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Why would anybody off Bush? Anybody who wants to see America ruined would want to leave Bush in office. And if you hate what he's done, well, it's not like replacing him with Cheney will do any good.

As to Obama? Well, saving black Presidents is the reason we keep Kiefer Sutherland around.

I hate this talk. It's just ugly. Anytime race raises it's ugly head it's always bad news. Taking a shot at President Obama would be bad bad bad for everybody in this country. It would keep race as the immovable stumbling block in everything.

Martin Luther King, Malcolm X (who was killed by the Black Muslims, so it's not like that's really much of an indication of American racism), Medgar Evers...is there someone else I'm forgetting? An example that isn't over 40 years old at this point? Fred Hampton? I mean, I don't think New York City Councilman James E. Davis or journalist Chauncey Bailey are really what people are thinking of...

I'm not saying that there isn't some real cause for concern, I just think people are blowing it somewhat out of proportion.

Well, they did kill Mace Windu.

Thurgood Marshall certainly had a major influence on national politics. However, I'll grant that saying "Hey, look at that one important guy who wasn't shot!" is a bit like shouting "Painted schools!" in regard to Iraq.

Silly conspiracy theorists! Everybody knows that they'll do it via FEMA after a series of natural and man-made disasters.

Though on a more serious note..uh maybe I'm just cynical but I pretty much assume that no matter who the current President happens to be there is some crazy plotting to kill him/her/it.

Though in practical terms, it is just isn't that easy to assassinate a President. Heck, if it was Al-Qaeda would just play whack-a-mole with our President and Vice-President kind of like we do with the "2nd-in-command-for-today" in Iraq.

History shows us it isn't impossible (though I think it is more difficult today than it was in the 60s and maybe even the 80s) but I don't really think that Obama has, taking all this into account, a greater absolute chance of being successfully assassinated than any other President.

Isn't it a bit early to be including Obama among the black Americans who "significantly influence national politics, culture, etc."? Yes, the man has the Democratic nomination and probably will win in November, but he also might just be a colossally bad president, too, and his net effect on everything from civil rights to international relations might end up negative.

You're thinking like rational human beings would. Those aren't the ones to do something bad to Obama. It is the like of that dude who fired in a Tennessee church the other day that are more likely to do something stupid.

Obama is all but guaranteed to be remembered fondly if he becomes President. Aside from the historic nature of his background and all that, it would be almost impossible for him to look bad in comparison with his predecessor. I mean, just look at the way we regard Nixon and Carter, and the absence of a push to rehabilitate Nixon's....

Oh, wait.

OK, yeah, maybe Obama will be remembered as a shitty President. Meanwhile, I suspect that Bush will some day be regarded as a great President. I hate that possibility, but I fear that he'll be rehabilitated, and if Iraq in 2038 is less shitty than Iraq in 2008 then a bunch of dumbshits will insist that it was all worth it. (I mean, look at the standard of living in Russia today compared with Russia 90 years ago! Clearly Lenin was on the right track!)

thoreau, of course Obama will have accomplished something genuinely historic if he is elected and will be remembered for that if for nothing else. But by the time we've had ten or twelve black presidents that might well be all he's remembered for.

Oh, I see. But I didn't think anyone here wants Obama's visage carved into Mt. Rushmore.

But whether Obama turns out libertarian or not, leftist, elitist, centrist, rightist, carrotist, or what have you, regardless, someone's bound to think or attempt to do a stupid thing. Like that dude in tennessee the other day.

The extremist militant militia movement hated Clinton with a passion. A lot of those types were convinced the UN black helicopter take-over was underway in the 90's yet Clinton managed to get by without getting shot despite that decade having a very high profile anti-government inspired terrorist attack.

EDIT: Please note I'm not directly equating the militia movement and the white supremacist movements (though is definitely some overlap in those circles), I'm just noting that the militia movement is definitely (particularly then) full of some heavy duty frothing types who have guns and know how to use them.

There are always crazies who want to kill the president, and a real number of them are serious about it.

On the plus side, the sort of people willing to risk it aren't the most rational, capable individuals. Whether they succeed has much more to do with whether anyone's listening to Secret Service recommendations than any serious ability on their part.

I'm not certain there is a rhyme or reason for assassination attempts. Trying to predict based on popularity or lack thereof seems pointless. Two seperate unbalanced women took a crack at Ford in two years. Maybe he wasn't a genius, but I don't remember him as the target of rabid wingnuts' hate at all. Throw in the bastard that held the office for the previous six years (zero shots fired) and it's hard to make sense out of it. Shit, Reagan got shot by some deranged twat trying to impress a lesbian actress.

Any president is going to be a target for some insane idiot. In our barely functional society being famous makes you a target (John Lennon) and nobody is more famous than the US president.

That said, I honestly believe the Secret Service will be going the extra mile to ensure that the first black president doesn't get killed by a racist or an imbecile. I sincerely hope that Obama listens to the advice of his security people. He, like all presidents, ignores it at his own peril.

Eric- I just made a correction to my comment. I am talking about their followers.

so is this kind of talk popular with folks you guys know?

i'm curious about that angle too.

I am hoping he is elected.

And I am counting on him being a horrible quasi Carter.
So that we can have another Ronald Reagan, and maybe another republican revolution of '94.
A rebellion against income taxes, and against gun laws.

We ain't going to get any of that with McCain. He will be a decent socialist president, and people will think that is what opposition to the Democrats is supposed to look like. And it isn't.

I think you're going to be disappointed. The mindset is different now than it was then.

No. Affirmative Action community.

No you were right, he is the choice of the illuminati, and CFR, and the Bildenburgs. I have the emails that prove it somewhere if you really want.

How so? It seems the same.

Every Democratic platform boils down to that. They tend to not do as much of it as they promise. And the Republicans tend to do damn near as much of it, if not more when they can get away with it.

I never thought we'd have to elect a Republican to get greater federal control of schools and subsidized pills for old folks.

Why don't *I* get these emails? You guys must be part of the illuminati.

Sheesh! You're an illuminati, too? Who else in here is an illuminati? I bet I am the only one who is not an illuminati.

I'd like to go ahead and voice my support for not shooting anyone.

No, a Freemason. But we have officer exchance programs and a universal email list. And we also have the annual "Shriners vs. 8-foot-tall Reptiles 3 on 3 B-Ball tourney" every May to celebrate the feast of Saint Isidore the Laborer. That's always lots of fun.

I tried to read about the Freemasons, but never met one.

By the way, I am heading to DC next week. Just sayin'. Monday-Thursday.

Not directly, no.

Among the shooting community, though, there is something of a fear that if Obama (or any other politician) comes to a bad end that the inevitable legislative backlash will single out gun owners in a vicious and unfair way.

Of course, such fears are somewhat rooted in historical precedent- The Gun Control Act of 1968 were a result of JFK and MLK, and Sarah Brady wouldn't have ever ended up as the figurehead for the country's most well-known anti-gun group if not for Hinkley's attempt on Reagan.

It's lunchstealer's proposal, not mine. I just stipulated that it should also apply to the government, organized religion, and "private" contractors. And that we should make an especial point of not shooting people who aren't a threat to us.

It's lunchstealer's proposal, I'm just riffing on it.

OK that's cool. Love for the lunchstealer.

EDIT
BTW Ali, if you take off the tinfoil hat, you can get the emails beamed directly into your brain.

Maybe. I was going by the nom de guerre of [REDACTED]. What was yours?

You can have those dispensations if I get to open fire on anybody who tries to appoint me to a committee that meets more than once per quarter.

Nah. The life insurance is the image in every body's mind of Cheney standing before John Roberts with one hand on the Bible and the other upraised saying "I, Richard Bruce Cheney, do solemnly swear..."

Dick Nixon had a similar insurance policy in the form of Spiro Agnew.

I know! And always with the "precious bodily fluids" claptrap. You got lucky, though; [REDACTED] is always all "oh, [REDACTED] that [REDACTED] faster and [REDACTED] that [REDACTED] until [REDACTED] gets home with the twelve pack of [REDACTED] and the cola so that we can frost the [REDACTED]." Man, what a pain.

Well,... lets be honest here. Some people DO need a killin'. So unless you have an easier way of stabbing people or something.

But I do support not killing anyone that was elected, no matter how bad they are. It then becomes the fault of the electors, and they have to pay for their mistakes.

If The A Team has taught us anything, it's the non-violent solution to the ice-cream truck problem. The solution is dynamite. There are two standard applications in this situation, both guaranteed not to injure anyone.

First, throw the dynamite about 30 feet in front of the truck. It will go off under one tire, causing almost no structural damage to the vehicle, but causing it to flip up onto its side. The offending ice-cream vendor will then clamber out and run away dazed, smoking, but otherwise unharmed.

Second, throw the dynamite in through the vent on top, the open vending window, or any similar orifice in the ice-cream truck. The vendor will then jump out just before the truck is destroyed. He will roll down a convenient embankment, and again clamber away dusty but generally unharmed.

It is possible that if the ice cream vendor is a more major character, he will show up later with an arm in a sling, but this is an unlikely outcome in this scenario. And in the unlikely event of this type of injury, it will generally build character, and possibly be a counterpoint to his realization that he was on the wrong path, and his decision to no longer torment the innocent with his ice-cream-truck-music ways.