Palin fires up NRA crowd, hits Obama for using Newtown families
(CNN) – Sarah Palin blasted President Barack Obama and gun control advocates Friday, blaming them for "exploiting" recent mass shooting tragedies to promote their political agenda.
Speaking to a welcoming crowd at the National Rifle Association convention in Houston, the folksy former governor from Alaska also used chewing tobacco at one point to draw some laughs.
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Palin, wearing a shirt that read "Women hunt," was one of several speakers at the NRA gathering who targeted the Obama administration and some lawmakers for wanting tighter firearm restrictions after the Newtown elementary school massacre.
In the days leading up to the Senate's April 17 vote on gun control proposals, the president invited families of Newtown victims to fly on Air Force One to Washington and lobby Congress.
Newtown families also participated in media interviews and appeared in an ad made by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the pro-gun control group co-chaired by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
When the upper chamber ultimately fell short of the 60 votes needed to pass a bipartisan compromise to expand the background check system, some of those family members stood behind the president not long after the vote as he chided Capitol Hill for what he described as a "shameful day in Washington."
Palin argued the president was practicing the "politics of emotion" by "flying in grieving parents on Air Force One, making them backdrops in his perpetual campaign-style press events."
Par for the course, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee faulted the media for being a "reliable, poodle-skirted cheerleader for a president who writes the book on exploiting tragedy."
Politics of emotion, she argued, won't make the country safer. "It's the opposite of leadership. It's the manipulation of the people by the politicians for their own political ends. It's not just self-serving. It's destructive and it must stop."
Charging the president with being disingenuous in the wake of the shooting was a running theme throughout the day at the NRA. Palin added Obama was ignoring another tragedy.
"We could use a bit more emotion by the way of what goes on every single day on the streets of cities like Chicago and New York," Palin said.
Speaking of New York, Palin took the opportunity to take a swipe at Bloomberg, a mayor she has vehemently opposes for what she describes as his nanny state politics. In her last big speech at a major conservative gathering in March, Palin made headlines for sipping a "Big Gulp" on stage, a knock against New York's ban against certain large sugary drinks.
"Now I see that the mayor of New York now wants to ban public displays of legal tobacco products," she said, referring to his recent push to keep tobacco products out of sight at stores in order to de-glamorize the product.
"I tell ya," she said, as she pulling out a pack of chewing tobacco. "Don't make me do it."
With the crowd roaring, she put the pack back in her pocket.
"It's funny because Todd's been looking for this all morning."
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Despite the media's efforts to destroy Sarah Palin because she is an attractive conservative women, she still brings in huge crowds wherever she goes...and her message is always right on with conservative men and women. The media realized this when she ran for VP and saw the effect she had on audiences, and knew they had to get her out of way be she was a major influence against their liberal agenda.
Snooki Palin and the other gun nuts are silent about the 5 year old boy in KY who killed his 2 year old sister with a cricket gun sold for kids. Why is that?
i agree with palin 110% i mean why keep taking our rights away this is soppose to be a free country
The highly irrelevant, incredibly ridiculous Sarah Palin not to mention extremely ignorant playing to people's racism time and again.
One can't go wrong being for cigarettes, chewing tobacco, snuff, whiskey, and guns. After all, boys will be boys and nobody is perfect. Besides, America has a manly global reputation to uphold. Also us taxpayers can afford the minor medical expenses of these insignificant products even if users, in their old age, can't. Just a minor three trillion per year........pocket change......as long as it doesn't come from the ten-percenters.
I don't know how any mother can look at the faces of those children who died and not think that we need to do something about background checks and guns that are made for wars not hunting. My husband belonged to the NRA back in the 70's and it was about hunting and youths that were going to hunter safety courses now it has become such a powerful, radical group it is sad. Yes, I believe in hunting and protecting ourselves, but not these guns that can shoot 10 to 100 rounds, for what? Sarah, you aren't a good old country gal, you are an attention getting politician!
A leader that is our radical , that does not snap and kill our innocent people while in this country on assylum status and having a gun without a permit that kills our innocent officer that protects our United States Citizens.
When will this media report real news that affects our precious citizens and not the radicals islamists who are here to kill us on any given day. Do we stand by the politically correct administration that fails us everyday.
What a joke. The mere fact that Americans still listen to this "thing", is a clear sign of the American decline.
Shut up Palin...stop trying to make yourself relevant. As you churn up the base of the feeble minded.
Sarah Palin says what America is thinking! She is the gift that keeps on giving liberals fits.
Sarah is a quitter, couldn't take the heat that comes from holding political office. So very appropriate for NRA.
Amazing, how a person with an IQ of a spittoon can have so many sheeple listeners.
maybe she can get a job with the NRA.
Coming from the queen of exploitation, Ms. Sarah meant this as a compliment!
What a frightening, dysfunctional broad.
Sensational Sarah Palin really rocks! She is charming, attractive, exciting, & entertaining.
Promoting chewing tobacco? She'll do anything for attention. As stupid as this women is, doesn't surprise me!!!
She is an uninformed idiot, as are those who actually listen to her.
Sara Palin is causing more Republican women to re-think their political party choice. Just ask Nicole Wallace.
And ms irrelevant speaks again.
Why didn't we hear anything about gun control until after Newtown? I will tell you why-if you research what was in the news then, it was Benghazi. While the tragedy in Sandy Hook was unthinkable, it effectively changed the news away from Libya for the last five months.
Ah, thats what happens when you put an idiot in a room with other idiots.
That's pretty ugly. We should be working together. It isn't Obama it is 91 % of America. You got votes, but what do you say to America?
Idiocy and lunacy get redefined everyday.
Is this the same type of sentiment ("exploiting") the republicans used after 9/11 in getting the republican base to hate all Muslims and lied us into war with Iraq?
Cause if so, that worked really well.
And what is so wrong with reminding us that children were gunned down/slaughtered? With a gun?
The republicans are so taken with preventing abortion(murdering a child), but no so much about a 6 year old sitting in a classroom, murdered with a gun.
Republicans. Can dish it out, but can't take it.