by David Safier
In October, Florida Republican candidate for congress Robert Lowry, running against incumbent Debbie Wasserman Schultz, went to a gun range and fired at a target which had the initials DWS next to the silhouette's head. Lowry, by the way, proclaimed himself the Tea Party candidate.
Here's what happened. The Southeast Broward Republican Club gathered at a gun range. One of the images they fired at "depicted a menacing figure, adorned in a kaffiyeh, the kind of headdress worn by the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. The person in the picture was holding a rocket-propelled grenade." Another was a standard issue silhouette with DWS written next to the head.
Lowry claimed poor judgement. He said someone else wrote the initials, though he knew they were there when he fired. When questioned afterward, he initially described it as a joke. Only on further questioning did he say it was a mistake.
That's Lowry's explanation of what happened. Another version of the events is more incriminating:
Robert Lowry- attended an event at a shooting range where he and his campaign manager Christopher Leggatt scribbled the initials ‘DWS’ on a shooting target. Lowry proceeded to shoot at the target and joke about his actions to all that were in attendance, and he also posed for a picture with the bullet riddled target. Making matters worse, all of these actions were done in the presence of a local political beat reporter.
I'm not sure it matters much which version is correct, except that, if the second is correct, that adds "liar" to Lowry's list of accomplishments.