I decided for funsies to google this statement by John F. Kerry, made earlier this month on his three-day venture into the American heartland (Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota) designed to prove that he’s just an ordinary guy, not a rich Massachusetts liberal who wants to be president. Ordinary guys in the rural Midwest like to hunt–and so, said Kerry, does he! The next question was: What kind of hunting does Kerry like best?
“”I’d have to say deer….I go out with my trusty 12-gauge double-barrel, crawl around on my stomach. I track and move and decoy and play games and try to outsmart them. You know, you kind of play the wind. That’s hunting.”
So I couldn’t resist typing “John Kerry trusty double-barrel” into Google. Did I get an eyeful! The Free Republic blog noted the following:
“John Kerry has the highest rating on the Humane Scorecard sponsored jointly by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and the Fund for Animals. Both groups are firmly committed to ending hunting in this country….
“Heidi Prescott, the National Director of the Fund for Animals, said in a 1995 speech that the Fund for Animals is ‘unalterably opposed to the killing of animals for sport’ (emphasis added). (Speech by Heidi Prescott to the 4th Annual Governors Symposium on North America’s Hunting Heritage, August 1995)”
Uh-oh.
On the GOPUSA blog I found the following comment on an Associated Press photo of Kerry in Holmen, Minn., posed holding a firearm along with members of the Gunslick Trap Club (sorry, the photo itself isn’t on the web):
“He doesn’t know what to do with his thumbs. Somebody better show how to hold the shotgun properly so that the recoil doesn’t put his thumb into his eye.”
Then came Women Hunters (I like this site!). One of the hunters, a gal named Sue, posted the material from Free Republic about Kerry’s Humane Scorecard rating (and more) in a section titled Kerry on Hunting, with the following comment:
“As hunter I ask you to read Kerry On Hunting and think about what can happen to the hunting future for you and our kids… If it does not change your mind then dig for the facts for yourself. Pray for the future of America. If they take our hunting rights and our rights to own guns then what is next?”
Naturally the richest commentary of all on Deerslayer Kerry comes from Mark Steyn in the U.K. Telegraph:
“This caused huge hilarity among my New Hampshire neighbours. None of us has ever heard of anybody deer hunting by crawling around on his stomach, even in Massachusetts. The trick is to blend in with the woods and, given that John Kerry already looks like a forlorn tree in late fall, it’s hard to see why he’d give up his natural advantage in order to hunt horizontally.
“Possibly his weird Vietnam nostalgia is getting out of control. Still, if I come across a guy in the woods in deer season inching through the undergrowth with a mouthful of bear scat, at least I’ll know who it is.
“Conversely, if you’re a 14-point buck and get shot in the toe this autumn, you’ll know who to sue.”
John, John, you’ve got a big speech to deliver tomorrow! I’ve got a feeling the recoil is going to leave a thumb in someone’s eye.