occupational hazard

The private armies gather. From Stratfor:

A large number of important people with their own security details will attend the inauguration. This will apply not only to incoming Cabinet secretaries and senior military officers, but also to governors, the diplomatic corps, visiting foreign dignitaries, high-profile corporate leaders, celebrities and other high-net-worth individuals.

It must have been like that in the middle ages: Barons and their retinues. Wonder if they have their own food testers, fools, jugglers and such. Check this out:

The events leading up to the inauguration normally begin several days in advance. This year, in a move invoking memories of the election of another man from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, president-elect Obama will travel to Washington by train. Obama will hold an event Jan. 17 in Philadelphia. Next, he will travel by train to Wilmington, Delaware, where he will pick up Vice President-elect Joe Biden. The two will then hold another event in Baltimore before finally proceeding to Washington’s Union Station.

The analogy to Lincoln’s historic election is picked up on the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, which has a large photo of the Lincoln Memorial statue on its home page, http://inaugural.senate.gov/. More sobering is the fact that the parallels with Lincoln’s trip run deeper than they might appear from a security perspective. Numerous rumors of assassination plots followed Lincoln’s election, and his train trip to Washington had to be heavily guarded.

As we approach the inaugural, many rumors of threats to president-elect Obama are swirling. The president-elect received USSS protection at the earliest point in his campaign of any candidate in U.S. history, and during the final stages of the campaign, the perceived threat led the USSS to provide him with essentially the same level of security given to sitting presidents — another unprecedented measure. As with Lincoln’s historic train journey, the security for Obama’s train trip to Washington will be extremely tight. It undoubtedly will involve a massive operation to freeze, inspect and then post guards along the rail line, bridges and tunnels to prevent any potential attacks. This will mean a lot of cold hours for the agents and police officers assigned to guard the rail line.

Leveraging your own assassination potential into publicity: that’s ice cold. But then again, why not? You have four presidents actually killed in office. Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan were shot and injured; FDR was spared when the mayor of Chicago took the bullet probably meant for him. Charlie Manson’s acolytes nearly took out Ford, and so on. Here’s a list of twenty assassination attempts, including innovations such as VBIEDS and crashing planes into the White House – on two occasions, no less. So if potential assassination is a feature of presidential life you might as well make the best of it, like that thing they do with the baseball…

UPDATE: whoops, forgot to include actual link to list of presidential assassination attempts. Included now.

Comments

[Fellow Traveller]

I would laugh so hard if the rival bodyguards started a firefight with each other. Someone jostled someone else, made an unkind remark about their 9mm pistol...the Supreme Court Justice has to draw his .44 Magnum revolver and re-establish order.

Do they have stand ins as with the Oscar ceremony?

[jamie k]

I used to work for an MEP who witnessed a near firefight at an Organisation of American States bunfight between the protection squads of the US and Jamaican delegations, basically over who got to walk through an airport first.

It reached a climax when the head of the US security detail pointedly pulled back his jacket lapel and tapped the butt of the automatic in its shoulder holster, at which point the Jamaican chef du cabinet whipped out a MAC 10 and stuck it under his nose. Checkmate!

[dsquared]

I've just done the maths on my own blog - being US president has an occupational fatality rate of 1826 per hundred thousand worker years. That's a hell of a lot.

[jamie k]

It's not so surprising if you think about it. The US president is powerful and prominent enough to piss off any number of 300 million people in a heavily armed country where extreme views are constitutionally protected. He's almost a target by default.

[dsquared]

Interestingly (or not), it's roughly four times the fatality rate of US troops in Iraq.

[jamie k]

They can shoot first/shoot back, have personal firepower, body armour and generally project danger. It's odd really given the whole 2nd amendment thing that presidents don't regularly go armed themselves. Mind you, I wouldn't have fancied Nixon round guns, especially on one of his pill and whisky binges.

[Fellow Traveller]

Thanks for the great anecdote about the Jamaican American Mexican standoff. It brings to mind 'Call that a knife, this is a knife'.

As for your query about 'fools' in attendance, surely a couple of prominent Yank comedians will make an appearance at the ceremony?

[Barry Freed]

Mind you, I wouldn't have fancied Nixon round guns, especially on one of his pill and whisky binges.

Nah, it was Nixon around B-52s that you really had to look out for.