A silly thing to say but an even sillier thing to seize on, yet Patrick Ishmael e-mails to say that’s exactly what Shep Smith did not long ago on Fox. Obama was goofing on the idea of Her Majesty being a gunslinger and connected it up to the absurdity of her squatting in a duck blind. Nothing more to it than that, unless you think he’s so removed from rural culture and such a fantastic idiot that he thinks birds are hunted with handguns. If he knows what a duck blind is, I’m guessing he has a basic idea of what kind of weapons are apt to turn up in one. Click the image to watch.

As a gloss, watch this video of Maverick addressing his base and bemoaning the sort of gotcha/soundbite journalism that frightens candidates into bloodless, overly guarded, robotic message discipline. That’s an odd complaint coming from a Republican with Bittergate still brewing, but McCain’s obviously still smarting from his alleged Al Qaeda/Iran confusion. The question with all of these verbal stumbles, of course, is how much they reveal what the candidate really thinks (or rather, what his opponents suspect he thinks) versus to what extent they’re simply brain farts. Six-shooter strikes me as a stumble. Bittergate, which even people on the left (Kaus, Ambinder) have conceded is a Kinsleyan gaffe? Not so much.