Her name is Adriana. No surname revealed. You know her better as the original smiling face of the Obamacare website.
She now claims she’s being “cyberbullied.” What she really means is she’s become part of the political joke around The Big Failure. Cyberbullying? Hyperbole. We’re not talking death threats or threats to reveal her innermost secrets. We’re talking snide commentary.
Still, I felt sorry for her. I figured she was just some stock photo subject or a model who signed a release without knowing how her mug was going to be used. Not her fault she became the Face of Failure.
But nooooo. Ms Adriana, it appears, “… contacted the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services about having free family photos taken in exchange for having those photos used to market Obamacare.”
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I haven’t blogged about the Dick Metcalf/Guns & Ammo fiasco, partly because it went from outrage to resolution at Internet lightspeed. Also because, while I was considering what I could add, I got a special request from S.W.A.T. (and a very helpful S.W.A.T. reader) to do a column on it. Which I just did. Check it out when the February 2014 issue emerges.
The short version, for those who’ve been temporarily off planet Earth, is that Dick Metcalf, yet another long-time gun writer with an elitist attitude and No Clue, published a column in G&A that got him in deep, deep yogurt. He got fired and the editor who’d okayed the column quit.
Metcalf not only advocated more restrictions on gun owners, using arguments right out of the antis’ handbook. He showed an astounding ignorance of history and the Bill of Rights. Which was even more shocking, given that Metcalf has been a history faculty bigwig at two major universities.
And both he and his editor Jim Bequette totally missed the fact that we’re in a battle for our rights, and you don’t publish columns in hopes of stimulating nicey-nice “dialogs” with people who want to destroy you and everything you stand for.
Metcalf reacted to his firing by showing even more BoR obliviousness. He wrote a response that’s familiar to anybody who’s ever had to deal with a petulant Internet troll: “Whaaaaaa! Whaaaaaa! You say you believe in freedom, but you violated my freedom of speech!!!”
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Now I know the ‘Net’s been around only for oh, quarter of a century or so. So maybe there are still 12-year-olds who don’t understand that if you put yourself out there in some big public way, you might pay embarrassingly public consequences. But, really, Adriana? Really?
And I know that there are still 70-year-old members of the engraved-shotgun crowd who think those nice antis’ down at the country club have a point when they say we peasants are just too icky and out-of-control to own guns without government permission. But really, Metcalf? Really?
How widespread is such obliviousness-to-the-point-of-insanity? How do people this ignorant even manage to get their fuzzy-bunny slippers on the correct feet in the morning, let alone function in modern society?
Haven’t heard of this guy much less read him, but no one had an inkling of this guy’s mindset all this time before? Really?
I’d thought some people might gotten a clue or two before this.
Jim B. — Pre-Internet, Metcalf worked on the 1986 federal law that turned out to be a mismash of both anti-gunnery and minor “protections” for gun owners. The more radical among his readers didn’t like it and they gave him some minor hell. It was a hint, but that was back in the information dark ages. It was nothing compared with what he just came up with. Here’s the full column that got him fired:
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Lets-Talk-Limits-by-Dick-Metcalf-of-Guns-Ammo-December-2013.pdf
Metcalf’s published opinion was nothing new. He had shown similar sympathies when writing for Shooting Times. His writing style had verymuch been of the elitist country club type, it was obvious to me that he did not care much for those gun owners of modest means or with simple taste in firearms. He always came across to me as being the type that expected everyone to realize that he new better than them and should be listened to.
A lot of times people who disagree with, and are shocked by, things I write will accuse me of not thinking through what I write before I post it. They should see the things I decide against posting!
Almost everything I write that gets posted somewhere has passed the questions “Is this true? Should I post this or just leave well-enough alone?” Even the shocking stuff that angers people.
But I know there are consequences for writing things. I live with them.
The Glitch Girl will probably apply for, and be granted, Social Security disability based on emotional distress from the bullying.
I wish I was kidding.
Hey, hey, hey, let’s leave the “fuzzy-bunny” slams off the table, eh?
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle1998/libe43-19981225-06.html
I’m going to wager on Metcalf, though, that no small part of that was just drumming up readership interest. He was, as I understand it, on track to retire in January anyway. Mr. Bequette may be just collateral damage.
But I could be wrong. And, more importantly, could not care much less about it.
First of all, I’m surprised-yet-not-surprised that anyone would consider a picture on a website specifically has anything to do with the website/or it’s content. It’s obviously just a picture, and she never said she was the webmistress or whatever. There isn’t enough connected to that mess to make fun of that people have to resort to picking on her too? However, I do find her story tired-sigh worthy – she’s definitely the face of this fiasco. Come to this country, look for as much free stuff as you can, then complain about the consequences of doing so.
> How widespread is such obliviousness-to-the-point-of-insanity?
Well, it approaches 100% in DC. I think the hallowed halls of academia suffer a similar problem.
It is, maybe, mildly surprising that Metcalf didn’t learn anything from Jim Zumbo. Or perhaps he considers himself above such reproach.
Hobbit — No offense meant to actual Fuzzy-Bunny Militiamen. Or actual fuzzy bunnies. On the Metcalf imbroglio, IIRC it was actually Bequette who was scheduled to retire. In any case, G&A still has some serious damage control to do!
My distasteful expectation is that Metcalf, in his next incarnation, could be a new darling of the MSM, with solemn nodding heads hanging on his every word.
“engraved-shotgun crowd”, I’ll have to remember that one. 🙂
I don’t think it is possible for one in Metcalf’s position to be so oblivious. Two other possibilities occur to me.
1) He could be owned by the government. It’s not that hard to imagine that the feds, with all their resources, have planted propagandists within the ranks of publications, particularly those that serve gun owners. If so, the fact he wrote such an article, doubtless vetted by his handlers, reveals a level of desperation in the government. Why? They knew what happened to Zumbo. They knew the climate has gotten even worse (from their point of view). It takes desperation to be willing to sacrifice one of their long-established assets on hope to turn things around.
2) He could simply be laboring under what all of us at one time labored under – a worldview with internal inconsistencies. When you still believe the government religion, as he obviously does, you have to twist and turn and compromise. He just put his view out there, honestly held, if not very logical. He still needs a ruler, still has that slave mentality, and thinks everybody else should as well. He is uncomfortable with free people. He might actually have understood perfectly the firestorm he was brewing up and went ahead anyway. Whether it was Bequette or Metcalf actually thinking of retirement is probably not important, because Metcalf is probably pretty old. I think he might well have wanted to say this sort of thing and his age encourage him to go ahead and say it.
Fudds. There are alot of them.
http://www.alphecca.com/?p=2744
Metcalf now blames two unnamed advertisers for getting him canned. Well, GOOD for those advertisers! And good for the customers who may have given them a push.
Boycotts are iffy things. Most, I suspect, produce paltry (if any) results. But this is the result of gun owners showing — from clear back in the KMart/Rosie O’Donnell days — that when we say boycott, we really, really seriously mean it.
the fact that Mr. Metcalf claims his 1st Ammend rights were violated, shows he doesn’t understand the constitution. the Bill of a Rights protects rights from government intrusion/violation ( at least it is supposed to). there is nothing about private companies (ex. magazine publishers) or individuals ( nothing says I have to listen to someone). Mr Metcalf may, if he wishes, stand in a public square and spout whatever makes him happy… he just shouldn’t expect anyone to pay him or listen.
Metcalf? Never heard of him before. I certainly don’t consider that a loss, but I was glad to add to the shit storm that got him tossed out. That’s fun! Who’s next?
If anyone is interested in watching that cockroach, we might get another opportunity to do it to him again if he joins an MSM outfit, for whatever purpose.
With respect to the Obamacare woman, I think it’s a hoot that our government managed to select a Columbian citizen to be the face of the program.
And she knew what she was getting into. She volunteered, for heaven’s sake. She had to know how controversial that program is (although, if she is a typical Obama supporter, perhaps she really is that ignorant), and to know that the messenger always gets blamed. Unfair, but life isn’t fair. Deal with it. And being called a few names on the internet (especially when no one actually knows who you are) is not “bullying” by any reasonable definition of the word. Stop whining and grow up.