The gun nuts’ craziest target yet

Charles Dharapak/AP

The NRA is in full-metal-jacket mode, screaming that the doctor is 'radically anti-gun'

Bill Hammond, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, March 18, 2014, 4:20 AM

The latest casualty of the National Rifle Association’s wag-the-dog sway over Washington politics is Dr. Vivek Murthy, President Obama’s choice to be surgeon general.

He’s a brilliant young Harvard- and Yale-educated physician and instructor at Harvard Medical School who has founded both a tech pharmaceutical startup and a charity focused on HIV education in his parents’ home country of India.

Among the many groups endorsing Murthy for the post are the American Cancer Society, the American Hospital Association and the American Public Health Association.

Yet because he has dared to call gun violence a public health issue — and been outspoken in his support of sensible, mainstream ideas for tighter regulation of firearms — his nomination is circling the drain.

The NRA is in full-metal-jacket mode, painting Murthy as “radically anti-gun” and alerting millions of email followers to contact their senators and urge them to oppose confirmation. With virtually all Republican senators and as many as 10 Democrats ready to do just that, Obama is reportedly thinking of delaying the vote or perhaps even dropping the nomination completely.

(More here.)