The NYTimes, Paper of Record goes there:
Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland was at the grocery store the other day when he ran into an elderly black woman who expressed growing concern about President Obama’s safety. Why, she asked, wasn’t he being better protected by his Secret Service agents?
The furor that led to this week’s resignation of the director of the Secret Service resonated deeply among blacks, outraged that those supposed to be guarding the first black president were somehow falling down on the job — and suspicious even without evidence that it may be deliberate.
“It is something that is widespread in black circles,” said Representative Emanuel Cleaver II of Missouri, who like Mr. Cummings is an African-American Democrat who has been approached repeatedly by voters expressing such a concern. “I’ve been hearing this for some time: ‘Well, the Secret Service, they’re trying to expose the president.’ You hear a lot of that from African-Americans in particular.”
Both Mr. Cummings and Mr. Cleaver said that they did not believe the Secret Service lapses reported recently had anything to do with Mr. Obama’s race and that they had tried to dispel the notion among their constituents. But the profound doubts they have encountered emphasize the nation’s persistent racial divide and reflect an abiding fear for Mr. Obama’s security that has unnerved blacks still mindful of the assassinations of Malcolm X and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr…
The Secret Service did detect a spate of threats around the time Mr. Obama won the presidency and took office. But without providing numbers, the agency flatly denied reports that he had received three or four times as many as other presidents and added that they eventually subsided. “After his first election, there was a spike in his numbers,” Mr. Donovan said. “They’ve leveled out and they’ve been consistent and similar to his predecessors.”…
Mr. Cleaver said that even though “I’m as paranoid as anyone else,” he rejected the suspicion and added that its prevalence troubled him. “There’s nothing further from the truth, and it’s a little dangerous for us to allow that thinking to grow and spread,” he said. “To the degree we can dismantle it, we should. I’m going to dispel it as much as I can.”
There’s also the question of why President Obama’s avowed enemies, like Darrell Issa, have suddenly become so deeply concerned about his personal safety. Just possibly coincidentally, there’s a ‘HistorySource’ article in the same NYTimes edition:
… [President Lyndon B.] Johnson himself did not blame his predecessor’s murder on the Secret Service’s shortcomings. He venerated his own longtime agent Rufus Youngblood…
Ultimately Johnson built an excellent relationship with the Secret Service. But as early as the week after the Dallas assassination, the F.B.I. director, J. Edgar Hoover, who was an old Johnson friend and Washington neighbor, tried to sow seeds of doubt in the president’s mind about the service. Hoover was eager not only to do some damage to a bureaucratic rival, but also to distract L.B.J. from mistakes made by his own bureau that may have contributed to the assassination. With the new president secretly recording their conversation on a Dictaphone machine, Hoover told Johnson that “much to my surprise, the Secret Service do not have any armored cars.”…
Always reaching for opportunity, Hoover tried to nudge L.B.J. to take presidential protection away from the Secret Service and give it to the F.B.I…
srv
So it’s all LBJ’s fault.
Mike J
I don’t think the Secret Service isn’t trying as hard, I think the problem is there have been three times as many threats and budgets have been cut and half the people in Congress believe that working for the government makes you an evil deadbeat who should be forced to live in a hole.
Linda Featheringill
Just being paranoic doesn’t keep danger away.
The black community might be a tad eager to believe the Secret Service doesn’t care enough. However, we don’t have proof that the community is wrong.
The President is probably in less danger than when he was first elected, but he’s still at risk.
FlipYrWhig
@Mike J: I think people in cop-like positions often slack off and/or abuse power. And I further think that most lines of work are filled with ineptitude, overconfidence, self-dealing and scandal.
joel hanes
The “Department of Homeland
JingoismInsecurity” should be dissolved, and all of its sub-agencies should be restored to their former positions in the Executive Branch.Like every idea that the W mis-administration had, it’s a counterproductive loser.
Mike J
@FlipYrWhig: Sure, but I don’t think they’re slacking off more, or are more inept than they’ve ever been. They simply have a harder job dealing with the number of armed racist fuckwits there are in the US.
Elie
@Mike J:
Do you have a link or source for that “three times the risk” statement? That is refuted in the content of this post…
It has two effects — 1) continues to whittle down trust blacks have in this key elite service, 2) has the distracting effect to make the President probably worry about not his safety alone but that of his family 3) sets up for a call to privatize the service, which I would greatly oppose.
So ok — tell me why this elite service is having so many problems with its performance and image? These are not baggers at Walmart who may get inattentive to detail when someone doesnt show up that shift. These are supposed to be elite, highly respected guardians and security specialists… so tell me….
schrodinger's cat
@Elie: The three times the risk statement is from a Washington Post article on the Secret Service.
Elie
@schrodinger’s cat:
Do you recall their source for that?
Mike J
@Elie:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/5967942/Barack-Obama-faces-30-death-threats-a-day-stretching-US-Secret-Service.html
aimai
Black people are not the only Obama voters who are concerned for the President’s–and the First Family’s-safety. And they are not the only ones who have worried from the very beginning that the President could be assassinated. I don’t think the entire SS is corrupt and behind this incompetence for racist reasons. But I’m pretty sure there are a lot of incompetent assholes in the SS who are opposed to this president and contemptuous of Democratic Presidents in general and who are disinclined to do their best.
Mike J
@Elie:
I don’t think black people are going to be the least bit surprised to learn that there is a much higher chance of being shot in the United States if you are black.
Tone In DC
@FlipYrWhig:
That’s a pretty good description of Humidity Central. And, to a lesser extent, Noo Yawk and LA, I figure.
The sad thing is, DC doesn’t have to be this bad. In the past, there were stretches of time where things actually seemed to move in a sensible, pragmatic direction. Off the top of my head:
Ike instituting the interstate highway system
LBJ signing the Great Society into law
Nixon creating the EPA
The PPACA in 2009
But, then, something happens to end the sensible pragmatism (maybe it’s the heat/humidity/electric catfish in the damn Potomac).
The Roberts Court. Watergate. COINTELPRO. Iraq 2003.
My head’s gonna start to ache in a minute.
TGIF. I need to not think about this stuff too much, at least until the Nats game is over.
Keith G
Anne Laurie, I am wondering about the logic/intension of that statement. It seems to assume that avowed political enemies in the opposition leadership would cheer a death and I do not see evidence of that.
@Mike J:
I think that this is fair. Management matters and the past two directors were plainly not up to the task. Individual agents may be as dedicated as ever. There are a lot of moving parts and it seems that recently no one has enforced a culture of accountability.
FlipYrWhig
@Mike J: Eh. I think if an aggressive media campaign focused on any large organization they’d be able to find people doing stupid lazy or show-offy shit instead of their jobs. I don’t think it’s “the Secret Service doesn’t care,” it’s “people don’t care.”
Mart
Friend from work is a Fox News wingnut. His son in law is a secret service agent. I have never spoke to the SIL. When arguing politics the FIL says the kid agrees with him on the awful president we are suffering under. That kind of loose talk seemed out of bounds from a SS agent. I have no knowledge if he really said that.
Two of my neighbors are retired secret service agents. They are both Fox news wingnuts hating on all things Obama. No different from 99% of the upper middle class old white guys that surround me.
jharp
My son just shook hands with President Obama.
schrodinger's cat
Secret Service kitteh is dedicated and hard at work
Baud
@jharp:
Another example of the Secret Service falling down on the job?
Just kidding. That’s awesome.
Amir Khalid
J. Edgar Hoover was always notorious for fighting turf battles with other agencies, wasn’t he? More interested in chasing glory for the FBI and himself, as I hear, than in identifying a core mission for his Bureau to excel at.
(I also heard, from an American journalist, that he dressed in women’s clothing and hung around in bars; but I’m told these stories remain unsubstantiated.)
KG
@srv: nah, LBJ was smart enough to not listen to Hoover on that one
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: Hoover was not a lumberjack, nor was he okay.
Keith G
@aimai:
.
I am pretty sure that those agents assigned to the details that protect our leadership are dedicated to their task and to their team and dedicated to the fulfillment of personal goals that they have been working extremely hard at for a long time.
Or do you think that likewise there are liberal agents protecting Boehner who are unenthused about the Speaker’s safety? If that is the case, then maybe the issue is much larger than the Secret Service.
Mike J
@Amir Khalid: He might have been a lumberjack, but he was most certainly not OK.
ETA: damn your fast typing, Omnes.
Gian
@jharp:
did he have hand buzzer from the Joker in the 60s Batman show?
Time to get Adam West! (much better than Alan West)
JoyfulA
@Keith G: If Obama were incapacitated, the GOP would be faced with ten years of President Joe Biden.
KS in MA
@Amir Khalid:
“J. Edgar Hoover was always notorious for fighting turf battles with other agencies, wasn’t he?”
Yes, and of course his FBI was notorious for being on the wrong side, much too often, in the South during the Civil Rights movement.
SiubhanDuinne
@jharp:
Wow!! Very, very cool! Can you put up a photo link, and/or provide more details? (“Start at the beginning and don’t leave anything out.”)
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
He wore high heels and pantyhose, suspendees and a bra.
I think I’ve mentioned before, but about almost 50 years ago I knew an FBI agent whose name was, I am not kidding here, Gay Walter Valentine III. (It’s the fact that the name was passed on through three generations that always tickles me.)
Not that there’s anything wrong with that….
WereBear
I think the Secret Service, like so much else in America, got completely screwed up by decades of Republican interference, crowned by the incredible incompetence that was the Bush Administration.
We gotta rebuild.
jharp
@SiubhanDuinne:
I got nothing so far. It only happened a short time ago in Princeton, IN.
And he is on his way to Kentucky to assist the Alison Grimes campaign right now.
I will when I can.
Mnemosyne
@Elie:
It’s because they simultaneously have three times more threats to investigate and have had to deal with staff cuts due to the sequester. They’re trying to do more with less, but as anyone who works at a job knows, it’s always bullshit when your boss tells you that you can totally do three times as much work in the same amount of time.
And, frankly, I think they’re making a bit of a ruckus and making these embarrassing stories public because they want their budget back and to be fully staffed again. I don’t know if it’s going to work, but I think that’s one of the reasons it’s happening.
Elie
@Mnemosyne:
I hope that you are right…
Its very upsetting to me as a black person and to my family which includes one former and one current SS member…
Ripley
@WereBear: The infrastructure rots.
And the owners hate the jocks, with their agents and their dates.
(“You’re just gonna have to wait!”)
Joseph Nobles
Because if he’s killed, all of Issa’s work trashing his presidency for the history books is for nothing.
SarahT
@aimai: BINGO
jenn
Another thing to bear in mind is that just because someone is Secret Service, doesn’t mean they’re tasked with being part of presidential security – they’re also in charge of counterfeiting/financial crimes. Would I be concerned with one of POTUS’s security detail spewing Fox anti-Obama idiocy? Absolutely. Would I be concerned about one of the anti-counterfeiting Secret Service agents doing the same? Not any more than I am about the rest of the random schmoes out there spewing that crap.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Slash and burn NeoConfederates have zero credibility on this issue. They’ve engaged in seditious disrespect for anything and everything associated with the federal government except themselves. They seriously need to sit down and STFU.
Aimai
@Keith G: no. I think its obvious that the animous towards democrats and towards this president is extremely widespread in the military, paramilitary, and SS among white officers. At this point conservative and republican persins in positions of power or authority simply cant be assumed to be acting professionally or in good faith.
WaterGirl
@Aimai:
This cannot be said often enough.
aimai
@WaterGirl: Sorry about the misspellings–I was on my phone and didn’t catch it in time. Persins is a bit much. But for fuck’s sake the military had to prosecute a couple of guys who refused to show up for work because “Obama wasn’t a real president” and the Air Force is absolutely stocked with rabid, crazed, right wingers who deny the separation of church and state and consider Obama a usurper. A Republican Congressman has bragged that he and other Republican political actors have been urging the Generals to revolt against Obama. At this point nothing would surprise me.
WaterGirl
@aimai: I was not making fun of you, I didn’t catch any of the misspellings – you know we humans do auto-correct in our brains.
I really thought what you said was great!
Omnes Omnibus
@aimai: But you will also note that the guys did get prosecuted – the organization did its thing; the Air Force point, I will concede; and the fact that GOP congresscritters are urging something stupid, does not in anyway mean that generals are going to do what the GOP urges – there is a lot of power and prestige that comes from being a general; why would they risk that?
aimai
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh, I don’t think the rot is very widespread. But KeithG seemed to be implying that it was absurd to think that people’s politics (i.e. the personal politics of the SS) played into how well or how poorly they did their jobs. I think that’s crazy. Its obvious that there has been a lot of near mutiny like, disloyal, behavior in the armed forces and in the paramilitaries (police, SS, national guard) and they’ve been egged on by Fox News and the Republican party. Public, visceral, contempt for the President and his family has been rampant among uniformed servicepeople and it has not been publicly rebuked by any authorities they recognize.
aimai
@WaterGirl: Sorry WAterGirl, I was just agreeing with you and apologizing in a generalized way for the typos. I recognized that you were agreeing with me and I appreciated your post. Just expanding on it.
Omnes Omnibus
@aimai: I’ll also admit that I may be influenced on this topic by the fact that my army contemporaries who stayed in are all at least full colonels by now. A lot of them were quite conservative, but not everyone was. I also cannot imagine any of them, no matter how conservative, not trying to do their best simply due to the fact the guy in the White House was a black Democrat.
Aimai
@Omnes Omnibus: boykin? Mccrystal? Not everyone is nonpartisan and loyal.
Omnes Omnibus
@Aimai: I already wrote off the Air Force in my original reply to you. As far as I know, McChrystal did his job well – except for shooting of his mouth in public (which got him canned).
ETA: I never said anyone was nonpartisan. Oddly though, during my time in the army, I bought into that notion and did not vote in 1988.
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: I will also note that I said some very negative things about Reagan (whose signature is on my commission) and GHWB in private during my service.
catclub
@joel hanes:
I am pretty sure I remember that the Bush admin initially opposed this change. They had to be dragged into it.
I also think that SS agents, more than anyone else, would know that an assassination would make a Saint and a Cause,
as well as cost many of them their jobs. Even those that might not like Obama know that an assassination would be a winning solution for them. Nutjobs on right wing blogs, not so much. I seriously doubt any neglect of duty due to dislike.
Omnes Omnibus
@catclub:
I agree.
My Truth Hurts
The Secret Service AND the FBI AND the CIA AND the NSA all had elements that conspired to allow JFK to be killed. It’s completely believable it could happen again even with all different people.
Omnes Omnibus
@My Truth Hurts: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
Plantsmantx
@Elie:
Implicit bias?