Secret Service Opens Up on Protecting Obama, McCain
By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
Only one figure really matters in the first-ever annual report issued by the Secret Service. "Achieved a 100 percent success rate in safe arrivals and departures for all protectees," it says on Page 22. More bluntly: Nobody in its protection was hurt or worse. But the fiscal 2008 annual report, fashioned after those of other agencies, reveals much more, especially how the 2008 presidential election taxed the nation's premier protection and financial policing service.
More than ever before, says a spokesman, the service was on the road protecting presidential candidates and its regular clients—all former presidents, like former President Bush, and their families. The key reason: Because of threats, Barack Obama got protection more than a year before a typical candidate would, and his foe, Hillary Clinton, already had protection as a former first lady. All told, Obama had 517 days of protection compared with his eventual challenger, Sen. John McCain, who received just 157 days. That extra work, plus a higher than normal rate of overseas travel by Bushies, led to a $100 million bump in the agency's budget of $1.4 billion last year. Other details: Nearly 1 million pieces of mail to the White House were screened; 2.8 million people were checked for weapons going into campaign events; visiting dignitaries required protection at 2,100 stops in the United States; and more than 17,000 names of those attending the Democratic and Republican party conventions and presidential debates were subjected to a background check.
Illustration by Ed Wexler for USN&WR
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Tags: Secret Service | Barack Obama | George W. Bush | Hillary Clinton | John McCain
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Reader Comments
Protection is needed
For all of those who do not feel protection is needed for the President of the United States and his family, how would it look if a terrorist, either foreign-born or raised right here in the USA, managed to assasinate our leader, his wife or his children?
Four U.S. presidents have died at the hands of lone assassins, and at least three others (FDR, Ford and Reagan) have been shot at, not to mention candidates (T. Roosevelt and George Wallace).
Despite all the protection the Secret Service can offer, it only is a matter of time before someone, either a lone gunman or a group of dedicated terrorists, makes another play.
Because of all the animosity toward Barack Obama, preached by self-serving right-wingers, I would not be in the least bit surprised that the next attack comes from a home-grown cell whose aim is to restore America by eliminating someone they see as a foreign-born non-Christian with dark skin.
While former presidents and their families don't necessarily need full-bore Secret Service protection, any current occupant of the White House does.
Presidential order needed on weopons radious on visit.
The premises ARE declared temporary federal teritory when potus is due.
local laws DO NOT apply there, so only people with a Federal License may carry after screening.
You really need to study your own laws, it really is a bit shamefull to learn them from a foreigner.
Secret Service
I'll bet it costs less to field a tank platoon in Afghanistan than to keep the Secret Service supplied with dark glasses.
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