Yesterday, The New York Times published a profile of NRA Spokesperson Dana Loesch called The National Rifle Association’s Telegenic Warrior. Subtitled How Dana Loesch, a onetime Democrat, became a Second Amendment spokeswoman too incendiary for some right-wingers to handle. This was never going to end well . . .
Times writer Laura M. Holson starts her hit piece from the expected paranoid “gun nut” angle.
Dana Loesch has a biblical inscription tattooed on her forearm, a reference to a passage in the Book of Ephesians that calls for Christians to wear holy armor to protect themselves from a dark world. It is an apt precept for Ms. Loesch, a 39-year-old conservative radio talk-show host and political commentator who views the world through a lens of fear and violence.
It is why she has an arsenal of firearms strategically placed in safes throughout her home. She keeps a handgun near her bed in the event of an intruder, she said, which she can use until she finds a more powerful shotgun or rifle nearby. She sometimes tucks a gun in the small of her back. Other times, she keeps a knife in her purse.
“Evil is real,” she said over a plate of barbecued sausage last month in a suburban restaurant.
And if there is a question about what God has to do with any of this, she keeps a sign in the window of the house that she and her family recently vacated. “This home protected by the good lord and a gun,” it read. “If you came here to steal or do harm you might meet them both.”
A bit extreme, but fair enough. I mean the account is factual. It’s only when we reach the end of the piece that Ms. Holson gets jiggy with it.
“I’ve been told I’m a whore for the N.R.A.,” Ms. Loesch said. “I’m a prostitute for the N.R.A. But I believe so strongly in the natural right to bear arms. I feel so passionately about that.”
The way that passage is constructed it sounds like Ms. Loesch is saying (admitting?) that she’s a prostitute for the NRA. I highly doubt she’d refer to herself that way. It’s a cheap trick.
Unintentional? Maybe. But this sure isn’t:
Ms. Loesch’s boss, Mr. LaPierre, has a history of inflammatory rhetoric at the N.R.A., which has five million members. In 1995, he was forced to apologize after President George H. W. Bush canceled his N.R.A. membership in protest. The N.R.A. had sent out a fund-raising letter calling law enforcement “jackbooted government thugs” who threatened to hurt Americans. “That is what they do,” said Representative Kathleen Rice, a Democrat of New York, who has sparred with Ms. Loesch, also on Twitter. “The N.R.A says their members are under attack.”
What is this proverbial kick in the NRA’s balls doing in the middle of the profile? The Times could semi-plausibly claim it sets up the bit about Ms. Loesch’s death threats, but we know better.
The hit piece wants to end by criticizing Ms. Loesch, souring any readers who may have actually taken a shining to the feisty firearmsista. I have a feeling Ms. Holson’s editors channeled their inner HAL and said “I’m sorry Laura. I’m afraid you can’t do that.”
So Ms. Holson ends with a quote from Ms. Loesch where she digs herself:
“We are all sinners,” she said. “We are all people who have messed up. I fall short every single day.”
Another cheap trick. But what do you expect from a newspaper that’s vehemently and publicly sworn to support and enable civilian disarmament, that posted this anti-gun editorial on their front page?
Nothing less.