Giving It His Best Shot
NRA's Charlton Heston Declares Culture War
By Michael Powell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 30, 2000; Page C01
Moses came packing to Georgetown University last night, warning of a culture war and "an
overwhelming Orwellian tyranny sweeping this country."
"Our culture has traded in the bloody arena fights of ancient Rome for state fights on Sally,
Ricki, Jerry, Maury, Jenny and Rosie. . . . Our one nation under God, with liberty and justice
for all, now seems more like the fractured streets of Beirut, echoing with anger."
Thus spake Charlton Heston, retired actor, celluloid Moses (not to mention Ben-Hur and
Michelangelo; this actor didn't do bit parts) and, not incidentally, president of the National Rifle
Association. Heston clearly intended his speech, presented by the Georgetown student
association's Lecture Fund, as a round of buckshot in a cultural war with liberals and President
Clinton, who has picked fight after fight with the NRA.
More than a few lines in Heston's speech on "Guns, Politics and the Cultural War" seemed
crafted to play off the expected gibes of a left-leaning college audience.
"Only a few years ago I would have been welcomed here as Moses." Heston swept his hand at
the audience in Gaston Hall. Now "I'm here in a more controversial persona. That's what
happens when you exchange a set of stone tablets for a shotgun."
The nation is engaged in a "great war," he added. "And this campus is one of the
battlegrounds."
In fact, this was no ravening crowd. The audience of 800 or more students would have been
drummed out of the Roman Colosseum for excessive politesse. About half the students greeted
Heston with a standing ovation, leavened by a smattering of boos, and their questions were
polite and moderately probing.
Heston's white hair and grandfatherly aspect, too, tended to belie his words, as did a recently
healed broken hip that left the 75-year-old moving gingerly across the stage. If his was an Old
Testament message, Moses' tone was avuncular.
Nonetheless, he took repeated aim at the nation's college campuses, describing students as
"cultural cowards" and "the most politically silenced generation since Concord Bridge." He laid
out a Hestonian demonology, in which conservatives are everywhere embattled.
"Democrats hate Republicans. Gays hate straights. Women hate men. Liberals hate
conservatives. Vegetarians hate meat-eaters. Gun banners hate gun owners."
Gun control, and the NRA, have emerged as prime targets for Democrats in the presidential
campaign, reflecting a political calculation that suburban swing voters fear for their children's
safety and have tired of an organization that champions the right to bear arms.
Clinton, in a news conference yesterday, again attacked, saying that Republicans, "egged on by
the NRA," have refused to bring to a vote a juvenile justice bill that requires background checks
for sales at gun shows and child safety locks for handguns.
And Gore's quick-lipped press secretary, Chris Lehane, has missed no chance to pull George
W. Bush into the fray, charging yesterday that the Republican candidate is "in the hip holster of
the NRA."
Heston did not gainsay that last night. He said the Texas governor would make a fine president
and "if Bush is elected . . . his position [on guns and gun control] would be more or less our
position."
Heston said his recent speaking tour (he spoke a night earlier at Brandeis University) was born
of his fury that NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre has been pilloried for saying
that Clinton was willing to accept a certain amount of gun violence to further his gun control
agenda. LaPierre, Heston said, was speaking the truth:
"For two solid weeks he was demonized, scorned, vilified. In fact, the president has been
miserably lax in enforcing federal gun laws but it was easier to condemn a good man. . . . The
spectacle of Wayne LaPierre's media crucifixion appalled me."
Earlier, Clinton had a bit of fun at his news conference when Heston's name came up. Clinton,
the great rope-a-dope pol, claimed he did not mind the NRA's attacks. And he said he remains a
fan of Heston--"a great actor and I love his movies."
Heston did not return the compliment. Assaying his best chill-eyed cowboy squint, he peered
out at the audience last night and advised:
"When someone you've elected is seduced by the power of the office and betrays you, muster
the collective will to banish them from public office."
