because he's such a change from the status quo:rolleyes:

you're right...I apologize for forgetting the abundance of black presidential hopefuls in this nation's history

I agree with you that his policies aren't all that much of a change - but as DSTChaos noted, there's only going to be one kind of "change" that matters in relation to these kind of attempts.

Hardly. That's very simplistics. It's very easy (and more true than untrue) that they see his shitty policies rather than the color of his skin. It's not always that glamorous to use the race card, Chaos.

Are you talking as far as assassination attempts? Because I think that his skin color will have more of an effect on any threats of violence against him.

If you're talking just disagreement with his policies, then I (as someone who disagrees with a large part of his platform) think it's another story, and would agree that it is more likely to go beyond his skin color.

I tend not to think of myself as a "simplistic" person, but hey, maybe that's a point where reasonable minds disagree.

I meant that it's simplistic to boil it down to race. Just because seemingly "racist redneck hicks" are attempting to assassinate him, it's not necessarily because of the color of his skin but could be due to his dangerous, disruptive, and embarrassing policies.

How many assassination attempts have there been on any other candidate in the past, say, 20 years? How many candidates have been viewed as "radical/dangerous/disruptive" in either direction? It sure seems like one answer is "0" and the other is "certainly not 0" . . .

In your quest to avoid "oversimplification" it sure seems like you're ignoring the clear solution under Occam's Razor. You really think dudes with ties to white supremacist/neo-Nazi organizations are worried about Obama's stance on public finance or welfare compared with the very real threat of a Black man leading in every major poll?

Well, attempts or plots? I haven't read the article but I believe that it was just a plot, no? A gunmen didn't shoot at Obama but miss, did he? I would imagine there have been plots of assassination for every viable presidential candidate in the last twenty years. Have every single one of them been uncovered? Hardly. I attempted to google information on that but all it brought up was the Obama attempts.

Radical/dangerous/disruptive? That's what every viable presidential candidate (and some not so viable) is labled as every year by both sides of the spectrum of the media and the general public. That's how I labeled Obama and how someone else will label McCain.

Many white supremacist and so forth are also very against the federal government, money not backed by securities, and gun control among other things. Obama represents all those things politically and so not necessarily the attempt was due to Obama's race. It's just far too easy (but wrong) to peg it solely to racism as Mrs. Wright would have you believe.

But it's always glamorous for you to be an idiot.

*edited*

You know, I really have no idea what EW's issue was. He says that Obama isn't a challenge to the status quo but then he acknowledges in his white supremacist post that Obama represents "all of those things."

I dunno what his point is. :) I never said it was just about race. Although in my response to his post I only referenced race, my original post said that ADDING race to the equation heightens the potential for assassination attempts because this is a historic election in that regard.

Exactly.

Sure, supremacists tend to also be anti-government and would hate a perceived socialist but that certainly doesn't refute what I said.

My post was about the general phenomenon and not about this particular assassination attempt. EW would know that if he wasn't so obsessed with Reverend Wright.

This is semantics, but I don't think the distinction is all that important. Either way, this is the first plot I've heard getting to this level that I can remember. The lack of ability to search for other examples may indeed be indicative of the dearth of other attempts.

Quite true - and since this happens, and there have been no credible attempts on McCain's life (for instance), we should begin to look for the difference between the other candidates labeled as such and Mr. Obama, no?

So let's start to look at the differences. Many past Democratic candidates have supported a larger Federal government, held similar fiscal opinions, and certainly supported the same gun control legislation. We have heard of zero credible plots to take their lives.

Again, the difference seems simple: he's black.

White supremacist organizations have a very simple mandate that runs against what you're claiming in this thread, and I'm not sure why you're ignoring that mandate. It's not "pro-Obama" to recognize that the guy will certainly face dangers that no other Presidential candidate will face, and that a large part of that is because of his race.

While not recent, I wasn't aware Robert Kennedy was black?

Edit: And one may argue (similar to my google search) that there hasn't been such media hype on both sides of the aisle about a Democrat nominee like Obama since perhaps.... Robert Kennedy?

So you get the point that assassination attempts occur because of the threat of change. Kennedy represented that and he not only had an attempt but he was aware of the assassination potential. He therefore had to understand that the potential is different than that of other presidents whose policies or other qualities fit the status quo.

Now...follow me here to get the larger and more general point...multiply that potential when the candidate is of a group that instantly challenges the status quo: black, female, homosexual, Jewish, etc.

Take care.

This is why I limited the argument to the last 20-25 years - because the "change" of the 60s seems like a difficult time to translate to today (plus I didn't want to muddy this up with irrelevant material such as the attempt on Reagan). It wasn't out of convenience for my argument, but expedience for our relevant memories - I personally have no idea if anyone threatened Mondale, but would remember any other credible threats.

However, if you'd like to make such a comparison, it seems like a tacit admission that race is a primary factor for assassination attempts on Obama even though RFK was white - just think for yourself about the changes RFK represented and the period in which he lived.

Additionally, your OpEd interjection (and really this whole point) is a complete strawman, honestly - the main point still stands: Obama's policies have been parroted or preceded by others who did not receive the same threats (that we know about). These people were white.

Besides this, if your only example is RFK during the height of the civil rights movement and its dovetailing with Vietnam, you're not exactly disproving my point, since RFK was a strident supporter of the civil rights movement, even though his assassination shows no real connection to the movement itself (personally I think Sirhan Sirhan was just crazy, rather than anti-Israel).