I heard in the news last week that Bush sr. was taken to a safe place in Texas by govt security officials during the 9//11 attacks. Were the other former presidents, Clinton, Reagan, Carter and Ford, taken to a safe place by security during the attacks, also?
This may belong in the GQ forum, but I ask it here in GD because it may have some relevance to some of the debates going on here.
Dunno either way, but I feel impelled to ask, “Why would former presidents need to be moved to a safe place?” It’s not like they’re in line to run the country or anything. They aren’t going to be invited back to oversee any conflicts or crises or anything.
Duck Duck Goose:
I would say because they can be symbolic targets: espically so if they were involved in something connected to something that’s against Your Cause[sup]tm[/sup]. (Heh. Is that sentance round-about enough for ya?)
[sub]Back to the orginal question…[/sub]
If I can find a cite, I’ll toss it up, but I remember CNN mentioning that Clinton also found himself with sudden extra security around him. I don’t remember if he was taken to a ‘safe’ spot, or if they just provided extra security just in case. (Now for the fun of trying to wade through all the WTC stuff to confirm my memory.)
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<< For everything, there is a season. >>
Clinton was in Australia at the time, and presumably under hightened protection.
it was a terrorist attack. Certainly whacking an ex-President has to be easier than the current President, but such an horrifying act would be in line with WTC.
Plus, if some of us murricans are dumb enough to kill Indians because they look like they might be Arabs, you have to assume there might be some wannabe terrorists who’d go after George Sr. because he’s got the same name…
I think it is safe to say that GW’s pop would have been moved to a safe spot even if he wasn’t a former president.
china guy is right, clinton was in australia. though it is important to note that hillary was in ny and couldn’t find chelsea for a few hours after the attack.
What about the rest of GW’s relatives? His mom, his siblings, his children. If your ‘theory of relativity’ is true, then I would think all of his closest relatives would have been considered targets, and would have been given the same special protection George sr. was. However, I have not heard anything in the news saying that happened, and I doubt it did. I have only heard George sr. was taken to a safe hiding place.
I heard on the news that the Secret Service grabbed Al Gore and whisked him away to a secure location during the bombings.
The secret service is charged with protecting current and former presidents and vice presidents, their families, and presidential candidates.
Since George HW Bush qualifies under three of those categories, I believe that he is entitled to secret service protection.
Now, what was the point of this question.
So far, Clinton is the only other ex mentioned here as possibly getting extra security attention. However, since he was far from the USA in another western country, maybe he should not be included in this analysis.
The point is, I am wondering if Bush sr. got more special protection after the attack started, and/or got more media attention regarding his safety, than the other ex-presidents did. From what I have heard so far and seen in this thread, that does appear to be the case. It does seem like he was considered more of a target than the other ex-prezes.
If this is true, it does have implications for some of my other debates in this forum.
This is probably off topic, but all presidential candidates? Did Nader, Buchanan, the socialist candidate, libertarian candidate, etc., all get secret service protection when they were candidates?
Posting only as a reminder that not all liberals believe that the terrorist action is the result of some grand scheme/ lack of planning/bad policies etc. of only republican presidents.
In answer to the OP, what Lemur said (I believe that Clinton is the last pres to get this protection for ‘life’.) Yes, candidates got protection too, don’t know if they only protected candidates getting matching funds for example.
i would say that bush sr was entitled to more protection, as he met all three qualifications of secret service protection, as lemur said. an attack against bush sr would make more sense strategically, to cause grief to the current president, than killing another ex. ie – why would anyone kill reagan? that would be just sick (not that killing anyone else isn’t, but the poor guy is so unhealthy), and wouldn’t get them any sort of strategic value like the current attacks did.
Secret Service protection is covered under 18 U.S.C. § 3056. Section (a)(3) grants protection to former presidents and their spouses for their lifetimes if they were president prior to Jan. 1, 1997. Those holding office after Jan. 1, 1997 get protection for 10 years after leaving office.
Section (a)(7) grants protection to “Major Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates and, within 120 days of the general Presidential election, the spouses of such candidate.” Which candidates qualify as “major” is determined by the Secretary of the Treasury “after consultation with an advisory committee consisting of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, teh minority leader of the House of Representatives, the majority and minority leaders of the Senate, and one additional member selected by the other members of the committee.”
I got this information out of an old-fashioned book, so I don’t have a link handy.
OK, here’s a fancy internet site with the Secret Service info.
Zoff, thanks for the info. Interesting side stuff.
Back to the topic, jonfromdenver is using the ‘theory of relativity’ again. Yes, attacking Bush sr. would cause GW grief, but so would attacking his mom, siblings, kids, etc. Bush sr. is the only one I heard was taken to a safe place.
Thusm I want to compare the protection of the 5 ex-prez’s only.
Why does it need to be true to have implications in your other debates here? You’ve said yourself that facts don’t matter in GD. Just pretend it’s true, that’s good enough for us.
One other good reason I can think of for George I getting somewhat more protection the day of the attacks is the Saddam Hussein factor. It wasn’t at all clear that day who was attacking us, heck, it isn’t even clear now. Given that Saddam would love to strike out at the US, and terrorism is one of his few potential weapons, any reasonable person would agree that George Bush the Elder is at more risk than any of the other ex-presidents of being the target of a Bagdad-initiated terrorist attack.
I would like to think no one would try to kill Reagan, as sick as he is, but I think we can all agree that the 9/11 attacks give ample proof that these people have no morals whatsoever. There were children in those planes, and most likely in the WTC as well (observation deck).
FWIW, I remember reading/hearing a report about George II’s daughters the day of the attack…can’t remember if it said they were moved somewhere else, or just “secured”. In general, the Secret Service doesn’t like to go into a lot of specifics, so just because we don’t hear about, say, Jimmy Carter being moved somewhere doesn’t mean he wasn’t.
Just because we don’t know about it via CNN doesn’t mean extra protection wasn’t given to a whole bunch of people, including the President’s family, the Clintons, and more.
What are they supposed to do? Hold a press conference saying "Agents Smith and Jones picked up the Speaker of the House at 3 minutes after the 2nd attack. He was driven in a black Cadillac Whatsit to 1225 NW E St, Washington, DC. 02134-4176. Here’s a map from Yahoo, with driving directions!
…And it looks like Curious George’s endless quest to dig up dirt on the president has failed once again. Poor George.
Paging the man with the yellow hat… Paging the man with the yellow hat… Please pick up your monkey and take him home. He’s causing trouble again.
As has been noted, Clinton was here in Australia at the time the attacks happened - he was given heightened personal protected and heightened protection was also given to all US and Israeli assets such as embassies and consulates.
Our Prime Minister was in the US at the time of the attacks, and he and his family were taken to the Australian embassy and the embassy was placed under the protection of armed secret service agents.
I very much doubt that our PM was afforded protection which wasn’t also given to the ex-presidents and their families.