Much talk and thought has been given to the prospect of a Presidential assassination given the historic nature of our President elect. The obvious fear being that because of Barack Obama's race he may be targeted by some navel gazing white supremacist group or individual. Personally I'd dismissed this possibility as marginal at best, concluding in a manner of conjecture that: First, the Secret Service specializes in security redundancy; Second the potential threats, either group or individual, are a bit low brow to overcome the effectiveness of Presidential security.
A hypothesis ramified by the fact that the outgoing President is and has been the least popular in history for quite some time and yet, thankfully, no assassination attempt to my knowledge.
And then I read Crooked Timbers statistical assessment of occupational hazards. When measured in deaths per 100,000 workers/years the position of the Presidency is dangerous whatever the social circumstances. To wit:
President, USA - 2283A fascinating bit of data accompanied by a fascinating written account. Give it a read.
Pope – 2126
Hezbollah, active member – 1000-2000
Prime Minister, UK - 937
Monarch, England/UK – 912
Monarch, France – 890
Soldier, Iraqi Army – 800
Soldier, US Army (while in Iraq, March 2003-March 2006) – 392
Fisherman, Pacific Northwest crab fishing – c400
Timber-cutter – 117
Fisherman, overall – 85
Soldier, US Army – c80
4 comments:
The racism card is overplayed by the left. There are racists who probably want to kill Obama because of his skin color, but there is also the fact that every president back to Kennedy has had assassination attempts [1], so the odds are that there will be an attempt on Obama regardless of his skin color. The progressive left seem to assume that their beloved messiah is somehow above the worldwide hatred of America and the man in charge of it.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Presidential_assassination_attempts
"The progressive left seem to assume that their beloved messiah is somehow above the worldwide hatred of America and the man in charge of it."
Shades of the MSNBC anchor expressing disbelief after the Mumbai attacks that someone, somewhere in the world could do bad now that the Obamamessiah was on the scene. The reporter she was talking to would've busted out laughing if they hadn't been talking about the murder of hundreds of people...as it was, the look he gave her was something akin to the look you give your five year old after he says something incredibly offensive when you have guests over.
I've hung out with the fishermen in the Northwest, and lived in the biggest timber-cutting area on Earth (well, the biggest timber, the California Redwoods), although I mostly hung out with foresters and guys with their own portable mills rather than any choke-setters (the most dangerous sub-job). I've also been a soldier (well, Marine) but I never deployed.
I'm pretty sure urban cop should be up there, maybe they didn't split them out from "all police."
The "no racism" card is overplayed by the right. I've met tons of em, anti-semites, too. Oh, and anti-Arabs.
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