PrintJanuary 5, 2008
HuffPo Writer Suggests Right Might Kill Obama
In the midst of all the media gushing over Obama's Iowa upset Thursday night, allusions to Bobby Kennedy's 1968 "united country" campaign were bound to resurface. But a front page piece at HuffPo Friday suggested another possible similarity -- that the first black man ever to reach such political heights in this country might also find his presidential crusade cut short by an assassin's bullet.. What's more, it warns, the rifle projecting that bullet might belong to an outfit headed by a "right-wing Christian nationalist."
Jospeph Polermo begins Barack Obama, RFK, and Blackwater optimistically enough by comparing Thursday's Obama victory speech to one given by Kennedy at the University of Alabama almost 40 years ago. The heart just can't help warming while reading his assertion that Obama shares the vision of the man who was assassinated before realizing his promises to unify the nation and end both the war abroad and poverty at home.
But hope quickly fades as the blogger appears to suddenly consider the chemistry of his audience, and warns Obama and his handlers that the potential candidate would pose:
"a very real threat to the likes of Blackwater, Dyncorps, Halliburton, and the hundreds of other private companies currently profiteering from the Iraq occupation."
He then suggests that private security company Blackwater Worldwide has a vested interest in the perpetuation of the Iraq war, which an Obama presidency would "apply the brakes" to, adding that:
"He therefore has some well-armed and lethally trained enemies that stand to lose their livelihoods if he follows through on his promise to end the Iraq occupation."
The delightfully corporate-paranoid piece then sets up its conclusion with this thoroughly unsubstantiated lamentation:
"When the political winds blow toward radical change our recent history shows that there's a tendency for popular leaders on the left to face some form of unexplained tragedy." [emphasis mine]
Strangely enough, other than Kennedy's assassination of 4 decades ago, the lone "tragedy" Palermo had mentioned was the Islamofascists' cowardly suicide-murder of Benazir Bhutto "who didn't live to see election day." And, even were her tragic death somehow analogous, surely once in 40 years does hardly a "tendency" make.
Now, let's be clear -- I'm not suggesting that the man who would be America's first president of color has no natural mortal enemies. He likely does.
In fact, Obama is currently one of only two would-be candidates enjoying secret service protection this early in the campaign game. While Hillary's bushy tail is provided courtesy of her eight year stint as first lady, Barak's apparently stems from thus far unspecified threats to his life, assumedly racist in nature.
And speaking of the immeasurably ambitious junior senator from New York, long before President Obama might pose a threat to the political machinery of the right, potential candidate Obama already poses such to one of its most powerful and power-thirsty counterparts on the left.
After all, with what tricks might the Clinton machine hope to hamper the momentum of this man who now holds Iowa under his belt? Inevitability -- gone. Experience -- questionably argued from the start and apparently of no value at the finish. Attack Ads -- are more likely to spark a ricochet consequence by reinforcing Hill's already vicious image to a party obviously seeking peace than to impede the stampede.
And yet, while it appears perfectly acceptable to suggest that agents of Blackwater might murder a presidential candidate, just imagine the outcry from the mainstream media were anyone to suggest that agents of a Whitewater principal might do the same.
