CNN is reporting this comment by Ted Nugent as a death threat:
If Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will be either be dead or in jail by this time next year.
CNN excises all the context for this comment, and invites the viewer to believe that Nugent is threatening to try to assassinate the president. But there’s nothing of that in what Nugent actually said.
Nugent was saying that, if re-elected, President Obama would confiscate everyone’s guns. When the agents came for his (Nugent’s), he would refuse to give them up. Afterward, he would either be dead or in jail.
It’s hyperbolic, but he’s not threatening anyone. Suggesting otherwise is pure slander.
UPDATE: The always-absurd Debbie Wasserman-Schultz doesn’t disappoint:
U.S. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Convention, responded earlier this week, saying “threatening violence – or whatever it is that Nugent’s threatening – is clearly beyond the pale.”
To paraphrase: “I don’t really know what he meant, but I’m sure it was beyond the pale.” Awesome.
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