November 22, 1963: Living The Comfortable Illusion That It Couldn’t Happen Again
If you are of a certain age, the events of November 22, 1963 and the following days are deeply seared in your mind, but as yet another anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy comes and goes, those memories do not automatically our minds as they did in earlier years. Part of this, of course, is the passage of time, but it also is the fact that with the exception of Ronald Reagan, there has not been a serious attempt to take the life of a president in nearly half a century and most of us live under the comfortable illusion that it could never ever happen again.
Yet the safety of Barack Obama has been very much on my mind and not just because of a certain president of a Republican group at a Texas university who infamously suggested a few days ago that it is “tempting” to assassinate him.
Every president has had their hardcore detractors. In fact, an ad was running in a Dallas newspaper accusing JFK of treason the day of the president’s visit. Yet Obama has been the recipient of an unusual amount of animus.
Charlie Pierce, writing in Esquire, says that:
“Every president has to live with the notion that any random nut can buy a gun and stand a pretty good chance of getting the job done if the random nut doesn’t mind getting ventilated in return. Presidents get briefed on this stuff. But, as is the case in so many things, this president is different. History has made him so. An attempt on this president’s life would resonate, in history and in memory, far beyond Ford’s Theater, and Union Station in Washington, and the Exposition Grounds in Buffalo, and Dealey Plaza. It would resonate, in history and in memory, back to the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, and to an earthen dam in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and to 2332 Guynes Street in Jackson, Mississippi, where the blood of Medgar Evers still stains a driveway, and to a hundred dark roads, and to a thousand ghastly trees, freighted down with so much more than Spanish moss. Some bullets make history. A bullet fired at this president would gain its power from a history that we all have worked so hard to pretend never really happened before, and really could never happen again.”
There already have been a few ham-handed plots on Obama’s life, and that certainly has something to do with the supercharged political climate. Then there are religious fanatics like Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, whom investigators say fired a semiautomatic rifle at the White House the other day because he believes Obama to be the Antichrist.
But Obama is an African-American and while there never has been comprehensibly plausible explanation for the circumstances behind JFK’s assassination would we ever believe the commission that would weigh in on the assassination of the 44th president?
Of course not, because American history would not be on officialdom’s side.
5 Responses to “November 22, 1963: Living The Comfortable Illusion That It Couldn’t Happen Again”
Maybe most of us don’t think about it much, but if pressed I think most of us would agree that it very much could happen again and that being the President is inherently risky. In fact, there have been many attempts made in the last half century, contrary to your assertion. You might not consider these “serious” since they didn’t produce any harm, but it seems most of the difference between a “serious” attempt that gets attention and those that are one-day news stories is dumb luck.
If there were a serious assassination attempt, I’m sure race would be brought up, and maybe rightly so, depending on the circumstances. But let’s also not forget the context that he is the president and there always have been and always have been people who want to kill the president, regardless of his or her race.
Hate to say this, but I share your concern, Shaun.
One, because he IS the president — as adelinesdad points out — and two, because of, in my honest opinion, the extraordinary and unprecedented amount of raw hate that exists against the current president.
I fear that it could very well happen again,being that there is such a heated political atmosphere these days and will only heat up tremendously with the beginning of year 2012. Never mind that he is of African/White blood, my opinion as a Native American can sense these things more more readily as I am sure alot of ‘the melting pot..knows too, you only have to read press releases, follow the internet blogs of say, Huffington post to know the ignorance of some peoples minds.
I can remember Kennedy,s assassination like it happened yesterday. I was in typing class at high school when the nun put on the speaker system and we all listened in silence and shock, with tears rolling out of her eyes as our own eyes moistened with the ongoing details…it was horrible and felt like we were all stripped naked to a truth that we aren,t so untouchable in a Greatest country on the planet as I viewd it with my young eyes. Obama is SO vunerable especially when he goes out in public to every state to help secure his re-election. I hope and pray that these protest and Occupy Wall Street etc will have settled down with the cold weather of the winter and we as Americans can stand together as a united country to prevent anything from getting out of hand in the coming months.
I stand behind our President no matter who is in office during his term and inspite of all the ridiculous rantings of some of the political runts that like of blow off steam and that includes both sides of the aisle.
thanks shaun… I think we were raised long ago to believe that other nations killed their leaders, not ours. mlk, jfk, rk, medgar, malcolm, american horse the elder, red sleeves, anyone who brought back the Ghost Dance, many who dared to try to help the oppressed without stealing from them or enslaving them. The legacy of assassinating leaders is long evil history and began in the USA wholesale with the hounding, imprisonment, hanging and shooting to death, of indigenous leaders of hundreds of tribes. It didnt start with cleveland, lincoln, et al. It only continued, cross rivers, same same same
thanks,
dr.e
JFK’s assassination is one of my earliest memories. I was a little over 2 years old, riding in the back of my dad’s Catalina somewhere in downtown Minneapolis, when the radio announced something and both my parents became visibly upset, enough that my dad pulled over and ran over to the news stand but came back empty handed, the papers hadn’t yet caught up with the radio. It took me several years before I figured out that memory was JFK’s assassination. My mother was surprised that I recalled this and said it was very accurate.
I’m under no illusion that another assassination couldn’t happen. Unfortunate I’m of the belief another attempt will happen. It seems virtually every president since Nixon has had some sort of assassination attempt made. I am fearful that the rhetoric thrown around our current president could influence a weak individual to make a serious attempt on his life. Knowing a now retired Secret Service agent (not part of the presidential detail, he spent his most of his career chasing counterfeiters except for when dignitaries visited.) I can only hope the caliber to the current agents is at least as good as he was. (I went shooting with him shortly after he retired, he apologized that he hadn’t been practicing and would probably embarrass himself, and than shot a full magazine with his non-dominant hand thorough the 10 ring. He wasn’t happy with the pattern but I would have been thrilled to have that tight of pattern with my dominant hand.)