David Codrea gets a (brief) nod from the NRA

Anyone who reads Armed and Safe on anything approaching a regular basis had better be reading David Codrea, as well. If you do, you are probably aware that David is, although a life member of the NRA (one might say that he is the NRA), also a frequent and vocal critic of the current leadership's "pragmatism" and willingness to compromise that which shall not be infringed.

NRA loyalists (I won't say "kool-aid drinking, lockstep apologists"--oops, perhaps I just did) tend not to take kindly to David's criticisms of the Lairds of Fairfax (I think that's the first place I saw that excellent term for NRA leadership), and the NRA itself, of course, does not either.

That means, not surprisingly, that David's writing, no matter how good, tends not to get any promotional help from the NRA (which is, of course, their prerogative, even if it means that they miss out on a superb voice in the gun rights debate). That's why it amazed me yesterday to see this in their news feed:

Attorney General Holder admits support for gun control

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Department of Justice oversight, Holder admits to supporting "no-fly no-buy" legislation as well as the repeal of the Tiahrt amendment.

Read About It: The Examiner

Posted: 11/23/2009 10:01:00 AM

I, obviously, tend to be rather critical of the NRA, as well, but I have to admit that if the NRA is going to promote only one of David's articles, their choice of this one is hard to fault.

Be sure to read it, if you haven't already. I had gotten the email alert from Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO), and read the press release from Law Enforcement Alliance of America (LEAA), but couldn't find any actual text of Holder's remarks, so didn't know what to do with the information, and thus ultimately did . . . nothing with it.

David, on the other hand, showed why he's an actual journalist, while I am still no more than a blogger*--he did the digging necessary to find and verify the information around which to build an informative article:

I held off on bringing this release to the attention of Gun Rights Examiner readers because I wanted to corroborate the claims--which, unfortunately, the official transcript of Holder's prepared remarks, posted on the Justice Department website, do not.

So I contacted LEAA and spoke last night with their Chief Operating Officer and national spokesman, Ted Deeds. He told me they were reporting on remarks made during questioning, and sent me a transcript of the appropriate segments of AG Holder's testimony: . . .

Go read it, if you haven't.

The NRA, by the way, perhaps realizing they were promoting someone they didn't like, quickly pulled that News Feed link from where it would be easily seen--if I hadn't noticed it early, most of us would probably never have known. Some things, evidently, never change.

*Not that I'm ashamed of being a blogger--just that I think it's a different animal from formal journalism.