| I understand the worry caused by two gate crashers attending President Obama's first state dinner. It's a terrible embarrassment and a lapse that shouldn't have happened.
The Secret Service faces an unprecedented situation and the risks are up 400 percent.
And people should not crash parties, particularly state dinners.
But he's OUR president. I don't want security to ever be to the point that our president is not accessible to us.
Yes, I want alert protection for our president.
But I don't want him sealed off in a bubble available only to hand selected audiences at all times.
The gate crashers, and I'm not giving them the attention they want by naming them, were still screened.
At other events when the president goes to Five Guys or gas stations, the people are not going to be screened.
Do we want a president walled off from us?
I've seen several presidents in person, from Reagan to Obama. A few years ago I saw then President Clinton immediately after Thanksgiving after he went to a public golf course not far from Camp David. It was dusk by the time he finished. Some how word spread and people showed up, a not large crowd, but about 50 people. None were screened. They just stood behind yellow crime scene tape. It was fairly dark as Clinton approached them.
I'd been in enough situations in life involving yellow crime scene tape to recognize when police officers are concerned, alert, and at extremely heightened alert. The agents squeezed in tight around him and two had their hands on his jacket ready to pull him down.
With the darkness and the closeness of the people, it would have been impossible to have stopped a determined assassin.
The Big Dog did not even seem to notice. Nonchalantly, with a Big Dawg grin he walked up to the people, greeted each warmly, listened to them, shook hands with them. This was at the height of the Republican Hate Machine cranked to 11 and he made sure he was the president of everyone there.
I'm not naive. This is a dangerous world and we elected an African American man in a society that is too armed and too racist to give any of us comfort.
But we're a democratic society. We had a president before who lived in a bubble. I want my president to be secure as possible, I want smarter and better protection for him.
I also want to be able to shake hands with him some day too. Out in the street or at a public golf course. In our America. |
