Normally I’m not at all interested in what the openly left-wing media are up to. It is bias that energizes me, not leftists being leftists. But when an outlet like Salon admits that Wayne LaPierre and the National Rifle Association ran circles around President Obama (and by natural extension, the media), that is worthy of note.
[F]or all the mockery LaPierre’s speech elicited (and maybe even deserved), history may well show it to be a canny political maneuver. By effectively shifting the conversation far to the right, he also shifted rightward what constituted a “compromise” in the gun discussion. And ultimately, against all odds, his organization would emerge with a deal it could more than live with — in fact, one it had once publicly proposed, itself.
In other words, it is Wayne LaPierre who will get the last laugh.
Even in the unlikely event the Manchin-Toomey compromise bill on extending background checks for gun purchases passes into law, it represents something that is a single raindrop away from being watered down into nothing.
What Obama and his media will have won is a miniscule symbolic victory that cost Obama a lot of political capital and the media a ton of credibility and hard-earned ridicule.
There could even be blowback in the form of lost Senate seats in 2014 for those Democrat senators in red states who will now have voted for something politically toxic.
What I will always remember and cherish from this debate, though, is the media publicly opposing guarding school children against armed maniacs.
The media will also always remember that, because Big Journalism will never allow them to forget.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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