Sheesh. You know moderators are paying attention to this thread. Two of us have posted here, and you mention it yourself.
This post is not appropriate for IMHO. This is an official warning to cool your jets.
I think a lot of it has to do with how a passionate hatred of George W. Bush is the usual characteristic of decent, rational people.
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What about 9/11? The target of the fourth plane was, it is thought, The White House. Isn’t that an assassination attempt?
Would Bush have been at home if the plane had flown on time?
A Guardian columnist said the same thing about Bush, but said it was a “joke”. http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:QiwoiYXDsn8J:www.fridgemagnet.org.uk/brooker.html+“Lee+Harvey+Oswald”+brooker&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a
I must have missed the book and the movie about assassinating Clinton.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13374-2004Jun28.html
http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=24057
Helms was condemned from both sides of the aisle. Where was the left’s condemnation of the things I’ve cited?
These are “good” people?
You can, of course, tell the difference between a work of art and a statement from a U.S. Senator?
That is exactly my point. In this current climate of anti-terrorism paranoia, it seems to me that it will be much harder to even come remotely close to killing Bush. As I said, a spur-of-the-moment attempt by a loony won’t even get close to the pres, a planned attempt will likely get the attention of Homeland Security long before it gets performed. So, the fact that there are no obvious attempts on his life may simply be that no one has been able to come anywhere close to making such an attempt.
You, Sir, are a huge douche. I’m on your side – to be able to ask the question. Hell, I don’t agree with most of Bush’s policies and I want to have the right to publicly question those policies. I disagree with what you say, but I belive in your right to say it. If you can’t see that then that’s not my problem.
I agree that Lincoln was one of the best, if not the best, US President. It would have been wonderful for the man who gave the “With malice toward none and charity toward all” speech had also been the one to implement those policies. Sadly, history did not go that way. While I defer in my knowledge of history to anyone, I have to ask if the mundane business of governing during the messy Reconstruction period would have taken some of the shine off of Lincoln’s reputation. Possibly. Had he survived to finish his second term he would “merely” be remembered as one of our greatest Presidents, and would not also be remembered as the last martyr of the Civil War.
Rationally speaking, if any president would be expected to be targetted by an assassin, this would be the president. However, assassinating the president isn’t a rational action. It’s crazy stupid. The only people deranged enough to want to kill the president are probably too deranged to seize on any of the many reasonable pretexts for doing the act, and are waiting for instructions from their pet goldfish before they move. And who knows who that finny bastard is going to target?
How can I possibly not warn you now?
This post is not appropriate for IMHO. This is an official warning.
This thread is in IMHO, and will remain in IMHO until it either dies or is closed. Most posters have managed to address the question rationally and unemotionally. I expect all posters to do that. Anyone who wishes to insult other posters can go to the Pit.
The OP seems to think that the likelihood of a kook taking a potshot at the President is somehow related to the target’s popularity. That is to say that if you are unpopular, you are somehow asking for it.
Could it be that nutjobs assassinate beloved people to make their mark? W isn’t beloved at all. Nobody would mourn him. Well, maybe his family might but otherwise there’d not be a massive outpouring of grief worldwide. So any self-respecting nutjob wouldn’t go after him.
And saner (?) people with an axe to grind who have the skills and equipment to actually do the deed probably all behave in a way that can be ‘profiled’ and therefore planned against.
If anyone were to do it and succeed, it’d be a ‘gone postal’ type of event carried out by someone who already works there, I’d imagine. But then again, the symptoms of someone about to snap are well-enough known and there are enough security people around that such a person would be spotted by his colleagues. Most folk in the post office or the McDonald’s aren’t trained to recognize when their coworkers are about to blow.
And after all, what most people don’t know is that mysterious box seen under his suit during the debates is actually the control panel for the personal force field he wea
Nope. Remember, he was in that grade school classroom when the (Secret Service?) guy leaned down and whispered to him what had happened and he got all pinched-face and serious like?
And to the Secret Service: You go, guys! Protect the President and catch all of those counterfeiters! You rock! I welcome you!
Which really just emphasizes my point, thanks, which is that the Secret Service rather lives up to its ominous sounding name on most occasions.
Quiddity! Hang in there! We’re rounding up a passel of Doper lawyers to spring you before they ship you off to Gitmo!
Hmmm…I can’t help but wonder what the reaction would have been around here had the question been “Since everyone hates her so much, why hasn’t anyone killed Hillary Clinton yet?”
A good deal different, I suspect.
I guess that if you only wonder how people will react in any given situation, you can assume whatever you want without fear of contradiction. It may seem as if you’ve won an argument, but you do realize that your “opponent” is imaginary, right?
Actually, this makes an interesting 'What if." If W were to die in office, we might say of him (as we foolishly say of JFK) “The war would have turned out better had he lived.”
It is hard to overestimate the value of a timely death.
(Washington got a JFK Opera House. I am thinking a GWB Rodeo Arena.)
I went to a rally in Lexington for President Clinton the day before his re-election in 1996. I was there a few hours early, so I had time to reflect on the Secret Service presence.
It was impressive. A lot of it I thought was fairly ingenious, such as a large tarp that blocked the view from a place across the street where a sniper could have easily hidden out. There were also very plainly visible sharpshooters on every tall surface that I could see.
It occurred to me that it was important for the sharpshooters to be visible. As with most security systems, the main point was not to respond to an attack, but to discourage one.
I imagine that if a would-be assassin had shown up, he probably would have made the same assessment and decided that it just wasn’t going to happen. And remember, this was well before 9/11, so I’m sure it’s an order of magnitude tighter these days.