Photo Courtesy of Flickr/Lord Mariser
he allegations yesterday that a despicable Washington, D.C. police officer made a death threat against Michelle Obama got me thinking about whether she was the first to receive such threats. She is not.
According to the First Ladies Fact Book, Richard Nixon’s wife Pat received dozens. An excerpt says:
I also called the National First Ladies Library and asked this question. A receptionist who answered said they didn’t have a historian on staff, but were confident that all first ladies receive death threats.
I also sent an e-mail to historian Patricia Brady, who’s written about and researched First Ladies a lot. As soon as I hear back from her, I’ll update this post.
Maybe Michelle Obama receives more death threats than the others did. But it looks like she isn’t being threatened solely because she’s black — as some Internet commenters have suggested — but because she’s married to a powerful man with a lot of equally powerful enemies.
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However many ” First Ladies ” were threatened doesn’t really matter…….What matters are the consequences for those that make such threats……..This goes with the territory of being the presidential family, however, for THIS threat to come from an officer of the presidential motorcade unit, takes the seriousness of his threat to much higher level…….Whether he’s that stupid or that crazy, it’s inexcusable and totally unacceptable…….No matter what you think about the president, there are 2 things that you just don’t do: 1. Threaten a man’s family 2. Threaten a man’s money……..This officer deserves to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law……..His job required him to maintain a higher standard than most, and he didn’t…….With that type of behavior, he does NOT deserve to work in any facet of law/law enforcement ANYWHERE, EVER!!!
The fact that many of the first ladies may have received death threats is one thing. However, that the threats came from someone charged with their protection (not a wacko civilian) is quite another. This coupled with the very weak reaction – a LEAVE? Probably paid no less although that is just speculation on my part….uh c’mon now! – that points to racial motivation on the part of the cop AND some influence as to why this man was not taken into custody until further info was acquired. Given the hostile nature of many of the Presidents critics in this country, and obvious lack of rational thinking among them (ie birthers and religious right insisting he is Muslim, ect), I would think that any threat upon the Presidential family and/or staff would be taken more seriously . This actually excluding race- meaning if any President had this type of backlash – although the backlash this President has received is very much bcuz of race in my opinion.