# I'd pit the president, but I'm afraid the Secret Service will come to my house. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 9, 2004, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-pit-the-president-but-im-afraid-the-secret-service-will-come-to-my-house/273924 "2004-11-09T23:39:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-pit-the-president-but-im-afraid-the-secret-service-will-come-to-my-house/273924/21 "2004-11-10T03:57:30Z")
I’ve nothing new to add from the previous pitting of this entry: > **[I pit the Secret Service](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=283337)** > > I check LiveJournal (a blogging service) once in a blue moon, and my friend on the site was fuming over this. WTF? Since when does the Secret Service get away with things like this? :mad: I believe we thoroughly covered the misplaced pitting there. ---
**Author:** ![davenportavenger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f8ce5/32.png) [@davenportavenger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davenportavenger)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-pit-the-president-but-im-afraid-the-secret-service-will-come-to-my-house/273924/22 "2004-11-10T04:36:57Z")
> [@Ferret Herder](#): > > Did you miss point #5 of her post? She suspects something far more mundane, that someone on LJ who dislikes her decided to fuck with her life. Yes, I caught that part, but presumably hundreds of people, including the crazy, senile, and/or naive, tip off the FBI every day about all kinds of stuff including LJ posts. The FBI is only supposed to investigate whatever actually looks suspicious, not everything. This post, IMO, was not that suspicious. (I really wish I could find that screen capture.) Someone else might have called the FBI, but they’re the ones that decided to intervene, and since the original post wasn’t all that inflammatory, I can only guess that the FBI thought they’d “investigate” this case so they could put the fear of God into webloggers. Like when they “arrest” a little kid for shoplifting and scare the crap out of him and his friends. Scare tactics is all it really is. ---
**Author:** ![Abbie\_Carmichael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/49beb7/32.png) [@Abbie\_Carmichael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Abbie_Carmichael)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-pit-the-president-but-im-afraid-the-secret-service-will-come-to-my-house/273924/23 "2004-11-10T07:13:40Z")
> [@This Year's Model](#): > > Bill Clinton once held up traffic at Los Angeles International to get a haircut. Or so the story goes. Just read about this. He shore did. Two hours of diverted planes so Christophe could give him a $200 haircut. Which leads me to the question: what kind of slacker hairstylist takes TWO HOURS to cut hair? Especially guy hair. Not much to it, y’know? ---
**Author:** ![yosemite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3ab097/32.png) [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-pit-the-president-but-im-afraid-the-secret-service-will-come-to-my-house/273924/24 "2004-11-10T08:35:45Z")
[Here’s a page with the screenshot](http://www.livejournal.com/community/debate/3516751.html). I think it’s a judgment call. The original post was kind of an unwise thing to say on a public forum, really. An really foolhardy topic to discuss, you know? Praying fervently for Bush’s death? Death+President+Fervent Hopes Expressed for His Demise = A Visit from the SS. :shrug: I am guessing that the SS got a report and went out to investigate because they felt obliged to, but they probably suspected that it wasn’t going to amount to much. (I’m sure they’re used to this sort of thing.) ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-pit-the-president-but-im-afraid-the-secret-service-will-come-to-my-house/273924/25 "2004-11-10T09:05:37Z")
From the other thread: > [@DocCathode](#): > > The secret service investigates threats not only because they may turn out to real dangers, but to discourage people from making threats. They are trying to reduce the size of the haystack. If people know that making a threat against the President will result in an investigation, most people will be careful to express their feelings about the President in other ways. This results in less threats needing to be investigated, and a higher chance that an investigation will uncover a real danger. ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-pit-the-president-but-im-afraid-the-secret-service-will-come-to-my-house/273924/26 "2004-11-10T16:32:39Z")
See, it was a PRAYER that Bush die. And this administration believes in the power of prayer. Ergo, they were really, really worried that her prayer might be answered. They had to nip it in the bud before Jesus heard. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-pit-the-president-but-im-afraid-the-secret-service-will-come-to-my-house/273924/27 "2004-11-10T16:35:47Z")
Should’ve just taken Jesus down to Gitmo and made sure that he was unconnected to this whole terror-prayer bussiness. Just to be sure. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-pit-the-president-but-im-afraid-the-secret-service-will-come-to-my-house/273924/28 "2004-11-10T16:40:26Z")
The USSS received a tip about a “threat” to the president. They had to investigate, its what they do. They took ten minutes and talked to Annie. They decided there wasn’t a threat and left. Non-issue. Move along there is nothing to see here. ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-pit-the-president-but-im-afraid-the-secret-service-will-come-to-my-house/273924/29 "2004-11-10T16:42:11Z")
> [@D\_Odds](#): > > I’ve nothing new to add from the previous pitting of this entry: > > [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=283337](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=283337) > > I believe we thoroughly covered the misplaced pitting there. Thanks, **D\_Odds** , you rock. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-pit-the-president-but-im-afraid-the-secret-service-will-come-to-my-house/273924/30 "2004-11-10T16:51:00Z")
I still feel like I can say what I want about the president and not face interrogation. I don’t feel like I can say that I would do him harm, which is fine because I don’t think I want to be explaining that one to St. Peter if I did. I would, however, be quite amused if he contracted the world’s worst case of diarrhea. But if you say or do things that would indicate the desire to do actual harm to the president, then you don’t have anything to complain about when the SS comes knocking. That’s what they do. If you’re just a harmless mouthy crank, they’ll likely let you be. ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-pit-the-president-but-im-afraid-the-secret-service-will-come-to-my-house/273924/31 "2004-11-10T17:06:09Z")
> [@Abbie Carmichael](#): > > Just read about this. He shore did. Two hours of diverted planes so Christophe could give him a $200 haircut. > > Which leads me to the question: what kind of slacker hairstylist takes TWO HOURS to cut hair? > > Especially guy hair. Not much to it, y’know? That oughtta be clue number one that it never happened, don’cha think? But for the causality impaired: > [@](#): > > I hadn’t found a barber in Washington yet; I couldn’t go back to Arkansas every three weeks to see Jim Miles, and my hair was too long. Hillary had had her hair done by a man in Los Angeles, Cristophe Schatteman, who was a friend of the Thomasons and whom I liked very much. I asked Cristophe if he would be willing to give me a quick trim. He agreed to do it and met me in my private quarters on Air Force One. Before we started, I asked the Secret Service not once, but twice, to make sure I wouldn’t cause any delay in takeoffs or landings if I put off our departure for a few minutes. They checked with the airport personnel, who said it would be no problem. Then I asked Cristophe just to make me presentable as quickly as possible. He did, in ten minutes or so, and we took off. > > The next thing I knew, there was a story out that I had kept two runways tied up for an hour, inconveniencing thousands of people, while I got a $200 haircut from a fancy hairdresser who was known only by his first name. Forget the basketball game with inner-city kids; the irresistible news was that I had shed my Arkansas roots and populist politics for an expensive indulgence. It was a great story, but it wasn’t true. First of all, I didn’t pay $200 for the ten-minute trim. Second, I didn’t keep anybody waiting to take off or land, as the Federal Aviation Administration records showed when they were finally released a few weeks later. I was appalled that anyone would think I’d do such a thing. I might have been President, but Mother would still have given me a whipping if I’d kept a lot of people waiting an hour while I got a haircut, much less a $200 one… [http://www.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get\_topic;f=37;t=000870;p=0](http://www.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=37;t=000870;p=0) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-pit-the-president-but-im-afraid-the-secret-service-will-come-to-my-house/273924.md?page=1)