The NRA and Grover Nordquist: Half-pregnant
Paper Tigers and Glass-jawed Bullies
By TIMOTHY EGAN, NYT
Timothy Egan on American politics and life, as seen from the West.
On Friday, after a week of hiding, the National Rifle Association will attempt to explain why it has spent more than two decades trying to ensure that weapons of mass murder are accessible to madmen. They will probably make pious remarks about the children slaughtered one week ago, divert attention to the moral rot of Hollywood and secular society, and throw out other distractions as part of their promised “contribution” to solving a uniquely American pathology.
Don’t expect any concessions on their most illogical claim: that arming kindergarten teachers, movie-theater ushers and shopping-mall Santas will make us all safer. But whatever they say, let’s be clear about what’s happening in the early days of a possible holiday miracle: The all-powerful gun lobby is in retreat, its ideas exposed, by events, as fraudulent constructs.
At the same time, the N.R.A.’s partner in political obstruction, Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, is on the run as well. (Norquist, who famously said he wants to drown government in the bathtub, is also on the N.R.A.’s board.) After getting nearly every Republican politician to make a pledge to him to never raise taxes, Norquist this week waved it off — with a flimsy excuse that a tax increase, but only on millionaires, would be O.K. After all the sermons on virtue, you can be half-pregnant!
When the Berlin Wall fell 23 years ago, what started with a couple of hammer swings against an irrational barrier quickly became an irresistible force. At such moments in history, the impossible is self-evident.
(More here.)
By TIMOTHY EGAN, NYT
Timothy Egan on American politics and life, as seen from the West.
On Friday, after a week of hiding, the National Rifle Association will attempt to explain why it has spent more than two decades trying to ensure that weapons of mass murder are accessible to madmen. They will probably make pious remarks about the children slaughtered one week ago, divert attention to the moral rot of Hollywood and secular society, and throw out other distractions as part of their promised “contribution” to solving a uniquely American pathology.
Don’t expect any concessions on their most illogical claim: that arming kindergarten teachers, movie-theater ushers and shopping-mall Santas will make us all safer. But whatever they say, let’s be clear about what’s happening in the early days of a possible holiday miracle: The all-powerful gun lobby is in retreat, its ideas exposed, by events, as fraudulent constructs.
At the same time, the N.R.A.’s partner in political obstruction, Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, is on the run as well. (Norquist, who famously said he wants to drown government in the bathtub, is also on the N.R.A.’s board.) After getting nearly every Republican politician to make a pledge to him to never raise taxes, Norquist this week waved it off — with a flimsy excuse that a tax increase, but only on millionaires, would be O.K. After all the sermons on virtue, you can be half-pregnant!
When the Berlin Wall fell 23 years ago, what started with a couple of hammer swings against an irrational barrier quickly became an irresistible force. At such moments in history, the impossible is self-evident.
(More here.)
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