Picking a celebrity at all makes no sense. It tells me that the presidential job is just ceremonial and they don’t actually do anything. One celebrity might be a coincidence. But picking another one just proves it.
You want to use a celeb’s power? Make them your spokesperson. You don’t make them your president. That person is supposed to actually have a job to do.
Perhaps because nobody reputable would be willing to have anything to do with the NRA, especially these days as they sink even further into the depths of extremism and lunacy.
In that vein, I can’t say whether the NRA is “trolling” or intentionally being obnoxious, but it’s certainly a good fit: a reprehensible scumbag for a reprehensible organization.
What you see as baggage, they see as credentials. The Right is going all in on the culture war card. They don’t actually care what effect any action they take actually has, all that matters is that it pisses off the Liberals, and that is something that few people do as well as Ollie.
All of that describes reasons to make him a spokesperson, not a president.
Jacquernagy, you’re wrong. The key is representation. Choosing a lying self-absorbed asshole to represent a group whose membership is 100% lying self-absorbed assholes is eminently suitable and correct.
Ollie North has all the honor necessary to be the president of an organization that has Nugent as a board member.
What, was George Zimmerman unavailable?
The President of the NRA is a spokesperson and fundraiser, two things North is pretty good at.
The NRA has chosen as a strategy to be divisive, rather than pluralistic and inclusive. I see the choice of Ollie North to be consistent with that strategy. The OP may consider this to be “trolling”, but that is a rather simplistic assessment.
ISTM that the role of President in the NRA is primarily as a public face and spokesperson. The administrative running of the organization is probably not the primary focus of the office, other people handle that.
Zimmerman doesn’t activate the same circuits.
Zimmerman gives NRA members cause to cheer, but North gives them cause for secret boners. He’s aspirational: they’re a group of entitlement-hungry self-absorbed assholes; he’s one of the ones who managed to make a whole career - and book deals and speaking tours - out of being an entitlement-hungry self-absorbed asshole. How to do what you love and get paid for it.
I… I wasn’t being serious.
I’m sure the NRA will take your thoughts about their organizational structure under advisement. :rolleyes:
This seems likely; Charlton Heston held the post from 1998 until 2003.
He already heads the National Composite Bow Association.
I wasn’t serious at all about Zimmerman, though he was convenient at that moment because you mentioned him.
Most Americans have somehow been brainwashed into taking for granted that the NRA belongs in their country. I think NRA members belong in the same basket as “Ethical Child Pornographers Of America” and “National Insider-Traders Protection Committee”.
North facilitated the sale of weapons to post-revolutionary Iran (the regime which held hostages from the American Embassy five years earlier) in order to supply funds to the Contras in blatant violation of the Boland Amendment. His convictions were overturned only on the basis that his prior congressional testimony may have influenced witnesses.
He’s a criminal, a sociopath, and a general asshole of whom even his compatriots can’t trust. So, really, I guess he’s a perfect choice to lead the NRA.
Stranger
He thinks the 2nd Amendment should apply to Iran. That’s hardcore, man.
Ted’s too young and is merely crazy. Maybe in a few years he will develop the balance of crazy and senile the NRA seeks.
This is more of a rant than a debate. Moving from GD to The Pit.
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Nolan Ryan and Tom Selleck are both NRA board members. They’re both better known than North and have much less negative reputations.