Clear and Present Danger

“I’ve got the best protection in the world,” then Senator Obama offered during an interview in the early part of last year, as a response to growing concerns for his safety throughout the course of his precedential presidential campaign. Around that time, Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times reported that Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, personally voiced his concerns for the, then Senator’s safety in a letter sent to officials who oversee the Secret Service.  The letter stated, amongst other things, “The national and international profile of Senator Barack Obama gives rise to unique challenges that merit special concern.”

When then Senator Obama made his remarks about his “protection,” he naturally aimed his confident reassurances towards the reverberating fear of his supporters, echoed in whispered conversations from state to state and rally to rally.  His optimistic, yet fearful, supporters had proved audacious enough to hope, but fearful that such hopes could be dashed by the unthinkable, most especially with the spring of 1968 permanently seared in America’s collective consciousness.

Whether his supporters’ knowledge of threats to Mr. Obama’s safety are actual or imagined, one truth remains perfectly clear: the presence of Secret Service at his side since May 3^rd of 2007, one year, six months and one day before his election, screams of the genuine nature of such concerns.  These concerns remained especially true, as then Senator Obama’s Secret Service detail swelled to the size of that of a sitting president throughout the course of his campaign.  In the days since Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. has ascended to our nation’s highest office, amid widespread jubilation, we have learned through British news source, The Telegraph, and various other sources, that the rate of threats against the president has skyrocketed 400 percent.  Moreover, similar reports have circulated that President Obama receives thirty potential death threats a day.

Knowledge of some potential threats or compromises in security have reached the public, such as the threat on the eve of the Democratic National Convention in August of last year, the amateurish plot intercepted in Tennessee two months later or the protestor who brought an unconcealed gun to one of the President’s townhall meetings this summer.  Nevertheless, most potential threats have remained unreported.  The Telegraph article further reported that the agency entrusted with protecting President Obama is “overstretched” and “underresourced,” and thereby lacks the ability to adequately respond to each potential threat.

The Salahis and President Obama

This “greatest protection in the world” bungled an unconventional test of its strength earlier in the week when President Obama hosted his first State Dinner, which honored Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India.  Aspiring celebrities Michaele and Tareq Salahi of Virginia not only attended the state dinner uninvited; but they met the President and First Lady face to face in a receiving line in the Blue Room.  Mark Sullivan, the director of the Secret Service, has publicly stated that his agency was, “deeply concerned and embarrassed” by the Salahis unfettered access to the President and other prominent government officials.  Nevertheless, this revelation has not only succeeded in providing the Salahis with the fame they desperately crave, it also serves as a jolting declaration of the shortcomings of our President’s security (as did Muntadher al-Zaidi’s hurling two shoes at President Bush).  I find these incidents deeply troubling, and encourage all Christians to pray for our President, as well as for our other leaders, because President Obama may have the “greatest protection on earth,” but he obviously needs some from Heaven as well.