Alleged Barack Obama death threat leads to arrest in Miami

The fear that is not very far beneath the surface for some Barack Obama backers no doubt became more palpable today with word that the Secret Service has arrested a 22-year-old man in Miami on charges he threatened to kill the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

As the Associated Press relates, a Secret Service affidavit charges during a class for bail bondsmen last month, Raymond Hunter Geisel "allegedly referred to Obama with a racial epithet and continued, 'If he gets elected, I'll assassinate him myself.' "

As is often the case with those who rail about killing politicians, Geisel may have been bipartisan in his rants. According to the AP story:

"Another person in the class quoted Geisel as saying that 'he hated George W. Bush and that he wanted to put a bullet in the president's head,' according to the Secret Service.

"Geisel denied in a written statement to a Secret Service agent that he ever made those threats, and the documents don't indicate that he ever took steps to carry out any assassination. He was charged only with threatening Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, but not for any threat against President Bush."

The Secret Service recently re-upped its budget request for the costs of providing protection to both Obama, who due mainly to racially motivated threats has been assigned a security detail since May, 2007, and John McCain, who has had agents traveling with him since the early spring of this year.

Clearly, it is money well spent.

-- Don Frederick

Comments

[Moe]

Hopefully this means he won't get to be a bail bondsman. We don't need racist criminals like that to be charged with upholding law & order.

[Bob]

Racially-motivated? Yeah right. The man has plenty of other qualities to be hated for without even considering what color his skin might be. Give me a break.

You know what will happen if this clown gets elected? Whenever he doesn't get his way as president, it'll always be the race card. "Oh, the congress won't work with him because he's black." Who wants to look forward to four years of that? I guess the only good thing would be it might run this race card nonsense into the ground and finally make undeniable what most people have known for a long time--those who bring up race all the time are racists, whatever the color of their skin.

[sd-mouth]

It is disgusting that this starts to surface. There is very little comfort in thinking that among 300 million Americans; it only takes one deranged mind to get the imagination going. No matter how much one may detest a sitting president or the next one, killing solves nothing. All you have to do is look at the Islamic world. Killing there is an age old solution.

[Matt Bryant]

That anyone could look on Obama, a Harvard-educated law professor from the University of Chicago, and direct an epithet that presupposes he is lacking in intelligence and/or grace, is absolutely absurd.

Now, the rube he's running against ... that's pure HICKory. Hillbilly John, let's go to war! Yee haw!

[apesca]

I agree with you Bob, I doubt that Obama has received a single racially motivated death threat. Those made by the KKK clearly had other motivations. You are definitely not a cretin.

[asdf]

Too many racists in USA. What a shallow country.

[MIA in Mia]

Yeah, SD-mouth, I totally agree with you. Just look to our friend bob and his comment here, and you can see that our country still got plenty of mentally disturbed, KKK/Aryan Nation types like him. Long time that we had a election with evil and good so well defined. Everyone that is against Obama candidacy, is an Evil Minion, an enemy of the United States, a traitor and shall be treated as such...

[Jimi Mosey]

Bob, your overtness is stunning. I do so look forward to a bi-racial president who can hate each of his races on a daily basis. Every hour his white half can hate his black half and the next his black half can hate his white half.

Then he can take both sides of his hatred for the other to the Congress where the democrats will have veto proof majorities due to the corrupt right wing's inability to get re-elected.

There he can rail against both races out of each side of his mouth, equally hating blacks and whites, pulling race cards non-stop. Then when the ranting against himself calms he can present his agenda to the majority and the legislation will sail through without threat of veto, since all race cards will then be on the table.

The blogosphere is teeming with these kinds of rants about Sen. Obama pulling the race card. The problem is that so few seem to recall that he is bi-racial, not black only, so the arguments about his racism just don't fly.

Nice try, though.

[Tracker]

Don, I think you're being a little misleading. All presidential candidates are eligible for SS protection. McCain simply refused it until a few months ago. You make it sound like Obama needed the protection more than McCain, and that's why they chose to give it to him, when in fact, it is a decision that's left up to the individual candidates.

[Benjamin]

Bob, learn how to read. "allegedly referred to Obama with a *racial epithet* and continued, 'If he gets elected, I'll assassinate him myself.'"

I have to wonder what is up with these people who think that there is so much to hate Obama for... what has he done that deserves hatred and death threats? These same people who encourage hatred of him, will often turn around and denounce his 'lack of experience', despite him having supposedly done so much to deserve to be hated.

Obama didn't fill the publics heads with lies about Iraq, getting us involved in a trillion dollar quagmire while managing to tank the entire economy, including our currency, in the process. Yet people are so filled with hate for Obama? Kinda hard to see how it isn't at the very least partisan hysterics, if not racist.

[Ross]

Response to Bob: Racism is a real problem in America. Pretending that it is not is naive to the extreme. Of course there are still racially motivated threats and attacks in America. We are a long way from the utopia that you imagine, where racism is a thing of the past.

Your statement that indiduals who mention race the most often are the most racist is simplistic. It's also wrong. The people on the front lines of the civil rights movement tend to be those that mention race most often.

[Larkin Mead]

This guy in Florida is being used as a "whipping boy", pure and simple. These high level candidates receive threats all the time and the Secret Service has the huge task of tracking down those who make these threats.

It is amazing to me that there are people out there walking among us who will risk throwing away their futures by making threats against presidential candidates such as Barack Hussien Obama; undeniably an empty suit and a mental midget.

The selection of a president should never be determined at the end of the barrel of a gun; rather, in a democratic and civilized society, we will make our decision in the voting booth in November.

Vote wisely.

[Steve]

Bob,

Don't believe all you hear abouit the race card. That is only another campaign trying to get you worked up. The Obama campaign knows that every day anyone talks about race it is a bad day for the campaign. McCain's group knows that and they are playing it up. What happened to the John McCain of 2000? I liked the man and I hate that he is playing this game.

[Dean]

@Bob,

Do you know what "racial epithet" means?

Personally if I heard someone use a racial slur and then threaten someone I would reasonably assume it was racially motivated.

You also said: "...most people have known for a long time--those who bring up race all the time are racists, whatever the color of their skin."

Since YOU chose that topic as your focus, we can understand the source of your "reasoning".

Finally, the mere fact that you choose to "hate" someone because they have a different opinion than you suggests you urgently need psychiatric help.

[Ernesto]

In reference to Bob's comment...

The race card has rarely been played and the times that it was made to seem that it had, it was quickly quashed. There is no need to turn to issues of race when you have two highly qualified individuals.

And second, the type of color-blind logic that you seem to imply is nothing but a thinly veiled mask of racist rhetoric. Why would you assume that a black candidate would readily use his race to counteract the actions of some agent? That's quite a general assumption to make about a particular individual. Are you making that generalization based upon the group that Mr. Obama belongs to? And, finally, someone who employs the race card cannot be a racist. A racist is someone who actively engages in the direct defamation or subordination of a particular group or member of a group based on innate charactersitics of that group. Someone who simply uses the "race-card" willi-nilly might do so because they feel they're being singled out because of their race...thus making them misinformed...maybe even ignorant in extreme cases, but not racist.

[CAMELTOE]

Sorry, Jimi Mosey...."a rose is a rose, is a rose....."

[Casey]

What is really amazing is the fact that no one seems bothered that a man was thrown in jail for his words, not his actions. His words don't even reach the level of a disorderly conduct charge in any of the states. Yet the author and every comment so far seem to have no problem with this. I'm thinking that everyone on this page would feel quite comfortable living in China. Move fast and maybe you can catch some of the olympics while you erase any last vestage of the meaning of the 1st Amendment from your minds.

[harumph]

"What is really amazing is the fact that no one seems bothered that a man was thrown in jail for his words, not his actions. His words don't even reach the level of a disorderly conduct charge in any of the states."

Really? So if I were to claim in front of a group of people that I was going to murder you, and they corraborated it, you say there's no law against that, so the cops wouldn't charge me?

Pull yer head out, willya?

[Mike D]

Bob,
You are now one of the most ignorant people i know.

[Pam]

86% of blacks are voting for Obama according to the polls, You think they all are politically moved? NO, they want a black man. I'm tired of being called a racist because I don't want a socialist president!

[Andrew]

Hopefully this means he won't get to be a bail bondsman. We don't need racist criminals like that to be charged with upholding law & order.

Posted by: Moe | August 07, 2008 at 02:58 PM

___
You mean like Dog the Bounty Hunter?

[Aaron B Brown]

hey Bob

This is just a wild guess, but you're White right?

:-)

-------------------------------------------------------------

You just knew this was coming, I just wonder how many more of these nuts are out there.

[Alice]

I have only read one comment that makes any since to me. WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR FREEDOM OF SPEACH??? I my self have said in anger or discuss that I wanted to kill someone our hurt someone. That doesn't meen I would do it only that I want to. I can't remember the last time I said I wanted to kill a polition. Hell Nancy would be at the top followed by Obama. That doesn't meen I would do it. It is only a awy of blowing off anger and I would rather see someone say it than do it. His arrest is a clear violation of his rights to FREEDOM OF SPEACH. Does that meen I agree whit him. You be the judge. Remember no one anonoced they were going to kill JFK or shoot any of the other's it is the ones that don't blow off steam I worrie about, and a country that stands up for our rights of speech being denied

[Hillary2012]

Apparently this nutjob was after President Bush too. Does that make Obama and Bush best pals now?

[Ellen in CA]

To Larkin:
So, you think Barack Obama is a "mental midget"?
Columbia University graduate.
Harvard Law graduate and passed the bar. Top of his class and President of Harvard Law Review.
Not a rich kid who got in because of any rich daddy. Didn't put his race on his law school application because he didn't want it considered.
Taught law at the prestigious University of Chicago law school for 12 years, and was a very successful and popular professor. Was offered tenure but turned it down because he wanted to serve his country in public office.
Wrote two beautifully written books himself. No ghost writer.
If you disagree with his policy stands, fine. I can respect that. But to call Barack Obama a "mental midget" is absurd.