Shaping history in the eye of the beholder—an NRA view
Commentary by PAT MURPHY
Charlton Heston wowed ‘em at the Idaho state Republican convention
with stirring, sonorous hyperbole reminiscent of a wide-screen Cecil B. deMille
spectacular. But could it be the actor-turned-National Rifle Association chief has a
mental block about more than 100 years of U.S. political history?
"This election," he intoned gravely, in Mosess’ best
part-the-Red Sea voice, referring to the November presidential election, "is the most
important since the Civil War."
Oh?
So what does Heston make of the 1900 election of Teddy Roosevelt, who
fathered America’s spectacular federal parks system; the 1932 election of Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, whose New Deal programs lifted the nation out of a devastating
Depression; and his 1940 re-election that ultimately rallied the Allied triumph over the
World War II Axis?
And what does Heston make of the 1948 election of Harry Truman, whose
post-World War II Marshall Plan and Truman Doctrine rebuilt a devastated Europe; and his
desegregation of the armed services which launched America’s slow march toward civil
rights?
And Richard Nixon’s 1968 election that led to rapprochement with
mainland China, and Ronald Reagan’s two terms that brought an end to the Cold War?
Could it be that Heston really meant something else— like, the
November election is not so historic for the nation as a whole, but to the NRA’s
narrow ambitions to stem the growing tide of gun control sentiments?
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While working my way through a BLT over lunch at the Elkhorn Lodge last
weekend with Mark Trahant, who was in town to make a speech, the meaning of "what
goes around comes around" struck home.
Mark, a Shoshone born in Pocatello, was editor of The Navajo Times,
the Navajo nation’s newspaper, back in the 1980s when he was fired by tribal chairman
Peter MacDonald for being too journalistically aggressive in reporting shady doings by
MacDonald.
I hired Mark within hours of his firing, and put him to work at The
Arizona Republic in Phoenix, whereupon he oversaw a prize-winning 80,000-word series on
fraud, waste and corruption inside the Bureau of Indian Affairs that led to a Senate
investigation of the BIA.
Mark’s stature grew. He became executive news editor of The Salt Lake
Tribune; the recipient of a year-long First Amendment Fellowship; later became publisher
of the Moscow-Pullman daily newspaper; and now is a lead columnist for The Seattle Times.
I mention this because the man who fired Trahant in the late 1980s, former
Navajo chairman MacDonald, is sitting in a federal prison, serving a long sentence,
disgraced and stripped of influence and power, while the target of his vindictiveness has
soared to new successes as a journalist.
Pat Murphy is the retired publisher of the Arizona
Republic and a former radio commentator.
