The NRA has 4 million members and annual revenues of $228 million. (photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
The NRA's Diabolical Ad
18 January 13
n 2008, just after Barack Obama was elected president, I gave a television interview regarding what the Obamas might expect on becoming the new first family. I was asked specifically how Malia and Sasha's lives would change. For a start, I said, they won't play outside anymore without armed guards.
I know something about that. For the eight years that
my grandfather, Dwight Eisenhower, was president of the United States, I
had Secret Service protection. Known as the "Diaper Detail," these
armed agents protected my sisters, brother and me from potential
kidnappings or other targeted attacks. Such threats might be aimed at
hurting us, but they would also strike a devastating blow to the
president and possibly our national security.
I repeat: We had Secret Service protection because we were seen as potential targets.
That's why any thinking person has to be disgusted by the National Rifle Association ad released Wednesday,
suggesting that the president is an "elitist hypocrite" because his
children have the benefit of armed protection at school and the nation's
children as a whole do not. This is absurd. The nation's children are
not individually at risk the way the Obama children are.
And the Obama girls are not exactly lucky to have a
protection detail. How lucky is it to grow up with a loss of privacy and
freedom, along with the psychological effects of a childhood shadowed
by armed bodyguards? As sensitive, respectful and kind as these agents
are, having Secret Service protection is part of the sacrifice that
presidential families make in the name of public service. Those who have
had armed protection can suffer lifelong feelings of physical
vulnerability, a sense that he or she is always being watched, or a
longing for the feeling of continued dependency and security. I am
fortunate to have gotten over these issues. But it is no surprise when
someone falls for her security guard. Of my generation, the most famous
of these was Patty Hearst, the kidnapped newspaper heiress who
eventually married her bodyguard.
Having armed guards at school, even for part of the
day, is not the environment we should wish for America's children, nor
does it foster a tension-free educational experience. So let's turn the
national conversation back to how we can make our schools safer without
creating fear and anxiety.
The NRA's attack ad should be condemned for
exacerbating the dangers faced by the president and his family.
Regrettably, it is emblematic of a new trend in public policy and
communications strategy. Instead of arguing the merits of an issue,
broader public questions are spun into personal attacks. In this case,
the NRA has tried to assure the public that the argument is not about
guns anymore but about some negative personal image it has concocted for
the president. At the end of the ad, a voice intones, "President Obama
demands that Americans pay their fair share of taxes, but he's just
another elitist hypocrite when it comes to a fair share of security."
This brilliantly diabolical non sequitur hurts more
than the president and his family. It hurts our democracy by twisting
the nature of the public debate.
Even a longtime Washingtonian such as I thought these
ads couldn't get worse. So I have a question for the NRA and others who
use such tactics: Have you no sense of decency, sirs?
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