HOUSTON — Sarah Palin said Friday that the elite media would never let a Republican president get away with what Barack Obama has done in his push for new gun laws. 
 
 The former Alaska governor recalled that the national press “tore apart” George W. Bush for using “fleeting images” from Sept. 11, 2001, during his 2004 reelection campaign. 
 
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 At the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting, Palin slammed Obama for flying the grieving parents of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Air Force One and then “making them backdrops” at rallies. 
 
 (PHOTOS: NRA annual meeting) 
 
 “That same media is now the reliable poodle-skirted cheerleader for the president that writes the book on exploiting tragedy,” she said, wearing a T-shirt that said “women hunt.” 
 
 Palin insisted that all Americans felt “despair, sadness and absolute anger” when they saw what happened in Connecticut. She said everyone should care more about those getting gunned down every single day on the streets of places like Chicago and New York City, but that shouldn’t guide public policy. 
 
 “Now, emotion is a good and a necessary thing. But we have politicians exploiting emotion for their own agenda,” she said. “We have well-meaning Americans who are desperate to respond.” 
 
 Palin, a longtime NRA member, pleased the crowd by noting that her son Trigg’s nickname is “Trigger” and that her nephew’s middle name is Remington. She was rewarded with a standing ovation after describing the 4.5 million members of the group as her “brothers and sisters.” 
 
 NRA chief lobbyist Chris Cox praised Palin for criticizing a police chief who would not give out conceal-and-carry permits during her first run for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. 
 
 “We’re fighting the good fight,” Palin said near the end of a 12-minute speech. “The Washington establishment sneers at you, and you don’t give up. The lamestream media just plain doesn’t get you, and you don’t give up. You don’t retreat.” 
 
 Palin took a shot at New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, always a bogeyman at these gatherings. At her last big public event – the Conservative Political Action Conference in March – she sipped a Big Gulp from the podium to mock his ban on the sale of the large sodas. She told the NRA crowd that Bloomberg may next try to ban public displays of tobacco products. 
 
 Then she pulled out a container of snuff. 
 
 “I tell ya, don’t make me do it,” she joked. “It’s funny because [my husband] Todd’s been looking for this all morning.” ||||| 4 years ago 
 
 (CNN) – Sarah Palin blasted President Barack Obama and gun control advocates Friday, blaming them for "exploiting" recent mass shooting tragedies to promote their political agenda. 
 
 Speaking to a welcoming crowd at the National Rifle Association convention in Houston, the folksy former governor from Alaska also used chewing tobacco at one point to draw some laughs. 
 
 
 
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 Palin, wearing a shirt that read "Women hunt," was one of several speakers at the NRA gathering who targeted the Obama administration and some lawmakers for wanting tighter firearm restrictions after the Newtown elementary school massacre. 
 
 In the days leading up to the Senate's April 17 vote on gun control proposals, the president invited families of Newtown victims to fly on Air Force One to Washington and lobby Congress. 
 
 Newtown families also participated in media interviews and appeared in an ad made by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the pro-gun control group co-chaired by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. 
 
 When the upper chamber ultimately fell short of the 60 votes needed to pass a bipartisan compromise to expand the background check system, some of those family members stood behind the president not long after the vote as he chided Capitol Hill for what he described as a "shameful day in Washington." 
 
 Palin argued the president was practicing the "politics of emotion" by "flying in grieving parents on Air Force One, making them backdrops in his perpetual campaign-style press events." 
 
 Par for the course, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee faulted the media for being a "reliable, poodle-skirted cheerleader for a president who writes the book on exploiting tragedy." 
 
 Politics of emotion, she argued, won't make the country safer. "It's the opposite of leadership. It's the manipulation of the people by the politicians for their own political ends. It's not just self-serving. It's destructive and it must stop." 
 
 Charging the president with being disingenuous in the wake of the shooting was a running theme throughout the day at the NRA. Palin added Obama was ignoring another tragedy. 
 
 "We could use a bit more emotion by the way of what goes on every single day on the streets of cities like Chicago and New York," Palin said. 
 
 Speaking of New York, Palin took the opportunity to take a swipe at Bloomberg, a mayor she has vehemently opposes for what she describes as his nanny state politics. In her last big speech at a major conservative gathering in March, Palin made headlines for sipping a "Big Gulp" on stage, a knock against New York's ban against certain large sugary drinks. 
 
 "Now I see that the mayor of New York now wants to ban public displays of legal tobacco products," she said, referring to his recent push to keep tobacco products out of sight at stores in order to de-glamorize the product. 
 
 "I tell ya," she said, as she pulling out a pack of chewing tobacco. "Don't make me do it." 
 
 With the crowd roaring, she put the pack back in her pocket. 
 
 "It's funny because Todd's been looking for this all morning."
– Sarah Palin proved again yesterday why she's an NRA favorite: She won a standing ovation at the group's annual convention after a strong attack on President Obama for "exploiting" the Newtown rampage, reports Politico. In the main part of her speech, she said the media attacked President Bush when he used images of the 9/11 attacks in his re-election campaign. “That same media is now the reliable poodle-skirted cheerleader for the president that writes the book on exploiting tragedy." Palin, adorned in a "women hunt" T-shirt, also noted that son Trigg's nickname is "Trigger" and that she has a nephew whose middle name is Remington. But she got her biggest laugh going after New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, maybe the nation's biggest anti-gun advocate. At the CPAC convention in March, she mocked his big-soda ban by sipping a big gulp. Yesterday, she pulled out a can of snuff to mock his fight against tobacco products, reports CNN. "Don't make me do it," she said, before putting it away untouched. “It’s funny because Todd’s been looking for this all morning.”