And yet they never seem to notice the scores of actual threats (and implied threats) against Bush and Cheney. I guess threats from the left don't count.

It stops here.

"Sometimes agents of change end up being targets"
like Kennedy and Reagan, but on the other hand even total zeros like Ford and Carter got shot at.

President is a high risk job no matter who holds it. This is total BS.

As to where the press gets it from... doesn't Barack's wife Michelle keep talking about it?

Wow the media making ridiculous hype over nothing! What a surprise....Wake up.

The sad fact is, disasters of all kinds fuel the media economically. Bad news sells. If you want to marginalize those who try to grow their own bad news, stop patronizing them.

Does Teddy's endorsement open the gates for a drunken vehicle swimming accident?

This is just one of the more subtle ways the media manipulates people's sympathies. The insular media elite don't actually want Obama to be martyred. They want people to support him even more, if only out of outrage that his life may be in danger because of whatever they think he stands for.

These "warnings" are deliberate.

I will tell you - I am typing simultaneously with the lightbulb of inspiration going off, so this idea is utterly unvetted, but... the "Obama will be assassinated" is all part of the great 60's nostalgia that also helped power the anti-war movement.

The same folks who wish they could been there for the Vietnam protests secretly wish they could experience some national, soul-searing event like a Kennedy (or Kennedy, or King) assassination happen in their lifetime.

For such folks, Obama is perfect. And that answers the commenter who asked about Bush/Cheney - obviously, to this special type of imagination, someone whacking either of those two would not transport us back to the glorious 60's.

Just popped into my head, but I like it.

Stop writing about this crap, and it stops being written about. Just stop it.

Just another branch of the "fake but accurate" tree.

I think underneath it is also the assumption that the racists will literally kill to keep him from being president. And I am not sure he is 100% wrong. Hate is real, and just because 99% of the american people would be cool with him as president, doesn't quite make it 100%. And as we saw on 9-11 or in the OKC bombing, even a handful of idiots can do alot of damage.

It's like an early line in the original season of 24. Bauer starts looking into concerns for the then-senator, and someone says, "they'll say you are doing it because he is black."

And Bauer responds, "it IS because he is black. He is much more likely to be a target."

I'm an optimist when it comes to American race relations, but Bauer is right.

The MSM is well known for being in the hip pocket of the Clintons. We have seen this campaign descend in to the depths of racial bigotry pushed mainly by "HillBilly". It would not surprise me one bit to see someone track these vague assertions down and find Bill or Hillery’s finger prints all over them.

I'm glad its just about politicans who use the word 'change' a lot and not a race thing.

Tom McGuire wrote: "The same folks who wish they could been there for the Vietnam protests secretly wish they could experience some national, soul-searing event like a Kennedy (or Kennedy, or King) assassination happen in their lifetime."

Uh... there was one in their lifetime....I'm sure you remember the events of September 11, 2001.

Don't you know that Republicans are racist? Of course they will kill Obama if its a possibility he will be elected president.

C'mon. Republicans are EVIL. EEEEVVVVVIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLL.

Seriously, most conservatives just think liberals are misguided. However, most liberals think conservatives are bad people. Of course they'd kill a black president. That's they kind of stuff they do....

ChimpyMcHitlerHalliburton!!!!!!

His risk would go WAY up if Hillary was his VP pick. I wouldn't sell him insurance at any price in that case.

Jacknut:

I'm sure you remember the events of September 11, 2001.

I think underneath it is also the assumption that the racists will literally kill to keep him from being president. And I am not sure he is 100% wrong.

If there is a real threat to Obama's life it isn't racists, and it goes away once the nomination is divided. Where would this threat come from?

Hint #1: Jim MacDougal

Hint #2: Vince Foster

Yeah, this is tin-foil-hat territory, but at least it has some basis in fact and/or legend, unlike the "racist assassissin" speculation which is based on ... what exactly?

Yeah, Jacknut, you're right, but 9-11 doesn't count as "soul-searing" to the neo-hips because 3000 ordinary people were killed, not 1 liberal icon. :-P

I remember that sort of talk in 1980 or thereabouts when Ted Kennedy himself was running for the Democratic nomination. It was such a prevalent meme that we were talking about it in my elementary school class.

Wrote about this a while ago, Bob. It's partly 60's template, partly because they're such damn drama queens.

I think that David and Tom (among others) have the idea exactly right. The media isn't actually trying to get someone to kill Obama; they just want everyone who votes for Obama to feel like they're voting for a hero, a gen-you-wine HERO! We can bask in that reflected glory, and tell ourselves that we were Part Of It, we were the ones who helped Obama stand up against the murky forces of oppression--who are always out there! We must ever be vigilant! We must always be watchful!

It's funny that the same people who tell you that the "terrorist Muslim threat" is just a fake scare-tactic by the Republicans will then turn around and tell you that White Racist Conservatives are probably planning to shoot Obama. We don't know who or where they are, but they are Out There.

A.W.

That was the working assumption at first. It was shown to be false. Sen. Palmer was not a target because of his race.

"For reasons they will not openly disclose, media worldwide are hooked on the possibility that Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama will be assassinated."

I think I can clarify their reasons. Here is what the journalists are really saying:

"If it looks like he can win, Obama might be assassinated. Wouldn't that be AWESOME? Our circulation figures and ratings would go through the ROOF! . . . Oops, did I say 'awesome'? Sorry, I meant 'terrible'. Wouldn't that be TERRIBLE?"

But what if Obama was killed by a Muslim nutcase who thought he was apostate, or some other idiot reason? Then what would the media do?

Funny how all these assassination attempts and race card pulling are coming from liberals.

You mean like Sirhan Sirhan?

>But what if Obama was killed by a Muslim nutcase

You mean like Sirhan Sirhan?

"But what if Obama was killed by a Muslim nutcase who thought he was an apostate...?"

Someone at Kos would discover that said Muslim nutcase had once voted on a Diebold machine and connect the dots, concluding inevitably that the assassination had been conducted by "neocons." Two weeks later it would be considered common knowledge in the lefty Blogosphere. Congressional hearings would follow.

Oh, and the muslim nutcase would be cited as an example of what happens when conservative religious extremists are not suppressed.

It's wishful thinking with the lefties.... they are extremely mentally disturbed. Not trying to be funny. It's just a sad fact that they would rather see hate, death and destruction. They thrive on it. Very very sick people.

Personally, I think they all have some medieval idea that Obama is Kennedy-like and that his death would bring back the Summer of Love.

Don't pass up the chance! Buy the rights to the website name, "Obamatruth" RIGHT NOW!!!

In high school, I remember having a conversation with one of my older, liberal classmates who claimed that the next target of "them" was Mario Cuomo. Good thing Cuomo never ran for president, 'cause it would have happened. Or not.

Mario Cuomo??? Hahahaha! And Dukakis afterwards? Hahahaha!

Maybe it's because Obama is standing in the way of the Clintons' third term, and the MSM knows what happens to those that get in Bill and Hill's way.

I agree that making the media that suggestion in an interview is pretty strange. That said, I have talked to black people who are afraid that this will happen to Obama, and have mentioned it as a reason they are afraid of supporting him.

I have been a conservative for decades and I lnow no one on the Right that has anywhere near the friends, associates and partners dead as do the Clintons. Just sayin'.

C'mon, they are small and pathetic these days, but it only takes one crazy, and we all know it could happen.

Read what they said about Obama at this anti-Jena 6, anti-MLK Day march, where they chanted, "If it ain't white, it ain't right."

One member of the Nationalist Party used a noose as a leash for walking his dog. David Dupre of Tioga, La., displayed a .22-caliber revolver in the left-breast pocket of his military fatigue jacket, and a noose dangled off a knife strapped to his right leg. His son David Jr., meanwhile, entertained questions on the presidential race. Asked by the Intelligence Report what would he thought would happen if Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) were elected, the younger Dupre didn’t hesitate. “He’d catch a bullet. He’d get picked off before he’d even take the oath” because “he’s tied to the Arabs and the Muslims” and “Saddam Hussein wants him in office.” Both father and son were armed with “street sweeper” shotguns until Jena Police Chief Paul Smith told them he wouldn’t allow them to march unless they left the 12-gauge weapons in their vehicle, according to The Associated Press.

http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2008/01/23/no-king-just-jesters-in-jena/

There's no doubt in my mind that many in the media are weirdly and reprehensibly overexcited about the prospect of an Obama assassination (and probably about what they suppose that prospect says about the American public). But the Secret Service did in fact grant him a security detail last May in response to what may or may not have been actual threats. This is said to have been the earliest-ever such protection for a candidate. See for example:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18474444/

Suppose it were a disgruntled Clintonista who got whipped into a lather and waxed the O-man and not some "right wing whacko"?

Purp, in that case there would be two things happen immediately:
1- The perp's background and political beliefs would simply disappear down the memory hole, just like Sirhan's and Oswald's did. Check question: In all of your years, do you remember anyone in journalism or in academia actually pointing out that Oswald was a pro-Castro Communist or that Sirhan was an Arab nationalist? I have actually heard the Kennedy assassination blamed on Republicans...
2- There would be an immediate call for a total ban on handguns, no matter how the assassination took place and no matter if the hitter was actually a member of the Brady organization. The cry would be, "No More Obamas!" and it would start before the body had even been placed on a stretcher.

Speculating about an Obama assassination is fun for the press partly because, as Tom Maguire says, it's a chance to replay the sixties.

But I'm sure another reason is that it fits the narrative of an America still torn by its irredeemably racist past. To fit the narrative, it'd be a tragedy but it should happen, to be right. In fact, it needs to happen, otherwise their worldview trembles.

Kill Obama if he gets elected? No.

Kill myself if Obama gets elected? Maybe.

B Hussein Obama is still returning dirty money he took from Renzo. Will he also return the house and extra lot or donate it to charity? Na, he's as much a criminal as Renzo, just hasn't got caught, yet.

One of B Hussein Obama's black friends may whack him to get it the history books as something other than a welfare rider and then again he had better watch out for Shrillary's gang.

It's a government conspiracy, dude!