WASHINGTON - The Secret Service said yesterday it is investigating an online survey that asked whether people believed President Obama should be assassinated.
The poll, posted Saturday on Facebook, was taken off the social networking site quickly after company officials were alerted to its existence. But, as with any threat against the president, Secret Service agents are taking no chances.
“We are aware of it and we will take the appropriate investigative steps,’’ said Darrin Blackford, a Secret Service spokesman. “We take these things seriously.’’
The poll asked respondents “Should Obama be killed?’’ The choices: no, maybe, yes, and “yes if he cuts my health care.’’ Facebook said the question was not created by the company but by an independent person using an add-on application that has been suspended from the site. -- ASSOCIATED PRESS
In an opinion piece published in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said that Obama is right to take another hard look at the US strategy before deciding on a request for reinforcements from General Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander on the ground.
“One assumption of the proposed counterinsurgency plan is that our troops and civilians will be working in partnership with a legitimate and reliable government in Afghanistan. After the deeply flawed presidential election last month, we must ask whether we can succeed if our partner is weak and viewed with deep suspicion by his own people,’’ writes Kerry, who has held a series of committee hearings on Afghanistan.
“We also need to know whether a full-blown counterinsurgency, with its increased footprint and inevitably higher casualties, is a fundamental part of our plans to go after al Qaeda and avoid destabilizing Pakistan. Could a far smaller, well-honed counterterrorism strategy work as well or better?’’ he asks.
Kerry, who first came to politics and national prominence as a Vietnam War veteran turned antiwar protester, asserts that “one of the lessons from Vietnam - applied in the first Gulf War and sadly forgotten for too long in Iraq - is that we should not commit troops to the battlefield without a clear understanding of what we expect them to accomplish, how long it will take, and how we maintain the consent of the American people.’’ -- GLOBE STAFF
In an interview appearing in the November issue of Prevention magazine that hits newsstands Oct. 6, Obama says she learned “what not to do’’ from her mother, Marian Robinson, who now lives at the White House.
“She’d say being a good mother isn’t all about sacrificing. It’s really investing and putting yourself higher on your priority list,’’ the first lady told the women’s health monthly.
“So I have freed myself to put me on the priority list and say, yes, I can make choices that make me happy, and it will ripple and benefit my kids, my husband, and my physical health.’’ -- ASSOCIATED PRESS
Clarification: A headline about Senator John F. Kerry in this article misrepresented his stance on troop levels in Afghanistan. He suggested that the Obama administration study shifting its strategy to a more limited counterterrorism mission.
