have stated before. Appealing to emotion as the centerpiece of a campaign strategy cuts both ways. There are those who will adore you and those who will despise you. Until Americans start making decisions with their brains instead of their guts or hearts, we will be in for an endless see-saw ride. I fear that when Obama loses, his supporters will disappear in the woodwork once again and not really remain engaged progressives. I just hope that their one-time showing in the GE will create a lot of coattails and a complete Democratic rout in congress. Sadly, most of them won't be back in '10 to protect the gains.

With 202 comments filed so far, I'm amazed that nobody's yet brought up the famous vodka-drinking contest between Hillary and McCain in 2004.
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/NYT_Senators_Clinton_McCain_held_vodkadrinking_0728.html