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: 2519
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."

What I am curious about though, is why Oxford produces so many commies? Is that a commie institution?

You can have all the loot you want, just leave us a free country when it's over.

The Pin Oak is not a native tree of Oregon. They have them in Tom McCall park in Portland, but I didn't climb and defend any taken during the widening of Front Avenue when I lived up there because of this and because it is undeniable that the project made the street safer and better for all users.

Living in a city does have it's considerations to weigh when one contemplates doing an action.

I would submit that assassination is more a LBJ and Bush family tradition, nothing good can come out of it regardless of the target.

Oxford has the reputation of being the more conservative of the two ancient universities of England. Looking back, I can think of one person I knew there that called himself a Marxist.

But just who are these numerous Communist graduates of Oxford that you have in mind?

To reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of attending. His mode of arguing, if it is to be so called, was one not uncommon among dull and stubborn persons, who are accustomed to be surrounded by their inferiors. He asserted a proposition; and, as often as wiser people ventured respectfully to show that it was erroneous, he asserted it again, in exactly the same words, and conceived that, by doing so, he at once disposed of all objections. - Macaulay, "History of England," Vol. 1, Chapter 6, on James II.

Remember what happened to him soon thereafter. And remember how history -- including history written by German historians -- has treated him ever since.

Germans are no longer particularly fond of someone who ended up hating them as much as he did.

Communists rarely admit being such. I think they would rather admit to being homosexual, or to being a porn producer, or even a drug dealer, rather than admit they are commies.

Whereas the people who are hinting broadly here about the idea of assassinating a leading candidate for the presidency are real true Americans.

"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men." -- Samuel Adams (1722-1803)‡

Yeah, you moles haven't for the most part been honest for a long time about your intentions...but it appears it's getting safer each day to 'come out'.

Given a choice between being stuck in Paraguay and being imprisoned in a jail in a country that has civilized prisons (and I'm afraid that's not true of this country,) I'm not sure I would choose Paraguay.

"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men." -- Samuel Adams (1722-1803)‡

Where's the beef of your argument? You are harping a one note song over and over, and you are enough of an embarrassment to yourself your tastes bad, less filling style in here doesn't bother me.

Why is it that you hate filled wingnuts always go for the cheap smear when lack a rational argument?

Why don't you post your proof that ari suppots a communist cabal? I've never seen any evidence of this. But I have seen plenty of cases where you go into silly tirades and call people names like a spoiled nine year old. The present case is an excellent example of this.

Are you hate filled rapture monkeys capable of anything beyond this silly name calling?

And now what are you going to do about your maturity issues? Stamp your foot and call people names?

He's slunk off again. He doesn't do well when people stand up and call him on his shit. And most would be bullies are like that.

They’ll kill President Obama; Obama: At risk of assassination.

Byline: David Gardner

NOBEL Prize winner Doris Lessing caused uproar last night by predictingthe assassination of Barack Obama if he becomes the first black U.S. president.

The 88- year-old novelists remarks came as the Democratic candidate toasted themost successful day in his White House campaign.

Mr Obama, the 46- year-old son of a black Kenyan man and a white American,dismissed Mrs Lessings comments.

Mrs Lessing said: He would probably not last long, a black man in the positionof president. They would kill him.

She said it would be better if Mrs Clinton, 60, became Americas first womanpresident with Obama as her running mate. Hillary is a very sharp lady. Itmight be calmer if she wins, she told a Swedish newspaper.

But one Democratic analyst said: Suggesting Obama is in danger if he wins theelection in November is not only divisive, it is insulting to the Americanpeople.

Princeton University political science professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell raisedassassination fears last month, saying: For many black supporters, there is alot of anxiety that he will be killed. It is on peoples minds.

You cant make a prediction like thislike he has a 50 per cent chance of getting shot. But the greater hisvisibility and the greater his access to people, there is a danger.

It is not the first time Mrs Lessing has caused controversy in the U.S. Lastyear she claimed the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Centre wasnot as significant as the IRAs terror campaign.

Many people died, two prominent buildings fell, but it was neither as terriblenor as extraordinary as they think, she said.

Do you know what people forget? That the IRA attacked with bombs against ourgovernment. It killed several people while a Conservative congress was beingheld and in which the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, was [attending].People forget.

Last month, TV host Harry Smith caused an outcry, asking Ted Kennedy, brotherof assassinated President John F. Kennedy: Sometimes agents of change end upbeing targets. Doesnt it make you at all fearful?

Black presidential candidate Jesse Jackson received death threats during hiscampaigns in the Eighties and former Secretary of State Colin Powell ruled outa White House run after his wife feared he would be killed.

Illinois senator Mr Obama chalked up a clean sweep in voting on Saturday to winfresh momentum in his deadlocked race with Hillary Clinton for the Democraticparty presidential nomination.

He easily won the Louisiana primary and caucuses in Nebraska and Washingtonstate, as well as a victory in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The gains cut into the former first ladys slim lead, leaving Mr Obama ahead ina Newsweek poll by 42 per cent to 41 per cent

True. He can always find an open hamster wheel of a thread to exercise on at Free Republic for a change of pace.

Bullies hate competition, which is why they are a protected species at FR by virtue of the most restrictive moderation policy of any political forum on the Internet.

Bullies thrive at FR, and they get tips on how to act socially from the likes of the BillO bar of bluster on Fox. I wonder what his nick is there.

Mike, you couldn't climb and defend a tree house so please stop living in some make believe world. Lets put it this way, If I found you sitting in a tree I owned, I'd have both you, and the Great spotted owl you were protecting, mounted over my mantel.

He wants to swell central government like a tick attached to the bottom of your belly. This isn't American and neither are his acolytes.

In doing non-violent civil disobedience one must always be mindful that this is part of the range of outcomes.

Interesting hypothetical, but interestingly enough I have yet to do a sit on private land. And when I have protected a tree near someone's home, I have been careful to get feedback from them.

At the sit at the Sheldon McMurphy House in Eugene, the city's only museum, a little fella from an apartment complex came over and sprayed me with the water hose on the front lawn.

Sterling is his name and he giggled like a school girl the whole time he did this. But he didn't do it long, as though it was early spring and cold, I didn't react one iota to his childishness.

What finally did happen was the Eugene Police Department who learned of his attempts to discomfort me -- and there were several -- was the entity that told him to cease and desist his harassment.

I am amused that when I do run into Sterling, he always has one of his large, highly muscular pit bulls with him while he talks shit. I don't respond in a way that feeds any baiting he decides to do at the moment, and I also don't avoid him either. Him doing this without the dogs possibly would be a far more interesting spectacle, I wil say that. ;-D

I would say that if I was in a tree of yours' do what you feel you have to do, but that it is easy to win a battle and lose a war. Making a tree sitter into a martyr and going to prison for the effort is hardly worth it.

Remember that with tree sitters, they climb up, but sooner or later they have to climb down. Your continuum of use of force in regards to tree sitters is foolish and would in the end cost you more then a continuum of force that took more then your wounded male ego into consideration when formulated in mind to be used against non- violent dissidents.

I think I'd just steal your toilet paper while you're up in your perch and watch the fun (from a safe distance, of course)

Why is it always a loony conspiracy with you wingnuts? Everyone who has facts or logic at their disposal is a "mole" or an "operative".

Did it ever dawn on you that people simply read up on the issue and have opinions beyond the narrow, single sentence, hate filled view of the world that your pastor loads into your brain?

Think about it. While you dance around shaking your snakes and babbling in tongues, other people are reading serious works on the political system. And this is the root cause of your frustration. And this is why you can't do more than call people silly names when they present facts you disagree with.

We use a five gallon bucket to do arboreal crapping business with when in a sit. We use moss for the TP and as an anti-oder measure that also make emptying and clearing the bucket easier.

I don't think I've ever used TP while aloft. I mean, think of the irony, I'm just not that gauche a guy.

But just for you I would let you photograph me breaking protocol by flipping you the bird at you if I am ever in a sit you come to visit.

Oh, plenty of people have thought of the possibility of Obama being assassinated.

Like the ones who damn this country from the pulpit. Yeah, those kind of jerks would be out of business if America elected a half black man as President.

Or maybe you are talking about the kind of jerks who won't pledge allegiance this country, won't wear a flag pin, won't put their hand over their heart during the national anthem.

Maybe those kind of jerks want Obama to go away, since Obama is so patriotic and all.

What do you know about being an American? You support Obama. That's about as un-American as you can get, unless you supported Hillary too.

Aristeides is proud of his/her education. He/she can see things about Obama that we can't. You have to have a liberal arts education to see it. Any degree in science disqualifies you. According to most in the liberal arts world, people with science degrees are uneducated. Logic and Obama don't go together well, so he must chant "change, change, change", regardless of the fact most of his white supporters have no idea what kind of change he is talking about and he sure the heck isn't going to tell them the truth.

One would think that they would teach a more colorful style of insult at Oxford.