the TOWN HALL weblog

Tonight, I received an e-mail from our fellow Townhaller, Tonic Water, who is in Louisville attending the NRA Forum. Here is her report:

Few Americans ever get the opportunity to sit down in a meeting with presidential candidates, Governors, Senators and Congressmen.

NRA’s Celebration of American Values Leadership Forum gave 70,000 members that chance at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville, Ky., on Friday, May 16.
Speakers for the event included Governor Steve Beshear, Karl Rove, Ollie North, Governor Mike Huckabee, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Ambassador John Bolton, Navy Seal Marcus Luttrell, Governor Mitt Romney, Congressman Dan Boren, and Senator Mitch McConnell.
And as a special surprise presidential candidate John McCain gave the best campaign speech of his life.
You might have seen some clips on CNN.
We have (almost) the complete raw footage of his speech.

Truthfully Marcus Luttrell was a hit (no pun intended). A natural, true American, the poor guy spent some time in jail the previous night, for “slapping” a guy, who spoke with a peculiar Mid-Easter accent. Luttrell said he was talking trash about the U.S.
“He was pretty,” Luttrell said, “so I couldn’t punch him…so I slapped him.”
Luttrell spoke out against the media and it’s perversion of the war. He said Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is what he gets not from the war, but from watching the news.
“What you see on TV (about the war) over here – remember there’s so much more going on behind it,” he said.

Most of the political speeches centered on Barack Obama and his run for president – Hillary was mentioned, but not much.

Carl Rove said he made a run for the Expo Center and kept his head down, dodging rifle fire, to be there. But Rove focused some comments on Obama’s comment in San Francisco about “clinging to their guns.” Obama actions (votes) spoke loudly about his real beliefs, and do not stand up against Obama’s supposedly now admitting the Second Amendment is for individuals’ right to keep and bear arms. Rove mentioned Obama’s help in Illinois to keep guns stores 5 miles from schools, but allowing “nudie” stores within 1000 feet. Obama opposes concealed carry laws and supports the D.C gun ban now being challenged in the US Supreme Court. Obama’s wearing the flag lapel pin now, he noted. But it doesn’t change how he has voted in then past. He’ll have to answer for those votes, Rove said. Rove made fun of Obama’s motto, “We are the change we’ve been waiting for.” “What’s that mean?” Rove quipped. “Why have they been waiting?”
Rove ended his speech with a quote form Abe Lincoln (we are close to the Land of Lincoln): “Have the undecideds talk to someone they hold in confidence.”

Ollie North talked about his time in Iraq with the troops, that led to his new book “American Heroes.” In relating one story, North told of a Navy medic. After carrying two wounded soldiers to helicopters, the medic returned for a third man – an Iraqi. Taunted by foreign journalist saying, “What did you do that for? Didn’t you see he’s wounded?” the young soldier packed the Iraqi in a helicopter, administered first aid and sent him off. Coming down the ramp, still taunted, the soldier turned and flipped the journalists off.
“Didn’t YOU see he was wounded?” he asked. “That’s what we do, a–h—; we’re Americans.” North said soldier told him, knowing North was in Viet Nam, “We don’t want this war to end the way yours did.” The war in Iraq is being won; it can only be lost in D.C.,” North said.

Mike Huckabee is the first governor who used the right to carry permit.
“The Second Amendment is not about hunting,” he said, “It’s about our freedoms.”
According to Huckabee, gun ownership contributes $77 billion to the US economy. That 75 percent of the money is used to fund conservation comes from sportsmen.
“In this culture (of hunters), we learn something in ethical behavior,” he said. “…ethical understanding of what is right and what is wrong.” “Democracy cannot operate in an ethical vacuum,” he said. “The ideal democracy is self-government.” Huckabee explained that to the degree that one does not self-govern is the extent to which others will regulate them.

Kay Bailey Hutchinson took the stage with the case now being heard in the Supreme Court. The gun ban in D.C. has not worked, since its inception in 1976.
A brief — called a “friend of the Court” brief – was sent to the SC, with the signature of 55 Senators and 250 Representatives, and Vice-President Dick Chaney, in support of the right to individuals to keep a gun in the home. (The way the ban now reads, a gun in the home must be registered, unloaded, locked or disassembled; i.e., unusable in an emergency.) Hutchinson said, in order to get Chaney to sign she told him it was “the right of every American to be shot by the Vice-President.” Clinton and Obama would not sign the brief (their attorney status not withstanding). This brief is unprecedented in the history of the courts for the number of signatures it carries. Hutchinson discerned the difference between the liberal understanding of the term militia in the Second Amendment, as the organized army of the government, and the intent of the Amendment. The Constitution already provided for the collective right of the people to have an army in Article 1. The Bill of Rights is for the individuals, which some states required before they signed the Constitution, and some state signed with the contingency that there would be the Bill of Rights.

John Bolten, Ambassador to the UN, spoke. Eeeeh, it was ok.

Mitt Romney, told us that he did not want the people who took care of the cleanup after Katrina “to tell me who to use as a doctor.” Point taken.
The American Culture makes all the difference he said. And the US culture is under attack, its education, hard work ethics, god-fearing, family orientation, its freedoms.
He quoted Ronald Reagan: “It’s not that Liberals are ignorant; it’s that what they know is wrong.”
“The Amendments were for the people, not for its government,” he said.

Dan Boren, a Democrat, is rated “A” by the NRA – an oddity among the Democrats to be sure.
Boren said “guns are a symbol of our freedoms,” and took up Charlton Heston words, “from my cold dead hands.”

Master Sergeant Greg Stube, US Special Forces is coming up on 20 years of service. Stube repeatedly made reference to the respect he had for the American people he was fighting for.
“You are the ones that create the America that is worth fighting for –that is worth dying for,” he said.
The fact that he came to the Expo Center without fear of any IED buried in the roads speaks to the efforts of American soldiers, in view of the fact that America is the primary target of terrorists, he said.

Senator Mitch McConnell was awarded the Defender of the Constitution Award.
“The government has only the power that the people give it,” he said. McConnell said the media calls comments, like Obama’s comments in San Francisco, gafs or blunders.
“I call them honesty,” McConnell said. McConnell noted again that neither Clinton nor Obama signed the friends of the court brief – nor did they sign the opposing brief either.
“That was not an oversight,” he said. It allows them to play both sides of the issue, he said. They can choose what the people want to hear, and not be lying about it.

[Senator John McCain’s speech is on raw footage. Please, advise how you would like it sent, if you want it for the Blog]

Submitted By Tonic Water. (NRA Endowment member)

[Editor’s Note: checking on size and format of McCain’s speech.]