Clinton mailer attacks Obama's stances on guns

A last-minute mailing by Hillary Clinton, aimed at rural voters and gun owners in Indiana (and perhaps North Carolina), pushes the truth envelope in attacking Barack Obama for his changing positions on Second Amendment issues, writes Greg Sargent on Talking Points Memo (from which the image was taken).

The mailer says Obama told a Chicago group that he favored a ban on handguns, said in Idaho that he supports the right to keep and bear arms in order to get votes, and "accused people in rural places and small towns of being 'bitter' people who 'cling to guns'."

The latter quotation was selective and "omitted all of Obama's references to people's economic circumstances, leaving the misleading impression that all Obama did was 'accuse' rural and small-town Americans of those things, Sargent writes. Also, "The mailer says Obama made the small town comments 'this month,' as opposed to last, meaning it could have been drafted in late April, which of course ended only a few days ago." But it may leave the impression that he repeated the controversial comments he made to donors in the San Francisco in early April, as reported here and analyzed here.