“I eat meat, chicken and fish, have shoes and furniture made of leather, and PETA is not ever going to put me on the cover of their brochure and for these reasons Palin thinks it’s hypocritical of me to find what she did heart-stoppingly disgusting. I don’t think it is, and here’s why.

“Like 95% of the people I know, I don’t have a visceral (look it up) problem eating meat or wearing a belt. But like absolutely everybody I know, I don’t relish the idea of torturing animals. I don’t enjoy the fact that they’re dead and I certainly don’t want to volunteer to be the one to kill them and if I were picked to be the one to kill them in some kind of Lottery-from-Hell, I wouldn’t do a little dance of joy while I was slicing the animal apart.

“I’m able to make a distinction between you and me without feeling the least bit hypocritical. I don’t watch snuff films and you make them. You weren’t killing that animal for food or shelter or even fashion, you were killing it for fun. You enjoy killing animals. I can make the distinction between the two of us but I’ve tried and tried and for the life of me, I can’t make a distinction between what you get paid to do and what Michael Vick went to prison for doing. I’m able to make the distinction with no pangs of hypocrisy even though I get happy every time one of you faux-macho shitheads accidentally shoots another one of you in the face.”

***
“Sarah Palin took shots at a caribou on her TLC reality show; now critics are taking aim at Palin’s hunting skills. A piece on the Awl pointed out several rookie mistakes that Palin apparently made during a hunting trip with her father that she filmed for ‘Sarah Palin’s Alaska.’ Among them was Palin’s failure to sight her rifle before shooting and not personally loading shells into the gun she used. PETA is predictably responding negatively to the hunting footage as well.

“Palin’s performance as a hunter — she missed several times before killing the animal and was heavily coached through the process by her father — would likely not be an issue if she hadn’t touted her hunting experience in previous interviews.”

***
“POLITICO spoke to Nick Seifert, a sportsman and conservation advocate who hosted the ‘Straight Shooting’ segment of ‘American Gun Dog’ for five seasons and had a 12-year career with Field & Stream and Outdoor Life magazines, about Palin’s skills as a hunter.

“‘Technically, it wasn’t perfect, but to me it seemed honest. Unlike a lot of shows that cut everything out, that was a fairly honest hunt,’ said Seifert…

“Seifert also watched the video of Palin and her father and friend packing up the meat to take back to Wasilla. He explained that ‘In Alaska, you have to take all edible portions of the animal. When they take the rib meat out, it is above and beyond what most hunters do. I give them credit for that, they did that correctly.’…

“Seifert’s conclusion? ‘It seemed realistic to me, and I’m a pretty harsh critic of that because I see a lot of unrealistic stuff out there on hunting channels. I thought it was an honest hunt and I thought there are a lot of people out there who would like to have that kind of time with their dad.'”

***
Via the Daily Caller.