censorship, of a sort

[jrtom]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-10-27-prez-money_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

This is a fairly innocuous article, talking about the fact that Obama's been having more success getting money from the US business community as a whole. It refers to (and quotes) one Dan Cooper:

Dan Cooper, a proud member of the National Rifle Association, has backed Republicans for most of his life. He's the chief executive of Cooper Arms, a small Montana company that makes hunting rifles.
Cooper said he voted for George W. Bush in 2000, having voted in past elections for every Republican presidential nominee back to Richard Nixon. In October 1992, he presented a specially made rifle to the first President. Bush during a Billings campaign event.

This year, Cooper has given $3,300 to the campaign of Democrat Barack Obama. That's on top of the $1,000 check he wrote to Obama's U.S. Senate campaign in 2004, after he was dazzled by Obama's speech at that year's Democratic National Convention.

If you read through to the comments, they'll lead you here:

http://www.cooperfirearms.com/

In case the message on the front page doesn't stay up long, here it is in its entirety:

In response to the recent article highlighting Dan Cooper’s personal political donations, the board of directors, shareholders and employees of Cooper Firearms of Montana, Inc would like to issue the following statement. The employees, shareholders and board of directors of Cooper Firearms of Montana do not share the personal political views of Dan Cooper. Although we all believe everyone has a right to vote and donate as they see fit, it has become apparent that the fallout may affect more than just Mr. Cooper. It may also affect the employees and the shareholders of Cooper Firearms.

The board of directors has asked Mr. Cooper to resign as President of Cooper Firearms of Montana, Inc. Daily operations will continue with the competent staff currently in place in Stevensville, MT producing the finest, most accurate rifles money can buy.

Dan Cooper has spent all of his working life producing the highest quality rifles built here in the USA. He started with nothing but the American Dream and built that into firearms company anyone would be proud of. We firmly believe Dan stands by the 2nd amendment.
We wish him all of the best in his future pursuits.

This decision was apparently made in response to threats of boycotting, outlined here:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-10-30-gun-ceo-ousted_N.htm

Scared people sometimes do crappy things; I get that. And it seems likely that the BoD of Cooper Firearms was worried about their company going under, so they threw the company's founder under (the bus) instead.

But seriously, this is bullshit. This is knuckling under to what is, in essence, a political attack.

I don't know if Cooper has standing to sue or not--it seems likely he holds stock in the company--but I suspect that Cooper Firearms is not going to come out of this any better for having thrown out their own founder.