Remember ol’ Joe? When he was Governor of West Virginny and running for the Senate back in 2010, he needed to establish the fact that, in a state that was trending ever more red, he wouldn’t be just another lockstep lefty Dem. So he cut this now-infamous commercial called Dead Aim. In it, he held his bolt action huntin’ rifle, making sure the first promise he spouted was, “As your senator, I’ll protect our Second Amendment rights. That’s why the NRA endorsed me.” He even put a bullet through what was then one of the left’s biggest brainstorms — the cap and trade bill — just to show the folks back in the hills and hollers that he wasn’t going to let Obama shut down the coal industry that was so important to their livelihoods. And Mountain Staters bought that pile of tailings hook line and sinker . . .
Now, in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, the “proud gun owner” has had a change of heart. Seems he’s experienced a road to Damascus conversion and those Second Amendment rights he said he held so dear really aren’t so sacred after all.
“Who would have ever thought, in America, or anywhere in the world, that children would be slaughtered?” he said on CNN’s “Amanpour.” “You know, that–it’s changed me.”
Manchin said he’s committed to bringing “the dialogue that would bring a total change.”
“And I mean a total change,” he added.
Looks like the linguini-spined, NRA A-rated defender of gun rights hasn’t had much trouble adopting the language of the anti-gun forces he once pretended to oppose.
“It’s time to move beyond rhetoric. We need to sit down and have a common sense discussion and move in a reasonable way,” Manchin said earlier Monday on MSNBC.
Impressive. Tailgunner Joe was just reelected to a full term in the Senate in November, so he’s clearly hoping six years will be long enough to make West Virginians forget the abrupt about face. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.