The entire mole affair was the subject of much discussion between Bitter and myself. The Bradys are predictably acting like jilted lovers, which is only understandable. Bitter predicted they would. I thought they’d keep quiet about it, since who wants to admit, in a public place, that you’ve been suckered. Bitter also thinks the information gleaned from this woman was probably worth whatever public relations price is going to be paid over the incident. Information about legislative strategy, for instance, can tell NRA where they need to spend money, and where they don’t, and what fights they might need to conserve resources for.
I remain uncomfortable with what happened here. I couldn’t do such a thing myself. But Bitter and I agree on one, key item. The Brady Campaign is dedicated to the elimination of one of the original ten amendments that comprise the Bill of Rights. In essence, they are a group out to undermine the Constitution of the United States, which is the very basis of our Republic. To accomplish that, they’ve willingly mislead the public about the nature of guns, and of gun owners, and willingly distorted and misrepresented facts and statistics. They have done the media equivalent of tar and feather us. Given that, is there really any tactic that’s too sleazy and too underhanded to use in order to defeat them?
“is there really any tactic that’s too sleazy and too underhanded to use in order to defeat them?” Uh, sure, there are tactics that are too sleazy… but this wasn’t it. You don’t have to be that creative to think of even less ethical tactics.
The only bad thing about all this is that the mole was uncovered. That’s bad PR (for both sides, really) and it means that the information she may or may not have passed along to the NRA is nearing the end of its shelf life. When the US Gov’t discovers that a secret has been leaked to a foreign country, they do damage control… that means anything that relied on that secret being a secret is scrapped and replaced. That means that out of this, we are likely to see a shift in Brady legislative strategy. Of course, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it will have our side playing more guessing games.
“Given that, is there really any tactic that’s too sleazy and too underhanded to use in order to defeat them?”
In theory no, but taking the high road makes you the better man. I think it helps us tremendously to (for the most part) stay above the fray.
The true damage done to the Brady campaign is that they now know that ONE mole was outed.
I’ll bet a case of 30.06 ther’re trying to figure out if they have any more.
Distrust within the ranks will do damage.
And if the NRA has the cash and the willingness to hire one mole, then they can hire 10.
Yeah, tell them to personally come and (try to) take away every one of our guns. Don’t send innocent LEOs to do their dirty work. Like Mike V. said in his post, “If you want to take away my gun, you’ll have to do it yourself. And I’ll hand it over as soon as I unload it.” Of course, we all know what he meant by the term “unload.”
Yeah, except that tactic doesn’t help defeat them.
Mike W., screw the high road. That takes too long. If you want to put a nail in a piece of wood, you hit it with a hammer.
I hope whatever “work” she did for the other side (while reputedly pilfering sensitive info for the NRA) was deliberately shoddy, by way of sabotage (misspellings uncorrected, etc, papers misfiled, addresses “lost”, etc).
I’d shudder to think she did “quality” work while in their employ.
JJR:
This was something Bitter and I talked about a good bit last night. Bitter thinks, and I suspect she’s correct, that this woman actually had to do precious little to get the access she did. Just by acting like someone who cared about gun control, who had a lot of money, and was willing to attend a few events, was probably enough to get her into a lot of their business. My guess is, the reason she didn’t make board of directors was because they probably want to see a nice donation, and some real achievements from someone before going that far.
But pretty clearly, this woman got some good shit, or the Bradys wouldn’t be so pissy about it.
In earlier times the state department and military didn’t think it was appropriate to read other peoples mail either. Thank God we did learn how to do so, after a fashion anyway.
Just don’t tell them about Josh Sugarmann!!
“But pretty clearly, this woman got some good shit, or the Bradys wouldn’t be so pissy about it.”
What did she do, steal their secret decoder ring?
knowing your opponents legislative plan gives you a pretty serious advantage. As Bitter mentioned, fighting ballot measures costs millions. If you know beforehand about it you can plan financially.
“is there really any tactic that’s too sleazy and too underhanded to use in order to defeat them?â€
The answer is yes. The gun-rights campaign (any rights campaign for that matter) rests upon public image. If the image that the public has of us is as duplicitous supplanters then they will turn against us. One of the reasons that I believe that we have been so successful is in the fact that we have been straight-forward with the American people. In defending our rights we have made a bond with the American people showing that we have reasonable and justifiable reasons for owning firearms. The right is there I agree and “Shall not be infringed” means a great deal, but if in the pursuit of that we come across as shallow douche bags who practice deceit and duplicity; we only nullify the work which we have done. The “mole” has only hurt our cause in the long run. It will make the Brady campaign appear as victims (which is why they haven’t dropped the issue). I agree that the Brady camp are lying a-holes who seek to undermine the Constitution, but it doesn’t mean we have to become like them to defeat them.
Hey ATL, “All’s fair in love and war.” This is a “war” we’re fighting to restore our 2A freedoms to its full potential.
“Hey ATL, “All’s fair in love and war.†This is a “war†we’re fighting to restore our 2A freedoms to its full potential.”
I disagree, it’s a PR campaign. It’s about making the better case to the American people. I believe the reason we are winning isn’t because of fighting dirty. I mean it’s been because we have been fighting this clean from the beginning. We have been straight-forward and honest about it. Why should have to get down in the mud with these primates? We are the ones with the high ground. They are the ones who have to lie, not us. We are in the right and they know it! They exist to deny our rights period. I just don’t see where we have to become total slobs just because they are lying ass-hats.
I’m not saying we have to be total slobs; partial slobbery is necessary sometimes. Taking the high road is nice until you find yourself walking it by yourself while everyone else is down in the trenches.
“I’m not saying we have to be total slobs; partial slobbery is necessary sometimes. Taking the high road is nice until you find yourself walking it by yourself while everyone else is down in the trenches.”
I would rather walk that road alone than be in a trench with the Brady Camp. Anyway, I know what you are saying, but I just don’t see the logic in playing their game. They really are playing on our turf, not the other way around. That is what I am saying. Going dirty in all of this is really unnecessary and detrimental. In the end, I believe it will not really yield that much fruit as well.