Poodles are excellent hunting dogsI 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" ("NRA ad portrays Kerry as poodle," Page A22).
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 © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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