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Opinion: Alleged Barack Obama death threat leads to arrest in Miami

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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.’ ‘

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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

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