Playing with Quotes

One of the things that bothers me about politics...most often found at the "voter" level...is personal attacks and lies to get a point across.

I came across that today while browsing through a local Libertarian's Web site. She had a quote on her site that went as follows:

"We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the
rights of ordinary Americans ..." - Bill Clinton

I was a big fan of Bill Clinton. He's a well-spoken, intelligent man...and I miss that from our current President, who tends to stumble over his words on most occassions and likes to lay all issues out in black and white (this or that) terms. So, of course, I found the quote mildly disturbing.

I did a quick Google search of the quote to find the context. You see, there be ellipses there. :-) To my shock (not really), I found that literally hundreds of sites had replicated the quote, all with the same ellipses!

OK...all these sites are right-wing sites, what gives?

I actually had to look long and hard for anyone to complete the quote. Some sites extend the quote with more context, to make the original quote even harsher:

"We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans to legitimately own handguns and rifles."

Whoa! Now he's not talking about *ALL* our rights, but the quote is more directed and therefore correct, right? After all, there's no ellipses, right?

Well, not quote. The ellipses are gone, but they should be there, cause he wasn't done with his sentence. Let's see the real quote, which took quite a while to dig up on Google. (It's less sensational and more sane, you see.)

"I think -- you know, we can't be so fixated on our
desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans to
legitimately own handguns and rifles -- it's something
I strongly support -- we can't be so fixated on that
that we are unable to think about the reality of life
that millions of Americans face on streets that are
unsafe, under conditions that no other nation -- no
other nations -- has permitted to exist."

Ah. So, he's against irresponsible use of them. So, perhaps, Joe Gunowner were to say, I don't know, shoot his ex-girlfriend -- that perhaps he shouldn't be legally allowed to own a gun anymore. Am I wrong here?

Maybe the quote is a little clunky. It was an offhand comment, not an official speech...but obviously, the lesson here is:

... TRUST ELLIPSES!

(The above was bolded by the editor, taken from the quote "Don't Trust Ellipses")