Politics
Politico Lets Discredited Gossip-Monger Suggest Obama’s Assassination May Be Needed To Reform Secret Service
President Barack Obama pauses during a statement in the State Dining Room of the White House, on Thursday, Sept. 18, 2014, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
(Media Matters) – Politico Magazine published a piece by Ron Kessler, a discredited conservative journalist with a history of pushing conspiracy theories, which suggested that President Obama would be to blame for his own assassination and that the president’s death could be necessary for the reform of the Secret Service.
The September 30 piece came under fire for its conclusion, which criticized the president’s management of the Secret Service:
Agents tell me it’s a miracle an assassination has not already occurred. Sadly, given Obama’s colossal lack of management judgment, that calamity may be the only catalyst that will reform the Secret Service.
As Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo noted, this implies either that “Obama is at fault for his inevitable assassination, or he’s the only thing standing in the way of cleaning up the agency responsible for his inevitable assassination,” both “bizarre” and troubling suggestions.
