What if Barack Obama was...

[Miano]

Danny,
You should really need get out of the house and your shop more often.
To answer the question, it would not be good, a lot of recriminations and civil unrest.

[BrewCity11]

"what if"???? shit i'm betting on it, he's on my death poll '08 fantasy team. of course we got special circumstance to extend his period through january '09.

damn you benazir!!! only 5 days short!

That was so wrong, yet so funny at the same time. DAmn you!!!!!!

[Raxe]

Oh yay yet another assassination thread. People sure do love to find reasons to worry.

[DSP74]

Racism wouldn't be a reason he would get asassinated. Dumb ass racist redneck hillbillies aren't smart enough to pull off any presidential asissination.

[Miano]

Racism wouldn't be a reason he would get asassinated. Dumb ass racist redneck hillbillies aren't smart enough to pull off any presidential asissination.

You can bet that this would be Danny's theory as well, he thinks that there are conspiracies, and this would be a deliberate act to destabilize the country.

[e30sd]

Definately a shit stirring thread - but it is a hypothetical to ponder since we are about to have the first black President of a country with its own fair share of racism issues. If Obama was assassinated, there would be a whole lot of chaos which would be put to rest after some time. But here's the scary part.....

Binden as the President and Pelosi as Vice President (as speaker of the House of Representatives she's the third most powerful person in the country). So pray the Secret Service is fully funded and more than adequately equipped for the job of protecting our Commander in Chief, because the alternative is even more scary.


Jon

pelosi would not be the VP by default. the 25th amendment supercedes the presidential succession act of 1947. section 2 states the president can nominate a vp whenever the office is vacant. has to be approved by a majority of both houses of congress.

[Maluco]

wow, this is him going to the gym...

[norwood e30]

whoops... Did I hit a nerve?

I only ask the question because some one I was talking to was comparing him to Lincoln and JFK...

I rolled that in my head for a while and...

its 2008 not 1953

[atomic]

its 2008 not 1953

Really ? ?

Well...

http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20081115/Obama.Threats/

Obama has more threats than other presidents-elect

WASHINGTON — Threats against a new president historically spike right after an election, but from Maine to Idaho law enforcement officials are seeing more against Barack Obama than ever before. The Secret Service would not comment or provide the number of cases they are investigating. But since the Nov. 4 election, law enforcement officials have seen more potentially threatening writings, Internet postings and other activity directed at Obama than has been seen with any past president-elect, said officials aware of the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity because the issue of a president's security is so sensitive.

Earlier this week, the Secret Service looked into the case of a sign posted on a tree in Vay, Idaho, with Obama's name and the offer of a "free public hanging." In North Carolina, civil rights officials complained of threatening racist graffiti targeting Obama found in a tunnel near the North Carolina State University campus.

And in a Maine convenience store, an Associated Press reporter saw a sign inviting customers to join a betting pool on when Obama might fall victim to an assassin. The sign solicited $1 entries into "The Osama Obama Shotgun Pool," saying the money would go to the person picking the date closest to when Obama was attacked. "Let's hope we have a winner," said the sign, since taken down.

In the security world, anything "new" can trigger hostility, said Joseph Funk, a former Secret Service agent-turned security consultant who oversaw a private protection detail for Obama before the Secret Service began guarding the candidate in early 2007.

Obama, of course, will be the country's first black president, and Funk said that new element, not just race itself, is probably responsible for a spike in anti-Obama postings and activity. "Anytime you're going to have something that's new, you're going to have increased chatter," he said.

The Secret Service also has cautioned the public not to assume that any threats against Obama are due to racism.

The service investigates threats in a wide range. There are "stated threats" and equally dangerous or lesser incidents considered of "unusual interest" — such as people motivated by obsessions or infatuations or lower-level gestures such as effigies of a candidate or an elected president. The service has said it does not have the luxury of discounting anything until agents have investigated the potential danger.

Racially tinged graffiti — not necessarily directed at Obama — also has emerged in numerous reports across the nation since Election Day, prompting at least one news conference by a local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Georgia.

A law enforcement official who also spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly said that during the campaign there was a spike in anti-Obama rhetoric on the Internet — "a lot of ranting and raving with no capability, credibility or specificity to it."

There were two threatening cases with racial overtones:

_ In Denver, a group of men with guns and bulletproof vests made racist threats against Obama and sparked fears of an assassination plot during the Democratic National Convention in August.

_ Just before the election, two skinheads in Tennessee were charged with plotting to behead blacks across the country and assassinate Obama while wearing white top hats and tuxedos.

In both cases, authorities determined the men were not capable of carrying out their plots.

In Milwaukee, police officials found a poster of Obama with a bullet going toward his head — discovered on a table in a police station.

Chatter among white supremacists on the Internet has increased throughout the campaign and since Election Day.

One of the most popular white supremacist Web sites got more than 2,000 new members the day after the election, compared with 91 new members on Election Day, according to an AP count. The site, stormfront.org, was temporarily off-line Nov. 5 because of the overwhelming amount of activity it received after Election Day. On Saturday, one Stormfront poster, identified as Dalderian Germanicus, of North Las Vegas, said, "I want the SOB laid out in a box to see how 'messiahs' come to rest. God has abandoned us, this country is doomed."

It is not surprising that a black president would galvanize the white supremacist movement, said Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, who studies the white supremacy movement.

"The overwhelming flavor of the white supremacist world is a mix of desperation, confusion and hoping that this will somehow turn into a good thing for them," Potok said. He said hate groups have been on the rise in the past seven years because of a common concern about immigration.
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Associated Press