Howard Kurtz, gun nut?

In an unusually political piece by the Washington Post's media critic, Howard Kurtz skewers Barack Obama for flip-flopping on the DC gun ban:

Regardless of what you think of the merits of yesterday's Supreme Court ruling overturning the capital's handgun law, it seems to me we're entitled to a clear position by the presumed Democratic nominee. And I'm a bit confused about how the confusion came about.

Kurtz quotes the Obama campaign's November 2007 statement to the Chicago Tribune: "Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional." That was then, this is now:

That statement was obviously an inartful attempt to explain the Senator's consistent position,' Obama spokesman Bill Burton tells ABC News."

What riles Kurtz -- one of those hillbillies bitterly clinging to his guns, no doubt -- is that once SCOTUS handed down its ruling, the MSM "inartfully" overlooked the evidence that Obama was for the gun ban before he was against it:

Even the Tribune--the very paper that the Obama camp told he supported the gun ban--makes no reference to the November interview. Instead: "Democrat Barack Obama offered a guarded response Thursday to the Supreme Court ruling striking down the District of Columbia's prohibition on handguns and sidestepped providing a view on the 32-year-old local gun ban. Republican rival John McCain's campaign accused him of an 'incredible flip-flop' on gun control."
So McCain accuses Obama of a flip-flop, and the Trib can't check the clips to tell readers whether there's some basis in fact for the charge?

Bull's-eye, Howie. This is a very subtle sort of media spin. Instead of reporting the fact that Obama has changed his position, the media turns this into a Republican accusation -- in other words, you have to be a right-wing partisan to believe that Obama has flip-flopped.

The most amazing thing in this Kurtz article is that he quotes both Ed Morrisey of Hot Air and Curt at Flopping Aces.

And I'm like, "Whoa! Howard Freaking Kurtz reads Hot Air?" Makes me wonder what's his secret pseudonym in the comments field. Next think you know, we'll discover Howie's an AOSHQ moron.

This has completely changed my conception of Kurtz. Now, I'm picturing Howie in his bunker, somewhere in the Virginia foothills of the Blue Ridge, out near Front Royal, reloading .223 cartridges as he listens to shortwave radio. Howie's wearing his RealTree camos and his NRA Life Member cap.

There's a big poster on the wall: Charlton Heston holding up a musket, with the motto, "From My Cold, Dead Hands!" Kurtz finishes loading one more cartridge and says, "Well, that's another 200 rounds -- enough for one night," and puts away his tools and his powder. He steps outside the bunker door into the warm Virginia summer evening.

Howie stuffs some Prince Albert into his corncob pipe, flicks his Zippo, and inhales deeply. Gazing toward the perimeter of the Kurtz compound, he sees the moonlight glinting off the razor wire atop the 8-foot fence. He sees the tiny red power-indicator lights glowing on the motion sensors and the security cameras that pivot around, ensuring 360-degree coverage.

Smoking his pipe, Howie's thinking of going inside to log onto his computer and check for updates at FreeRepublic.com. Then suddenly, he freezes. What was that noise? It sounded like the snap of a twig, the rustle of underbrush.

Kurtz tenses, his hand silently reaching for the commando knife sheathed on his web belt. He peers keenly into the shadows next to his Army-surplus M114 HMMWV with its twin-mounted .50s. There's definitely somebody there. He can hear them breathing.

The mortars. Ever since the feds busted his militia buddies down in Alabama last year, Kurtz has been fearing that sooner or later, one of those guys would cop a plea and rat him out about the two cases of bootleg 60mm mortar rounds he'd bought in 1999, to be prepared for the millennium meltdown.

And now the BATFE has come for him. Them, the FBI, the IRS, the CIA -- probably some UN blue helmets out there, too. Somehow they'd managed to penetrate his perimeter and now, as he stands in the darkness outside his bunker, Kurtz knows he's surrounded, with no weapon handy but his trusty commando knife.

"Come on, you bastards!" Howie suddenly screams into the night. "I'll take you all! Don't tread on me! Give me liberty or give me ..."

In the shadows beside the HMMWV, something moves and emerges into the moonlight. A dark shape softly trots toward Kurtz.

"Rusty!" Kurtz mutters, chuckling. "Rusty, old boy, you scared me to death!"

Howie reaches down and scratches the neck of his AKC prize Doberman, named "Rusty" in honor of his idol, Rush Limbaugh. The dog playfully licks Kurtz's hand. "I figured the FBI snipers must have already taken you out, boy -- otherwise you would have barked, right?"

Kurtz taps the ashes from his corncob pipe, laughing at his own silly fears.

"C'mon, boy, let's go in the house," he says to his beloved companion. "You're probably hungry. Me, too. How about some nice, fresh venison?"

He steps inside the bunker, closes the heavy steel door and bolts it, thinking about the court decision that overturned the DC gun ban. Maybe after supper, he'll log onto Flopping Aces and see what Curt has to say . . .

UPDATE: Kurtz's notorious gun-nut extremist buddy Ed Morrisey gives us video proof of Obama's flip-flop:

Especially in the February interview, Obama does a perfect liberal fakeout on gun rights: Claiming to be in favor of Second Amendment freedoms while slamming the NRA, raising the bogus "loophole" argument, and blaming law-abiding firearms dealers for the illegal actions of criminals. How stupid does he think we are?