4um: As Obama's star rises, fears for his safety Memories of 1968 assassinations evoked

Title: As Obama's star rises, fears for his safety Memories of 1968 assassinations evoked
Source: International Herald Tribune
URL Source: [None]
Published: Feb 26, 2008
Author: International Herald Tribune
Post Date: 2008-05-09 15:09:50 by Jethro Tull
Keywords: None
Views: 2768
Comments: 208

As Obama's star rises, fears for his safety Memories of 1968 assassinations evoked

International Herald Tribune

02-26-2008

As Obama's star rises, fears for his safety Memories of 1968 assassinations evoked
Byline: Jeff Zeleny The New York Times Media Group
Edition: 1
Section: NEWS

DALLAS --

There is a hushed worry on the minds of many supporters of Senator Barack Obama, echoing in conversations from state to state, rally to rally: Will he be safe?

In Colorado, two sisters say they pray daily for his safety. In New Mexico, a daughter says she persuaded her mother to still vote for Obama, even though the mother feared that winning would put him in danger. And at a rally here, a woman expressed worries that a message of hope and change, in addition to his race, made him more vulnerable to violence.
"I've got the best protection in the world," Obama, of Illinois, said in an interview, reprising a line he tells supporters who raise the issue with him. "So stop worrying."

Yet worry they do, with the spring of 1968 seared into their memories, when the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and Senator Robert Kennedy were assassinated in a span of two months.

Obama was 6 at the time, and like many of his admirers, he has only read about the violence that traumatized and polarized the nation. But those recollections and images are often invoked by older voters, who watch his candidacy with fascination, as well as an uneasy air of apprehension, as Democrats inch closer to selecting their nominee.

Obama has had Secret Service agents surrounding him since May 3, the earliest a candidate has ever been provided protection. (He reluctantly gave in to the insistent urging of Senator Richard Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, and others in Congress.) As his rallies have swelled in size, his security has increased, close to rivaling that given to a sitting president.

His wife, Michelle Obama, voiced concerns about his safety before he was elected to the Senate. Three years ago, she said she dreaded the day her husband received Secret Service protection, because it would mean serious threats had been made against him.

Among friends and advisers, danger is something Obama rarely mentions.

"It's not something that I'm spending time thinking about day to day," said Obama, who has been given the Secret Service nickname Renegade, a way for agents to quickly identify him. "I made a decision to get into this race. I think anybody who decides to run for president recognizes that there are some risks involved, just like there are risks in anything."

Not long ago, his advisers worried that some black voters might not support his candidacy out of a fierce desire to protect him. It was a particular concern in South Carolina, but Obama said he believed the worry was also rooted in "a fear of failure."

Now that he has won a string of primaries and caucuses in all corners of the country and built a coalition of black and white voters, failure would seem to be less of an issue. The fears, however, remain.

Representative Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, raised concerns in a letter in January to officials who oversee the Secret Service. Obama was already receiving protection, but Thompson said the intense interest in the election had prompted him to make sure that Obama and the other candidates were offered adequate security.

"The national and international profile of Sen. Barack Obama gives rise to unique challenges that merit special concern," Thompson wrote. "As an African-American who was witness to some of this nation's most shameful days during the civil rights movement, I know personally that the hatred of some of our fellow citizens can lead to heinous acts of violence. We need only to look to the assassinations of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and 1968 presidential candidate Robert Kennedy as examples."

In an interview, Thompson declined to elaborate on any specific threats that had come to the attention of his committee or the authorities. He said he wrote the letter to the Homeland Security Department without discussing it with Obama, whom he has endorsed.

"His candidacy is so unique to this country and so important that the last thing you would want is for him not to have the opportunity to fulfill the role of a potential presidential nominee," Thompson said. "It's out of an abundance of caution that I wrote the letter, rather than keep our fingers crossed and pray."

Before Obama decided to run for president, he discussed his safety with his family. His campaign employed a team of private security guards before he was placed under Secret Service protection. Since then, he has grown fond of the agents who surround him, inviting them to watch the Super Bowl at his home in Chicago and playing basketball with them on the days he awaits the results of an election.

Obama was reluctant to speak about his security or the period in American history that is often raised, without prompting, by voters who are interviewed at his campaign events. Mentions of the fate that befell President John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy only increased after Obama was joined on the campaign trail by Caroline Kennedy and Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts.

"I'm pretty familiar with the history," Obama said. "Obviously, it was an incredible national trauma, but neither Bobby Kennedy nor Martin Luther King had Secret Service protection."

Indeed, the assassination of Kennedy in 1968 prompted Congress to pass a law authorizing protection of major presidential and vice presidential candidates. In this campaign, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has had Secret Service protection from the beginning because she is a former first lady. None of the other candidates accepted it during their primary campaigns.

Gerald Posner, author of books on the assassinations of John Kennedy and King, said he did not believe that Obama was under a significantly higher risk than President George W. Bush or Hillary Clinton. The fears are more openly discussed, he said, because he is the first black candidate to come this close to winning a major party's presidential nomination.

"Barack scares those of us who think of the possibility of an assassination in a different way," Posner said. "He represents so much hope and change. That is exactly what was taken away from us in the 1960s."

Oh well, you can always call them names. That's what immature wingnuts do isn't it?

This one is just for you, trip dots. The photo was shot at Che Obama's Texas HQ in Houston:

How do you say "Wasting money like a conservative" when you are speaking on tongues?

And why are you guys so bad with managing money? Bush and Reagan were as sloppy as you are.

You're funny in a sad way...talk about a bitter Marxist-cling-on. => Trip Dots

Wow! You are a conservative. Reagan couldn't manage money either. Neither could Bush.

You need to spend less time shaking snakes with Ted Haggard and a little more time reading. Then you could: (1) Respond to people intelligently, (2) spell correctly, and (3) Post more than a one sentence thought.

By the way, are you going to speak in tongues for us or not? Lots of bored people here tonight and your childish insults are old hat.

Let's talk about that, trip dots, but first...you avoided this part, do you have any of your spectacularly brilliant observations to share wrt ?

Only goobers like yourself buy into Fox Propaganda. They're probably the ones who convinced you to buy the eight mile per gallon car.

You're naturally dull witted, and posting nothing accents this even more than your silly one line insults.

Why don't you post something while you are speaking in tongues? Now that would be entertaining.

A friend of mine that works day and night against the NAU brought up an interesting point...that "weird" (to say the least) breakup/timing of the Soviet Union's 'fall' was also just before a)Clinton/HW Bush went to Bilderberg simultaneously and before HW handed BJC the election and b)NAFTA/NAU was firmly ready to go, just waiting for Clinton to sign.

Did Fox convince you to spend tens of thousands of dollars on an eight mile per gallon car that even the auction lots won't touch these days?

What's he do? Call people silly names on the internet? It couldn't be much more than that if he considers you to be a peer.

Is Chuck Baldwin inarticulate and stupid like you are? And can he speak in tongues?

But it's worth considering the evidence that Wall Street financed the destruction of the Czar, and fostered the rise of Soviet communism as retribution for the anti-Jewish pogroms.

Q: Mr. Baldwin, what is your opinion of the current currency crises now faced by the U.S. and the U.K.

Chuck Baldwin: Hurroooop snerk giberbiber whoork ptahhhhhhhh whortttt! Praise Jeebus!!

Apparently Mr. Baldiwn, as a Southern Baptist Minister, is perfectly capable of speaking in tongues. Whether he is as inarticulate and stupid as you are is still in question.

I think it all goes together...we've been effed since LONG, LONG before Reagan...but Reagan was just another player working 'our' side. Or so we thought he was on America's side. What a grand scheme !!!

Are you excited about getting your North American Zone Biometric ID card (and the Goverment Health Care, etc. that comes with it)?

Like you, Reagan just wasn't any good at handling money. So why are you calling the kettle black?

Just don't spend huge sums of money on a depreciating dinosaur the next time Fox News tells you to. You'll be fine then.

Do your badeye impersonation again. Tell us how you gave yourself three hummers without taking yoga lessons.

You're going to wake up soon to an INVOLUNTARY concept that I've described (tongue in cheek admittedly, but accurate nonetheless) and then what choice will you make?

Fight, flee or surrender (just as though you fell for it like the Ophiles have...)?

Success is relative. It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things. T. S. Eliot

"Hi, I'm Chuckie the Cheese Baldwhine, and FOH is especially gentle shaving the hair that grows on my palms because of the intensity of the circle jerks us Cuntstitutional Party studs have together. So I let him post my picture. Cheers, babies."

Reply "I believe the reason US americans are unable to find maps and as such as, is because osama of them don't have maps and as such as south africa and the iraq"..yikes, she was talking about the obama family.

He did clarify and include Alaska and Hawai'i at the end of that, he covered all 50 states.

I say him last night on the University of Oregon campus. He sounded tired and corrected another minor momentary mis-spoken comment about al Qaeda and Afghanistan. He apologized noting he was "on East Coast time."

I was impressed with him none the less and look forward to seeing him finally getting the nomination. It certainly was a huge and enthusiastic crowd, and he connected with it extremely well.