Media's Assassination Double Standard: Obama Plot vs. Thwarted Bush Attempt

Blogger Patrick "Patterico" Frey yesterday devoted a blog post to the difference between how the media are reporting a thwarted assassination attempt against President Bush versus the recent arrest of some skinheads plotting harm to Sen. Barack Obama.

Patterico noted that the Bush conspirators were farther along in their plans than the skinheads targeting Obama, and yet there was no discernible mainstream media attention to the plot, wherein the principal conspirator pleaded guilty and was slapped with a 5-year sentence:

Guest blogger DRJ earlier posted about the alleged assassination plot against Barack Obama. As I always say when charges are made, charges are just charges, and have to be proved by the prosecution. But if these charges can be proved, then these men should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

But it got me thinking: this story is being reported everywhere, including in my beloved Los Angeles Times. I suspect it will be on front pages everywhere tomorrow morning.

But remember when I posted in July of this year about an attempted plot against President Bush?

According to court documents and decisions, the assassination plot against Bush involved two men who “met with a potential accomplice” and “attempted to recruit that person to participate in the assassination of the President.” Further, when the men were arrested, they “were en route to Crawford, Texas to conduct reconnaissance at the President’s ranch.”

One of the men made “oral statements to the effect that one of them, or both of them working together, would shoot the President with a rifle at the President’s ranch near Crawford, Texas.” His co-defendant is alleged to have specifically talked about shooting the President “with a modified military .30-06 caliber rifle” at the Crawford ranch, and made “statements about specific locations from which he could fire the rifle.”