in feburary. Obama is as protected as you can be in a free society.
I was watching the debate and became very concerned several times because I saw behavior from the secret service that showed they were on a much heightened footing in dealing with Mr Obama. I said to myself at the time I wonder what triggered this, and with my concerns raised, I hope he is going to be ok.
It was after the debate that I saw this headline and discussion and I realize now I have the opposite reaction and am very comfortable with his protection.
I will not justify why there was a takedown of security but I can speculate and I guarantee you from the observation of the final minutes of the debate coverage that the Secet service was not happy with the decision and likely not the orginator.
It was likely a people moving logistics decision, to get more people into the debate quickly that caused the screening takedown.
There are many debatable points why that could be a bad idea, but the least point is if someone was going to try to get a weapon in they know there are checkpoints, they are going to bypass that route anyways.
What ever the reason or regardless of who decided for them to go down, the secret service compensated quite heavily and it was clear that they were fully aware that Mr Obama was a higher target threat level then Ms. Clinton.
This is demonstrated very clearly in the CNN footage at the close of the debate and it was these last few minute that raised my initial concern.
After the debate while the candidates were at the footlights signing autographs and handshaking Ms. Clinton had an obvious Secret Service detail at wing point dispatch and an observer scanning the crowd. These agents were loose and about 6 to 10 feet off her flanks, at each shoulder point, and the observer at the stage footline was several people away.
Mr Obama's detail was much different, and maintained a very controlled tight bubble while maintaining his ability to interact.
This bubble was in plain site but a casual observer could miss the Secret Service behavior because they are effective at what they do.
Mr Obama had two agents at wingpoint maintaining distances of 2 to 3 feet (as opposed to the more casual 6 to 10 feet of Ms Clinton) from his back shoulders. There were two line observers at the floor. These agents were were forming a cone of contact(funneling people between them to Mr Obama) that at all times maintained less than arms length distance from Mr Obama and each other in that controlled enviroment.
There was a third observer on the stage with Mr Obama looking into the crowd at all points.
It was this agent that originally raised my hackles and concern because he was obviously functioning as a body manager. This agent was within the wingpoints agent's bubble of protection looking over Mr Obamas shoulder but almost always in physical contact with him. His hands were at all times on Mr Obamas back or hip at finger touch. The line observers on the floor were very tactile and capable of hand swiping anything in front of Mr Obama's field of contact by hand.
In addition there were two agents to the left or right on the stage that were nearly holding Mr Obamas hand in direction of movement( literally reaching out to him at almost every step he took one direction or the other) on the stage and maintaining a clear path of removal at all times.
I am also sure that in addition to these observable details there were other such bubbles of control and observation containing each layer of this close quarter detail.
The compliment to the Secret Service is they did this massive choreographed dance of protection under the eyes of all those cameras and unless you looked for the specifics it was very easy to miss. Watch the hands on contact of the Body Manager agent in direct contact with Mr Obama and it all becomes clear just how safe he was.
Rest assured Mr Obama is in good hands and while the headlines of security removal scream to the fear that many are afraid to admit or are ready to take arms and claim conspiracy over, take a few minutes to watch the footage from the end of the debates to watch what real active protection is about rather than the somewhat fake comfort, passive peace of mind protection that weapons screening gives us.
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