The ongoing flap over the NRA’s controversial ad involving President Obama’s two daughters continued this morning, with the gun lobby’s president insisting that the 35-second online spot “wasn’t about the president’s daughters” but instead about “how to keep children safe.”
“We believe that every parent ought to be able to be comfortable, knowing that their children are safe, and if that requires armed security, it’s as good for the working man as it is for the president,” NRA president David Keene told NBC’s Today show. Here’s the tape (the entire back and forth between Keene and Savannah Guthrie is worth your time, but the quote in question comes at around the 3:20 mark).
The ad, first released online Tuesday night, calls the president an “elitist hypocrite” for pushing for stronger gun-control laws while his daughters are protected by armed Secret Service agents. “Are the president’s kids more important than yours?” the ad asks at its outset. “Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school?”
The commercial drew a harsh rebuke from the White House yesterday, with spokesman Jay Carney calling it “repugnant and cowardly.” Here’s the original ad for those who haven’t seen it yet.
