He would have won all 50 states if he ran this photo before the election. Obama looks cooler than the famous photo of Reagan wearing a cowboy hat. Proud to call you my President!!
In this photo released by the White House, President Barack Obama shoots clay targets on the range at Camp David, Md., Saturday, Aug. 4, 2012. The White House released a photo of Obama firing a gun, two days before he heads to Minnesota to discuss gun control. In a recent interview with The New Republic magazine, Obama said yes when asked if he has ever fired a gun. He said “we do skeet shooting all the time,” except for his daughters, at Camp David. (AP Photo/The White House, Pete Souza)
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21 Comments . Leave a comment below.Is the only leader strong enough to end two wars. It is a really awesome photograph: relatively rare to see smoke coming out of the top as well as the front of a modern gun in a contemporary photograph.
Ed Markey supported a resolution demanding Obama withdraw all troops from Afghanistan two months prior to the killing of Bin Laden. H.CON.RES 28 Directing the President, pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution, to remove the United States Armed Forces from Afghanistan.
I suppose Mr. Markey needs to go to confession for that vote too, no? Strong leaders make difficult and unpopular votes sometimes. Thank you Stephen Lynch for supporting Obama’s efforts in Afghanistan and the killing of Bin Laden.
Two American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan last month, I would say it is winding down, but not over. Thanks for the comment and by all means, promote the photo.
Bush wouldn’t have gotten us into Iraq and we might have gotten Obama years earlier.
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Further, the goal of our involvement in Afghanistan is not to reduce U.S. casualties in Afghanistan for there’s a much cheaper way to do that.
Leave.
In essence, to go to war with Iraq. Any other way to interpret that war resolution is revisionist history, or CYA. I have no idea what you mean in your comment above about listening to Markey and there would have been no war, I believe the opposite is true.
Thank you for the comment, House roll call vote below, see for yourself.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/transcripts/houserollcall_iraq101002.htm
Other votes:
May 2007: voted to redeploy troops out of Iraq in 90 days
June 2006: voted against declaring the Iraq war part of the War on Terror
Mar 2004: voted against a congratulatory resolution on Iraq
Where we not already in Iraq when those votes were taken. You said if Markey had his way, Bush wouldn’t have gotten us into Iraq. Perhaps he voted yes when he really meant no.
Thank you for your comment.
I gotta tell you, I haven’t settled on a candidate for this race, but you’ve done more so far to shape my opinion than anyone else outside the candidates themselves.
And not in the direction you want.
What have I said to move you away from Mr. Lynch? Was I disrespectful to someone? I look forward to your feedback, thank you.
The vast body of your contributions have been attacks on Markey for a vote taken more than two decades ago. I’ve seen no idea what Lynch’s intentions are on foreign policy, education, energy, or other issues important to me. Generally, the more a post attacks the other candidate, the more I think s/he feels unable to defend their own.
There has to be more to Lynch than voting against NAFTA when I was in middle school.
One has to wonder whether you really like Lynch at all or just think that he will be a weaker opponent against whoever the Republicans come up with.
Danfromwaltham is no Democrat.
He was in Pakistan. Our hypothetical withdrawal from Afghanistan would not have affected our killing him, any more than, say, repealing NAFTA would have.
Now do you agree with me?
The operation in Afghanistan has been counterproductive. The central government that we’re propping up at so much expensive has indetectible public support. Worse, the continued U.S. presence in Afghanistan risks destabilizing Pakistan. Unlike Afghanistan, Pakistan is a nuclear power.
Do I agree with you? Not so far, about anything. You might still surprise me, but it looks like you are determined to be take actual facts (NAFTA is bad) and use them to support wrong conclusions (vote for Lynch). Likewise, we did not need a presence in Afghanistan to launch a strike in Pakistan. The Navy Seals who killed him would have been just as effective if they’d taken off from an aircraft carrier.
It’s not like any withdrawal would totally eliminate our presence in the country. Nor is it likely that we could have withdrawn that quickly in any case.
What does withdrawing from Afghanistan have to do with getting Bin Laden in Pakistan?
And are you arguing that we should stay in Afghanistan indefinitely because there are still Al Qaeda bad guys there?
As I recall Operation Neptune’s Spear was gathered largely by intelligence from our Pakistani CIA bureau and was launched as a special forces operation from Afghanistan into Pakistan to eliminate the compound in Abbottabad and its inhabitants. This operation would have been entirely possible had the President listened to Joe Biden and now Secretary Kerry and maintained a small and flexible special forces and forward operating drone bases as opposed to surging like the disgraced generals Petraueus and McChrystal manipulated the President (through an orchestrated press leakage campaign) into doing. Markey was right then and is correct now that our time in Afghanistan should end. I am not saying this as a wide eyed lefty from Cambridge, good friends of mine are serving over there and they have privately expressed extreme frustration that they are fighting to defend a corrupt government instead of helping us rebuild after Sandy here at home. But it is intellectually dishonest to conflate a single decade long intelligence effort based outside of Afghanistan and a special operation again based outside of Afghanistan with the continued ISAF ground war against the Taliban. Even most war supporting experts do not make that leap. There is a solid argument that Dick Clarke and Clinton were right the whole time that law enforcement and small military action was the way to destroy Al Qaeda, not large scale military occupations of Islamic countries.
…I/m such an Obama nerd that I know that Aug 4th is his birthday and this pix was taken on his last b0day.
He looks like he is enjoying himself far more than John Kerry did pretending to hunt. This is authentic, Barack Obama will not pretend to be someone he isn’t. This man is not a hunter for varmits or bigger game. But he has enjoyed skeet shooting and shows that there is a time and place for sporting guns, which I might add are not effected by even the more radical proposals being floated right now.
it’s not surprising that the Obama campaign refrained from wallpapering the country with this photo.
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