Joe Biden’s brief comments about the children murdered at recess in an Uvalde, Texas, schoolyard began with such promise. And then someone turned on the Teleprompter and the president started reading. Big mistake.
As you’ll see in PJ Media colleague Stacey Lennox’s piece nearby, Biden read a screed written for him by someone who sounded like they were fresh from Media Matters or a Michael Bloomberg anti-gun group.
The switch was flipped and a suddenly animated Biden raised his voice to spout as much untrue, divisive, and hackneyed anti-gun blather as one could fit in a short segment.
However, it took an even shorter segment on Tucker Carlson Tonight for gun-rights advocate and radio talk host Dana Loesch to destroy each of Biden’s untimely and cheap political points. She had less than a minute to react to Biden’s attack on legal and law-abiding gun owners. She really didn’t need that long.
The “gun lobby” didn’t head his household, the “gun lobby” didn’t neglect to monitor his behavior, the “gun lobby” didn’t neglect to secure the school, the “gun lobby” didn’t leave any doors unlocked, and the “gun lobby” didn’t tell him to murder anyone.
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) May 25, 2022
“Do you know what the gun lobby is?” she asked. “There is no old-timey gun lobby. The modern gun lobby is voters who cast votes to protect themselves,” she said in the mere seconds she was given at the end of the show. “Nothing was said about the parents, nothing was asked about school security. It’s irresponsible,” she told Carlson. “America deserves better than President McUnity with his hatefulness and divisiveness.” She reacted to the president quoting scripture in one of the more personal and heartfelt seconds before he turned political. She said, “He ought to look into the scripture about bearing false witness if he wants to cite the Bible.”
In essence, Biden blamed legal gun owners for the actions of one deranged 18-year-old. And then he called for political action against them — us. “I am sick and tired of it. We have to act. And don’t tell me we can’t have an impact on this carnage. Why do we keep letting this happen?”
Related: I’m Not Desensitized to School Shootings. I’m Desensitized to the Predictable Reactions.
For just a few seconds Biden grabbed the moral authority and then chose to throw it away to make cheap political points. “Where in God’s name is our backbone to have the courage to deal with and stand up to the lobbies?” he asked.
It would be nice for some intellectual honesty right about now. However, after choosing to turn political in his first words to the American public — even as children’s bodies were still being recovered — it’s unlikely he’ll strike a balanced tone in the future.
And that’s a shame.
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