Poodle Liberation Front

The
recent advertising
campaign sponsored by that pillar of American political
discourse the NRA which depicts john Kerry as a Frech Poodle has inspired
a firestorm of protest – from Poodle owners who decry the comparison
as an unprincipled attack on a superior breed.

Note, for example, the following letter
to the editor of
the Boston Globe:

COULDN’T help but chuckle as I read a story in the Sept.
30 Globe pointing out that the National Rife Association is spending
millions of dollars on an ad campaign designed to discredit John Kerry
by portraying him as a poodle along with the slogan "This Dog
Don’t Hunt"

By running such a campaign, the NRA has proven its ignorance if not its
immaturity. Standard poodles are well known around the world as extraordinary
hunting dogs, ideal retrievers well suited to work in the water.

OK, poodles have an image problem and the haircut doesn’t help. But
poodles are highly intelligent dogs able to reason solutions to problems
that
will help their owners get what they want, whether it’s a newspaper
from the front steps or a recently shot bird that landed offshore.

I’m neither an advocate for the poodle nor an enemy of the NRA. In
fact, I own I own a Portuguese water dog, and I’m a supporter of hunters’
rights
and Americans’ right to bear arms. But, like poodles, intelligent gun
control laws aren’t as bad as the NRA makes them out to be. At this
critical point in our nation’s history, wouldn’t it be nice if we started
to use
rational thinking and facts to back up our political opinions rather
than slander and emotion?

DAVID MANCUSO
Melrose

original NRA ad here

Boston Globe story on the story here

letter to the editor here