Respect alliances, but don't compromise on Congress's revival: Sonia

JAIPUR: With the Lok Sabha polls just a little more than a year away, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday said party's revival in weak states should not be compromised at the altar of alliance politics.

In a candid admission in her opening speech at the 2-day "chintan shivir" (brainstorming conclave) that Congress was facing "increased competition and inroads" into its traditional base, she said "unity and discipline" was the need of the hour in the party.

She formed five separate groups, including one on "emerging political challenges" headed by AK Antony in which P Chidamaram is a participant, for deeper discussion.

Ahead of the start of the start of the conclave, there was a clamour from senior leaders for Rahul Gandhi to play a larger role in the organization.

Seeking "free, fearless and frank views" from the participants, Gandhi surprisingly made a reference to the "growing educated and middle classes", an apparent message to the party to woo them.

Gandhi, who is also the chairperson of UPA, made it clear that Congress has to "strike a balance" between respecting alliances where it has tied up with other parties and "ensuring that the party's rejuvenation is not compromised".

"In states in which we are in alliance we have to strike a balance between respecting these alliances and ensuring that the party's rejuvenation is not not compromised," Gandhi said.

"We must admit that we now face increased competition and inroads have been made into our traditional support bases. There are some states, where we have been out of power for too long and, although I too believe that being in power is not the sole purpose of political activities, this does have an adverse impact on our morale and organization ability," she said.

Gandhi's remarks on rejuvenation of the party has come at a time when nine assembly elections are scheduled during the current year, which will be followed by Lok Sabha polls in the middle of 2014.

The Congress had lost power in major states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu for several years. In West Bengal, it was out of power for more than three decades though it was in the ministry of Mamata Banerjee for a brief while. It is more than four decades since it lost power in Tamil Nadu.

In her speech, the Congress president did not take the name of any political party, including the BJP, or the recent electoral defeat in Gujarat.

Reflecting his growing influence and stature in the party, the conclave saw praise for Rahul Gandhi from senior leaders including Ambika Soni, who said the meet would get a "message" from the young leader.

On Rahul insistence, a lion's share has been given to Youth Congress and NSUI office-bearers at the strategy meet for participation.

Leaders including Digivijaya Singh, Rajiv Shukla and Salman Khurshid, sought a "larger and predominant role" for Rahul. Sachin Pilot, however, felt that the young leader should not be pressurized.

In her five-page speech, Gandhi's stress was on the party to get its act together.

Turning to "pressing organizational matters", she posed the question "Is it not the case that we have squandered many opportunities that people are willing to give us simply because we have been unable to function as a disciplined and united team".

Urging the party workers to recognize the new changing India, the Congress president pointed out the country was increasingly peopled by a "younger, more aspirational, more impatient, more demanding and better educated generation.

"Our youth is is getting more assertive. It wants its voice to be heard. Across the length and breadth of our country, our people are expecting much more from their political parties," she said calling for continued responses from the party and the government to the menace of corruption.

"Our citizens are rightly fed up with the levels of corruption that they see in public life at high levels, but equally with the corruption they have to deal with in their daily lives. This is a phenomenon, a churning that we must understand and continue to respond to."

Her remarks come against the backdrop of the UPA government and Congress repeatedly coming under attack by a section of civil society and others over the issue of black money and corruption.

Gandhi also utilized the occasion to launch a scathing attack on "our life styles".

"And seeing so many of our younger colleagues here, I am tempted to say something on a subject that has always bothered me . And this relates to our lifestyle. Celebrating weddings, festivals and happy events is one thing- but what of lavish and ostentatious displays of wealth, pomp and status?

"Does this not beg the question where is this wealth coming from. I hope that you will take this seriously and come up with suggestions and norms that we may all accept and adhere to," she said.

While noting that inclusiveness is anchored in the conviction of Congress and not a political ploy only to win elections or run governments, Gandhi said, "it is not the outcome of any compulsion as it may be of some of our political opponents".

"We appeal to all sections of society. We articulate and champion the concerns of all but especially of the weaker sections — dalits, adivasis, minorities and women. We have always given the highest priority to the interests and concerns of farmers and agricultural labourers.

Claiming that Congress is the only party, which believes that development and economic growth on one hand, and social harmony and social justice on the other, are two sides of the same coin.

"Economic growth over the past decade has been impressive. This has had a major impact on reducing poverty. But our fight against inequality and poverty is a continuing one. This is why it is important to sustain our poverty alleviation programmes," she said.

This is the first such conclave, which has seen the presence of such a large number of young leaders especially those from the Youth wings of the party.

Flagging this "special dimension" of the conclave, Sonia Gandhi said that the fact that a significant number of participants are from the younger generation "reflects our priorities and resonates with the demographic reality of our country".

Noting that this interaction is different in at least two aspects from the previous sessions in Pachmarhi and Shimla, Gandhi said that it is taking place at a time when the party has been in government at the Centre for almost nine years and also at a time "when we are not governing in a number of states and when we face serious challenges in states long considered our bastions".

At the brainstorming session, a major concern for Congress is the rise of regional parties in various states where the Congress is out of power.

The immediate concern for Congress is the rise of Jagan Mohan Reddy-led YSR Congress in Andhra Pradesh, the only major state where Congress is in power on its own. The separate Telangana issue has made the situation more complex for the party in Andhra Pradesh.

The southern state is strategically important for Congress given the fact that spectacular victory in Andhra Pradesh in the 2004 and 2009 Lok Sabha polls had been the gamechanger for UPA.

The Congress president, however, sought to dispel pessimism. She said, "We are the only pan-Indian party, the only political party, with a visible and vibrant position in every village, in every basti, in every mohalla of the country".

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Opinion: Lance One of Many Tour de France Cheaters

Editor's note: England-based writer and photographer Roff Smith rides around 10,000 miles a year through the lanes of Sussex and Kent and writes a cycling blog at: www.my-bicycle-and-I.co.uk

And so, the television correspondent said to the former Tour de France champion, a man who had been lionised for years, feted as the greatest cyclist of his day, did you ever use drugs in the course of your career?

"Yes," came the reply. "Whenever it was necessary."

"And how often was that?" came the follow-up question.

"Almost all the time!"

This is not a leak of a transcript from Oprah Winfrey's much anticipated tell-all with disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, but instead was lifted from a decades-old interview with Fausto Coppi, the great Italian road cycling champion of the 1940s and 1950s.

To this day, though, Coppi is lauded as one of the gods of cycling, an icon of a distant and mythical golden age in the sport.

So is five-time Tour winner Jacques Anquetil (1957, 1961-64) who famously remarked that it was impossible "to ride the Tour on mineral water."

"You would have to be an imbecile or a crook to imagine that a professional cyclist who races for 235 days a year can hold the pace without stimulants," Anquetil said.

And then there's British cycling champion Tommy Simpson, who died of heart failure while trying to race up Mont Ventoux during the 1967 Tour de France, a victim of heat, stress, and a heady cocktail of amphetamines.

All are heroes today. If their performance-enhancing peccadillos are not forgotten, they have at least been glossed over in the popular imagination.

As the latest chapter of the sorry Lance Armstrong saga unfolds, it is worth looking at the history of cheating in the Tour de France to get a sense of perspective. This is not an attempt at rationalisation or justification for what Lance did. Far from it.

But the simple, unpalatable fact is that cheating, drugs, and dirty tricks have been part and parcel of the Tour de France nearly from its inception in 1903.

Cheating was so rife in the 1904 event that Henri Desgrange, the founder and organiser of the Tour, declared he would never run the race again. Not only was the overall winner, Maurice Garin, disqualified for taking the train over significant stretches of the course, but so were next three cyclists who placed, along with the winner of every single stage of the course.

Of the 27 cyclists who actually finished the 1904 race, 12 were disqualified and given bans ranging from one year to life. The race's eventual official winner, 19-year-old Henri Cornet, was not determined until four months after the event.

And so it went. Desgrange relented on his threat to scrub the Tour de France and the great race survived and prospered-as did the antics. Trains were hopped, taxis taken, nails scattered along the roads, partisan supporters enlisted to beat up rivals on late-night lonely stretches of the course, signposts tampered with, bicycles sabotaged, itching powder sprinkled in competitors' jerseys and shorts, food doctored, and inkwells smashed so riders yet to arrive couldn't sign the control documents to prove they'd taken the correct route.

And then of course there were the stimulants-brandy, strychnine, ether, whatever-anything to get a rider through the nightmarishly tough days and nights of racing along stages that were often over 200 miles long. In a way the race was tailor-made to encourage this sort of thing. Desgrange once famously said that his idea of a perfect Tour de France would be one that was so tough that only one rider finished.

Add to this the big prizes at a time when money was hard to come by, a Tour largely comprising young riders from impoverished backgrounds for whom bicycle racing was their one big chance to get ahead, and the passionate following cycling enjoyed, and you had the perfect recipe for a desperate, high stakes, win-at-all-costs mentality, especially given the generally tolerant views on alcohol and drugs in those days.

After World War II came the amphetamines. Devised to keep soldiers awake and aggressive through long hours of battle they were equally handy for bicycle racers competing in the world's longest and toughest race.

So what makes the Lance Armstrong story any different, his road to redemption any rougher? For one thing, none of the aforementioned riders were ever the point man for what the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has described in a thousand-page report as the most sophisticated, cynical, and far-reaching doping program the world of sport has ever seen-one whose secrecy and efficiency was maintained by ruthlessness, bullying, fear, and intimidation.

Somewhere along the line, the casualness of cheating in the past evolved into an almost Frankenstein sort of science in which cyclists, aided by creepy doctors and trainers, were receiving blood transfusions in hotel rooms and tinkering around with their bodies at the molecular level many months before they ever lined up for a race.

To be sure, Armstrong didn't invent all of this, any more than he invented original sin-nor was he acting alone. But with his success, money, intelligence, influence, and cohort of thousand-dollar-an-hour lawyers-and the way he used all this to prop up the Lance brand and the Lance machine at any cost-he became the poster boy and lightning rod for all that went wrong with cycling, his high profile eclipsing even the heads of the Union Cycliste Internationale, the global cycling union, who richly deserve their share of the blame.

It is not his PED popping that is the hard-to-forgive part of the Lance story. Armstrong cheated better than his peers, that's all.

What I find troubling is the bullying and calculated destruction of anyone who got in his way, raised a question, or cast a doubt. By all accounts Armstrong was absolutely vicious, vindictive as hell. Former U.S. Postal team masseuse Emma O'Reilly found herself being described publicly as a "prostitute" and an "alcoholic," and had her life put through a legal grinder when she spoke out about Armstrong's use of PEDs.

Journalists were sued, intimidated, and blacklisted from events, press conferences, and interviews if they so much as questioned the Lance miracle or well-greased machine that kept winning Le Tour.

Armstrong left a lot of wreckage behind him.

If he is genuinely sorry, if he truly repents for his past "indiscretions," one would think his first act would be to try to find some way of not only seeking forgiveness from those whom he brutally put down, but to do something meaningful to repair the damage he did to their lives and livelihoods.

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Armstrong Admits to Doping, 'One Big Lie'

Lance Armstrong, formerly cycling's most decorated champion and considered one of America's greatest athletes, confessed to cheating for at least a decade, admitting on Thursday that he owed all seven of his Tour de France titles and the millions of dollars in endorsements that followed to his use of illicit performance-enhancing drugs.

After years of denying that he had taken banned drugs and received oxygen-boosting blood transfusions, and attacking his teammates and competitors who attempted to expose him, Armstrong came clean with Oprah Winfrey in an exclusive interview, admitting to using banned substances for years.

"I view this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times," he said. "I know the truth. The truth isn't what was out there. The truth isn't what I said.

"I'm a flawed character, as I well know," Armstrong added. "All the fault and all the blame here falls on me."

In October, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency issued a report in which 11 former Armstrong teammates exposed the system with which they and Armstrong received drugs with the knowledge of their coaches and help of team physicians.

George Burns/Courtesy of Harpo Studios, Inc./AP Photo

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The U.S. Postal Service Cycling Team "ran the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen," USADA said in its report.

As a result of USADA's findings, Armstrong was stripped of his Tour de France titles. Soon, longtime sponsors including Nike began to abandon him, too.

READ MORE: Did Doping Cause Armstrong's Cancer?

Armstrong said he was driven to cheat by a "ruthless desire to win."

He told Winfrey that his competition "cocktail" consisted of EPO, blood transfusions and testosterone, and that he had previously used cortisone. He would not, however, give Winfrey the details of when, where and with whom he doped during seven winning Tours de France between 1999 and 2005.

He said he stopped doping following his 2005 Tour de France victory and did not use banned substances when he placed third in 2009 and entered the tour again in 2010.

"It was a mythic perfect story and it wasn't true," Armstrong said of his fairytale story of overcoming testicular cancer to become the most celebrated cyclist in history.

READ MORE: 10 Scandalous Public Confessions

PHOTOS: Olympic Doping Scandals: Past and Present

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Armstrong would not name other members of his team who doped, but admitted that as the team's captain he set an example. He admitted he was "a bully" but said there "there was a never a directive" from him that his teammates had to use banned substances.

"At the time it did not feel wrong?" Winfrey asked.

"No," Armstrong said. "Scary."

"Did you feel bad about it?" she asked again.

"No," he said.

Armstrong said he thought taking the drugs was similar to filling his tires with air and bottle with water. He never thought of his actions as cheating, but "leveling the playing field" in a sport rife with doping.

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Cycling: IOC asks Armstrong to return Olympic medal

LAUSANNE: The International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Thursday asked disgraced American cyclist Lance Armstrong to return the Olympic bronze medal from the time-trial event at the 2000 Games in Sydney.

The IOC had written to Armstrong late Wednesday to ask him hand back the medal, IOC spokesman Mark Adams told AFP.

The IOC had to wait for world cycling's governing body to sanction Armstrong, which it did on December 6, and the following three weeks in which the Texan had recourse to appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

The US Olympic Committee, to which Armstrong must theoretically return the medal, has also been informed, Adams added.

Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned from the sport for life in October after the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) produced evidence of widespread doping by him and his former team-mates.

The time-trial in the 2000 Games was won by Armstrong's ex-US Postal Service teammate Viasheslav Ekimov of Russia, now general manager of the Katusha team whose ambivalent stance on doping cost them a place in the elite ProTeam list for this season.

The silver medal went to one of Armstrong's great rivals, Jan Ullrich of Germany, who was caught up in the Operation Puerto doping probe and eventually served a two-year ban for doping.

Abraham Olano of Spain came home in fourth and may be set to inherit the bronze vacated by Armstrong.

Other notable results in the race held in Sydney were by American Tyler Hamilton, a former teammate of Armstrong at US Postal who finished tenth and went on to win gold at the 2004 Athens Games before testing positive for doping.

British rider David Millar finished 16th and is still currently on the circuit after serving his own two-year ban from 2004.

The International Cycling Union (UCI) late last year effectively erased Armstrong from the cycling history books when it decided not to appeal sanctions imposed on the Texan rider by the USADA.

In his first interview since Armstrong was shorn of his Tour titles, recorded Monday with Oprah Winfrey and due to be broadcast on Thursday and Friday, the chat show host confirmed that the Texan admitted using performance-enhancing drugs.

- AFP/fa

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PHRO and Verka residents demands shifting of inquiry

AMRITSAR: Punjab Human Rights Organization (PHRO) and residents of Verka have demanded CBI probe into the kidnapping and killing of a 9-year- old boy Gurkeerat Singh.

Principal Investigator of PHRO, Sarabjit Singh Verka informed on Thursday that they had submitted a application with Amritsar police commissioner Ram Singh demanding that the investigation of the case should be transferred to CBI. The application is signed by as many as 500 residents of Verka. Notably Gurkeerat Singh had gone missing on November 7, 2012 but on November 16 his body was found from near his house.

Verka alleged that police had not been able to arrest the culprits as yet which have caused unrest among the residents of Verka and have put a question mark on the functioning of police.

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Notre Dame: Football Star Was 'Catfished' in Hoax

Notre Dame's athletic director and the star of its near-championship football team said the widely-reported death of the star's girlfriend from leukemia during the 2012 football season was apparently a hoax, and the player said he was duped by it as well.

Manti Te'o, who led the Fighting Irish to the BCS championship game this year and finished second for the Heisman Trophy, said in a statement today that he fell in love with a girl online last year who turned out not to be real.

The university's athletic director, Jack Swarbrick, said it has been investigating the "cruel hoax" since Te'o approached officials in late December to say he believed he had been tricked.

Private investigators hired by the university subsequently monitored online chatter by the alleged perpetrators, Swarbrick said, adding that he was shocked by the "casual cruelty" it revealed.

"They enjoyed the joke," Swarbrick said, comparing the ruse to the popular film "Catfish," in which filmmakers revealed a person at the other end of an online relationship was not who they said they were.

"While we still don't know all of the dimensions of this ... there are certain things that I feel confident we do know," Swarbrick said. "The first is that this was a very elaborate, very sophisticated hoax, perpetrated for reasons we don't understand."

Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

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Te'o said during the season that his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, died of leukemia in September on the same day Te'o's grandmother died, triggering an outpouring of support for Te'o at Notre Dame and in the media.

"While my grandma passed away and you take, you know, the love of my life [Kekua]. The last thing she said to me was, 'I love you,'" Te'o said at the time, noting that he had talked to Kekua on the phone and by text message until her death.

Now, responding to a story first reported by the sports website Deadspin, Te'o has acknowledged that Kekua never existed. The website reported today that there were no records of a woman named Lennay Kekua anywhere.

Te'o denied that he was in on the hoax.

"This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online," Te'o said in a statement released this afternoon. "We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her."

Swarbrick said he expected Te'o to give his version of events at a public event soon, perhaps Thursday, and that he believed Te'o's representatives were planning to disclose the truth next week until today's story broke.

Deadspin reported that the image attached to Kekua's social media profiles, through which the pair interacted, was of another woman who has said she did not even know Te'o or know that her picture was being used. The website reported that it traced the profiles to a California man who is an acquaintance of Te'o and of the woman whose photo was stolen.

"To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating," Te'o said.

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Japan mulling military equipment near disputed isles

TOKYO: Japan may station military equipment on islands near an archipelago at the centre of a dispute with China, officials said Wednesday, after a number of airborne near-confrontations.

The defence ministry will ask for money in the next fiscal year to study the idea of putting mobile radars and communication systems on islands near the Japan-controlled Senkakus, which Beijing calls the Diaoyus, a defence spokesman said.

"The study is part of our plan to operate in southwestern islands with flexibility," the spokesman said.

The comment came after reports said Japan is considering permanently stationing F-15 fighter jets on Shimoji, a small island near the Senkakus.

Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera denied that and said Tuesday: "We are studying various options as to how to build a sound security system in our southwestern waters."

The maritime dispute, which has simmered for years, heated up last year when the Japanese government nationalised some of the islands, triggering anger and demonstrations in China.

Observers said the protests had some backing from communist authorities in Beijing, who use nationalism to bolster their claims to legitimacy.

Tokyo's defence ministry has said F-15s were sent airborne to head off Chinese state-owned -- but not military -- planes four times in December, including one occasion when Japanese airspace was breached.

They were also mobilised in January, it said.

On the occasion when Japan says its airspace was breached, the air force did not detect the Chinese aircraft, which had already moved off by the time fighter jets were scrambled.

- AFP/ir

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Salman Khurshid Trust case: HC seeks inquiry report from EOW

LUCKNOW: The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court on Wednesday, ordered the investigating agency Economic Offences Wing (EOW), Uttar Pradesh (UP) police, to present its report on the inquiry done so far into allegations of anomalies in the Salman Khurshid Trust case on February 1.

The order was passed by a division bench comprising Justice Uma Nath and Justice Satish Chandra on a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by social activist Nutan Thakur.

In her PIL, filed on October 15 last year, Thakur had demanded registration of a case on the basis of the charges levelled against the Zakir Hussain Trust run by union minister Salman Khurshid and his wife Louise.

Thakur had also expressed doubt over free and fair inquiry into the allegations under present political circumstances, hence she has asked the court to supervise the probe.

After hearing the PIL, the court on October 18 directed the news channel 'Aaj Tak' to present relevant documents and CD of its sting operation which exposed the alleged anomalies. The channel submitted the documents and the CD in a sealed cover before the court on Wednesday.

The PIL was filed after allegations of anomalies in the distribution of aid to disabled people were levelled against Khurshid's Trust.

The state government had also ordered the EOW to probe the matter. However, social activist Arvind Kejriwal had then also raised questions over the fairness of the EOW probe and had accused the Akhilesh Yadav government of trying to shield Khurshid.

Six parties, including state government through principal secretary home, EOW, central government through ministry of social justice, principal secretary social welfare UP, Aaj Tak through editor India Today group and Dr Zakir Hussain Memorial Trust, were made respondents in the PIL.

Appearing on behalf of the union government, senior counsel Vivek Tankha had then claimed that it was a proxy PIL filed in a casual manner to malign and scandalise a person.

On behalf of the state government, additional advocate general Bulbul Godiyal had also raised objections regarding the maintainability of the PIL. However, the petitioner counsel Ashok Pandey had then argued that investigation should be done after lodging an FIR.

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Mars Rover Finds Intriguing New Evidence of Water

The first drill sample ever collected on Mars will come from a rockbed shot through with unexpected veins of what appears to be the mineral gypsum.

Delighted members of the Curiosity science team announced Tuesday that the rover was now in a virtual "candy store" of scientific targets—the lowest point of Gale crater, called Yellowknife Bay, is filled with many different materials that could have been created only in the presence of water. (Related: "Mars Has 'Oceans' of Water Inside?")

Project scientist John Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said during a press conference that the drill area has turned out "to be jackpot unit. Every place we drive exposes fractures and vein fills."

Mission scientists initially decided to visit the depression, a third of a mile from Curiosity's landing site, on a brief detour before heading to the large mountain at the middle of Gale Crater. But because of the richness of their recent finds, Grotzinger said it may be some months before they begin their trek to Mount Sharp.

The drilling, expected to start this month, will dig five holes about two inches (five centimeters) into bedrock the size of a throw rug and then feed the powder created to the rover's two chemistry labs for analysis.

The drill is the most complex device on the rover and is the last instrument to be used. Project Manager Richard Cook, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said that operating it posed the biggest mechanical challenge since Curiosity's high-drama landing. (Watch video of Curiosity's "Seven Minutes of Terror.")

A Watery Past?

That now-desiccated Mars once had a significant amount of surface water is now generally accepted, but every new discovery of when and where water was present is considered highly significant. The presence of surface water in its many possible forms—as a running stream, as a still lake, as ground water soaked into the Martian soil—all add to an increased possibility that the planet was once habitable. (Watch a video about searching for life on Mars.)

And each piece of evidence supporting the presence of water brings the Curiosity mission closer to its formal goal—which is to determine whether Mars was once capable of supporting life.

Curiosity scientists have already concluded that a briskly moving river or stream once flowed near the Gale landing site.

The discovery of the mineral-filled veins within Yellowknife Bay rock fractures adds to the picture because those minerals can be deposited only in watery, underground conditions.

The Curiosity team has also examined Yellowknife Bay for sedimentary rocks with the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI).  Scientists have found sandstone with grains up to about the size of a peppercorn, including one shaped like a flower bud that appears to gleam. Other nearby rocks are siltstone, with grains finer than powdered sugar. These are quite different from the pebbles and conglomerate rocks found in the landing area, but all these rocks are evidence of a watery past. (Related: "A 2020 Rover Return to Mars?")

One of the primary reasons Curiosity scientists selected Gale crater as a landing site was because satellite images indicated that water-formed minerals were present near the base of Mount Sharp. Grotzinger said that the minerals' presence so close to the landing site, and some five miles from the mountain, is both a surprise and an opportunity.

The current site in Yellowknife Bay is so promising, Grotzinger said, that he would have been "thrilled" to find similar formations at the mission's prime destination at the base of Mount Sharp.  Now the mission can look forward to the surprises to come at the mountain base while already having struck gold.

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NRA Ad Calls Obama 'Elitist Hypocrite'

Jan 16, 2013 12:04am

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo

As the White House prepares to unveil a sweeping plan aimed at curbing gun violence, the National Rifle Association has launched a preemptive, personal attack on President Obama, calling him an “elitist hypocrite” who, the group claims, is putting American children at risk.

In 35-second video posted online Tuesday night, the NRA criticizes Obama for accepting armed Secret Service protection for his daughters, Sasha and Malia, at their private Washington, D.C., school while questioning the placement of similar security at other schools.

“Are the president’s kids more important than yours? Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools, when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school?” the narrator says.

“Mr. Obama demands the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, but he’s just another elitist hypocrite when it comes to a fair share of security,” it continues. “Protection for their kids and gun-free zones for ours.”

The immediate family members of U.S. presidents – generally considered potential targets – have long received Secret Service protection.

The ad appeared on a new website for a NRA advocacy campaign – “NRA Stand and Fight” — that the gun-rights group appears poised to launch in response to Obama’s package of gun control proposals that will be announced today.

It’s unclear whether the video will air on TV or only on the web. The NRA did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.  The domain for the website is registered to Ackerman McQueen, the NRA’s long-standing public relations firm.

The White House had no comment on the NRA ad.

In the wake of last month’s mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the Obama administration has met with a cross-section of advocacy groups on all sides of the gun debate to formulate new policy proposals.

The NRA, which met with Vice President Joe Biden last week, has opposed any new legislative gun restrictions, including expanded background checks and limits on the sale of assault-style weapons, instead calling for armed guards at all American schools.

Obama publicly questioned that approach in an interview with “Meet the Press” earlier this month, saying, “I am skeptical that the only answer is putting more guns in schools. And I think the vast majority of the American people are skeptical that that somehow is going to solve our problem.”

Still, the White House has been considering a call for increased funding for police officers at public schools and the proposal could be part of a broader Obama gun policy package.

Fifty-five percent of Americans in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll say they support adding armed guards at schools across the country.

“The issue is, are there some sensible steps that we can take to make sure that somebody like the individual in Newtown can’t walk into a school and gun down a bunch of children in a shockingly rapid fashion.  And surely, we can do something about that,” Obama said at a news conference on Monday.

“Responsible gun owners, people who have a gun for protection, for hunting, for sportsmanship, they don’t have anything to worry about,” he said.

ABC News’ Mary Bruce and Jay Shaylor contributed reporting. 

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