'Taking out' the president
Which is worse? Threatening the president's life, or suggesting that the Secret Service's interest in such threats is misguided?
It's a rhetorical question. They're both wrong.
And Bill Sekeres, 73, of Bakersfield, an Army veteran, ought to know that. But after the Secret Service questioned him about overheard comments he is alleged to have made about President Obama earlier this month, Sekeres had the audacity to suggest that the agency's interest in his supposedly joking threat to "take out" the president was evidence the country was going down the wrong path. "What kind of place," he asked The Californian, "are we living in?"
The kind of place where even Army veterans can apparently decide that a president is justifiably illegitimate. The kind of place where people at campaign rallies can shout "Kill him!" when Obama's name is mentioned. The kind of place where, contrary to Sekeres' implication, advanced years don't necessarily discourage misguided shooters -- witness James W. von Brunn, an 88-year-old veteran who burst into the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum last June and killed a guard.
If Sekeres wants to "take out" Obama, he'll have to wait until November 2012, the prescribed time for orderly presidential succession in these United States. In the meantime, he's well advised to behave like the patriot his years of military service would have led us to expect.
