The Busiest People In Washington

Via Steven D at the Frog Pond, if you want to know who the most overworked people in Washington D.C. are, I'll give you a hint. They are responsible for protecting the man code named "Renegade" from the many odd death threats he gets.

More than 30 threats daily, that is.

Since Mr Obama took office, the rate of threats against the president has increased 400 per cent from the 3,000 a year or so under President George W. Bush, according to Ronald Kessler, author of In the President's Secret Service.

Some threats to Mr Obama, whose Secret Service codename is Renegade, have been publicised, including an alleged plot by white supremacists in Tennessee late last year to rob a gun store, shoot 88 black people, decapitate another 14 and then assassinate the first black president in American history.

Most however, are kept under wraps because the Secret Service fears that revealing details of them would only increase the number of copycat attempts. Although most threats are not credible, each one has to be investigated meticulously.

Let that sink in. President Obama gets four times the death threats that George W. Bush did. Yes, you expect a certain number of crazies to make threats against the President. But an increase of 400%? The economy is largely the same as it was 12 months ago. Obama is still more popular than Dubya was during his last entire term. We're still in Iraq and Afghanistan, just like we were under Bush.

Gosh, what could be the motivational crux of this quadrupling of Presidential death threats?

In all seriousness, let's stop kidding around. I've been talking about this since well before the election that there are those in the United States that simply cannot handle the idea of an African-American President. A year ago I said the following:

A Successful Black Man is only so because he has recieved advantages that he did not deserve. Make no mistake: the GOP is using the oldest of gentlemanly Southern code word racism here to portray Barack Obama as the ultimate Carpetbagger, the culmination of every perceived slight of reverse racism, the unfortunate endpoint of the Affirmative Action generation: A Black Man in the White House. He must be torn down. He must be stopped. He must be destroyed at any cost, because if an African-American man can become President, then there is nothing holding back the Hordes from the gates.

Barack Obama is nothing less than the implied end of White America. This is how the GOP will frame him, if you will excuse the pun. He is the anti-hope, the anti-America, the antichrist, the anti-everything. Decades of right wing radio vitriol and the wingnuts they have given rise to has culminated in a clarion call to arms against this man to those whose ears have been attuned to listen, couched in the language of secret hatred.

They will not let him become President. They will stop at nothing to make sure he is not. And over the next 90 days we'll see the depth to which Americans will sink to stop Barack Obama.

It will not be pretty. And it scares me how bad I think it will get.

They tried like hell to stop him then. They were not successful. Clearly it has only fueled the hatred even more.

The racist attacks, the Birther stupidity, the implied violence and the anger...it has erupted to the surface now. It is not an amusing and sad little group of "dead-enders who are harmless." It is massive increase in the number of threats against the President, and I agree 100% with Steven D that the blame for the increase belongs to the Pretty Hate Machine:

But seriously, isn't it about time we lay the blame for this where it belongs: at the feet of people like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and the entire cavalcade of right wing pundits, talk show hosts and related hatemongers? Yes, an African American President was bound to come in for some level increased threats considering the racial animosity many feel toward any black man, much less a successful politician who overcame great odds to win the Presidency. But the rate and number of these threats is also a direct result of the hateful, racist and eliminationist rhetoric on conservative radio shows, TV shows and blogs.

Note that word there. "Eliminationist." It definitely sums up the way these crackpots feel towards Obama. They want to get rid of him. They want to believe he is not legitimate, so that getting rid of him is an act of patriotism. So they go on the air and he's not the legitimate President, that he hates white people, that he's a fascist, socialist dictator. They are dealing out reasons why we the people should rise up against him and not think anything untoward about it. The hate is now mainstream. It is growing because it is being allowed to grow, it is being fed by these merchants of violence and hatred.

"Will no one rid me of this troublesome Obama?" they ask.

The people who have dedicated their lives to stopping him have to deal with four times the threats they did just a year ago. That number will only increase as these peddlers of hatred continue to attack the President. The article goes on to say that the Secret Service is undermanned, and having to make do.

Let THAT sink in for a while, too. No doubt the same hate merchants will soon be on the airwaves attacking this article for putting the President's life at risk by revealing the increased pressure on the Secret Service, all the while refusing to take any responsibility for fomenting the angry mob against him.

And there's the real crime.

Pray that nothing happens to the President or his family, or to any of the agents sworn to take a bullet for them. The Pretty Hate Machine already has enough blood on its hands over the last six months alone. I fear truly that somebody will take Obama Derangement to its "logical endpoint."

And it will happen again and again. Will it really take a state funeral and a national day of mourning to stop the hate, folks? Would that even slow this horrific machine down?

The Wingers created, fed, and unleashed this beast. It has been loosed. Even blood may not slake its thirst.