did anybody here have a flashback to Nov. 22, 1963 when this latest Secret Service story broke?

[CTyankee]

That Zapruder film, Clint Hill jumping on the back of the limo and pushing Mrs. Kennedy down so if there was a next bullet he would get it, not her...

I read Hill's books about guarding her and her family and what agony he experienced because he could not have saved John F. Kennedy.

It was a long time ago, but as I recall the public didn't feel the Secret Service let them down. But it's the way we feel now about the incompetence that this agency demonstrated with the fence jumper.

I've been thinking about it all day...

[tk2kewl]

1. yup

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025606850

[whathehell]

2. Absolutely..

and it worried me -- I'm glad the director resigned.

[SheilaT]

3. No. Because this recent incident

is very unlike what happened in 1963. And yes, I well remember that day.

JFK was known to say more than once that if someone really wanted to assassinate him, there was no stopping it.

While the Secret Service clearly was not on the ball with the fence jumper, and who knows what that guy had in mind, the incident a couple of years ago where the guy shot bullets into the WH from a long way away, is a little closer to 1963.

It's a tribute to the general incompetence and inability to plan that more assassinations or more terrorist attacks haven't happened.

[CTyankee]

4. It wasn't really that much of a comparison to me...it just rang in my memory...

between now and then...

I don't blame the SS for Kennedy's assassination. We didn't know then what we know now. Just the idea of the president exposed in an uncovered convertible is so unthinkable...

it gives me the chills just to think back to that day in Dallas...

[SheilaT]

5. But there have been WH intruders before this.

Or how about the guy who crashed his small plane into the WH lawn a while back? Did any of those make you think back to November 22, 1963?

[Bigmack]

6. Several intruders...

... but only one black president.

[CTyankee]

8. OF COURSE!

and thank you so much!

[CTyankee]

7. No, but I wonder why?

[SheilaT]

9. I can think of several reasons, none of which

is likely to be correct. But I'll go out on a limb and suggest that because so much of our media tells us Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid much of the time, that may be a factor.

I don't know how much you watch of regular mainstream news. I know that as far back as the late 1970's people who watched a lot of television, especially local news (and of course this was before CNN or Fox News), tended to view the world as a much more dangerous place than it really is. You probably don't fall into that category, and you're simply noticing in yourself your response to the WH intruder. Being self-aware like that is a very good thing, especially if you think about why you're responding this way, and does it make sense?

[CTyankee]

10. I don't watch a lot of mainstream TV. In fact, I hate it.

I do watch Morning Joe, which may confuse me here. I just don't see the threat here to me personally. I guess I don't have that sense of dread and ultimate destruction...