photo credit: Munoz Family
There’s a widespread difference in perception between those Americans I’ve spoken to and many Brits / Europeans about the likelihood of an assassination attempt on presidential candidate Barack Obama. Doris Lessing believes, in common with many others outside of the States, that the establishment would never permit a black man from an “outsider’s” background to assume the presidential mantle. But for a sizable number of Americans, the prospect of a black president is far less controversial than the possibility of a woman of any color.
Today’s news from Dallas, that security operatives were ordered to stop screening people for weapons at an Obama rally in that city an hour before the event was due to commence, has deeply worrying echoes of 1963 - and will further serve to convince Europeans that America is set on a course for tragedy once more.
