The Secret Service must be up to the test

The Barack Obama rally in Richmond, Virginia last week was a sea of civility and hope. The crowd was as thoroughly diverse as McCain's rallies are virtually monochromatic.  There was a sense of measured merriment, a mutual sense of what can only be described as exuberance, tinged with a sense of something not often spoken of publicly. 

As quiet as it's kept, there was also an undercurrent of anxiety. For one could not miss the army of Secret Service agents, both on the ground and on the rooftops of the surrounding buildings. We looked up in wonder at the sharp-shooters scanning the crowd with high-powered binoculars that looked to be the size of a small piece of luggage. This was the sobering reminder that not everyone loves our Barry. As I told a good friend who recounted a similar scene from a recent Philadelphia rally, those charged with protecting Obama had better not sleep! Not for a nanosecond.

It probably comes as no surprise that every Black person in the world fears that some animal(s) will try to snuff out the bright light that is Barack Obama. My heart leapt into my throat after hearing the report of the emergency landing of Obama's campaign plane a few months ago.  And when I read the hate-filled, racist rants sometimes posted in the comments on The Daily Voice (like the one yesterday which expressed the hope that some "red-blooded American" would kill Senator Obama), I feel so...how do I say it?  I don't know. The feeling is indescribable.  

And based upon a conversation I had with a White gentleman -- an Obama supporter -- while waiting for my car to be serviced last week, it is not just African Americans who are waiting with bated breath, and hoping for the best.

Indeed, if the Washington Post report of the latest foiled plot to assassinate Senator Obama is any indicator, our collective fear is not unfounded. Not with America's shameful history of political assassinations, particularly in the face of change and racial progress. And certainly not in this crazy, racially-charged season that is being stoked by the GOP, with Sarah the Governor leading the way.

This is no doubt the unfortunate reality that prompted the great John Lewis, contemporary of our slain American hero, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to issue his recent courageous and strongly-worded statement warning against the extreme danger of the cultural warfare being waged by the McCain campaign. His mention of the segregationist George Wallace drew swift condemnation because many Americans still have a hard time dealing with straight talk about race and racism in this country.

Let me be clear. John McCain is no George Wallace, and this is not the 1960s. But, as Lewis tried to say metaphorically, Wallace may not have physically thrown any bombs or fired any shots, but his hateful rhetoric and fear-mongering undergirded and fed a lynch mob mentality.  And, as Lewis reminded us, all it takes is one overzealous nutcase.

Take the case of the young McCain volunteer, a White female student who filed a false police report claiming that a big Black man had robbed and molested her, and carved a backwards B (for Barack of course) into her face, harkening back to images of The Birth of a Nation.  Granted this young woman is deeply troubled, but she (or someone) had to know that her story had the potential to incite some people, particularly in some parts of Pennsylvania and the Rustbelt, to cast a vote for emotional reasons -- and tribal ones.  Or worse.

And McCain, Palin and some Conservative commentators surely knew the incendiary potential this case packed.  Yet they immediately seized upon this sensational and suspect story, before checking the facts. Perhaps nothing better demonstrates the desperation of the Republicans in the face of the Obama juggernaut.

Well, except perhaps the sleazy, non-stop efforts of Fox News host Sean Hannity to tar Barack Obama with the "terrorist" brush by incessantly running programs dedicated to Bill Ayers or Jeremiah Wright, particularly on his show "Hannity's America," which is accompanied by a sinister and ominous soundtrack suitable for a snuff film.

And after attending the Democrat's rally last week, hearing and seeing him, and being in the same space as he, I can understand their frustration. Quite simply, it was something to behold.

In short, Barack Obama is a man among men, and if given the chance, he clearly has the potential to be an extraordinary President. A man on a mission is he; and short of outright electoral shenanigans -- and barring a complete collapse by his campaign -- he will soon be Barack the President, race and Joe the Plumber notwithstanding.