OPINION:
If Maxine Waters wore a Republican hat — if Donald Trump wore a Democratic one — the Secret Service would already be in overdrive right now, busily getting to the root of remarks she made publicly that could be taken as calls for violence against the president.
“I will go and take Trump out tonight,” Waters said at a New York City event earlier this month.
The big question: What exactly did she mean by taking out Trump?
Some say she only meant what she’s said over and over since Trump was elected — that she wants to see him impeached any and all way possible. Others? Others say she was suggesting assassination, and volunteering to do the deed.
Either way: How come Waters gets away with such rhetoric?
Certainly, the Secret Service has cause to investigate. It’s not that anybody really believes Waters is going to take up arms and take out Trump. But in a day and age when the left’s ideas of First Amendment freedoms of speech and expression mean carting a baseball bat and beating up political dissenters, her rhetoric is certainly irresponsible. Think antifa; even more, think Rep. Steve Scalise and his anti-Republican shooter.
But even more, think bias.
In 2013, when a rodeo clown wore a mask of Barack Obama for a skit at the Missouri State Fair, the NAACP decried the “hate crime” and called for the Secret Service and the Department of Justice to send in the investigators.
“The activities at the Missouri State Fair targeting and inciting violence against our president are serious and warrant a full review by both the Secret Service and the Justice Department,” the NAACP said in a statement in August 2013.
That — despite the fact the rodeo skit had been performed by the same guy at the same fair but for a different president, George H.W. Bush.
Where’s the NAACP now, calling for the quieting of Waters — calling for the DOJ and Secret Service to get involved?
In 2012, rock star Ted Nugent was summoned to speak with Secret Service agents for comments he made about Obama during a National Rifle Association conference in St. Louis.
His exact words went like this: “If Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.”
That’s hardly as explicit as what Waters said.
And here’s another one, from 2016.
“Secret Service to investigate Trump’s former butler for saying Obama should be killed,” The Hill blasted in a headline from August of 2016.
The remarks that prompted Secret Service to act that time were on Anthony Senecal’s Facebook page, when he reportedly wrote: “To all my friends on FB, just a short note to you on our pus headed ’president’ !!!! This character who I refer to as a zero (0) should have been taken out by our military and shot as an enemy agent in his first term !!!!! Instead he still remains in office doing everything he can to gut the America we all know and love !!!!!’”
The point is this: Those demanding Secret Service investigate anything critical of Obama are curiously silent now on Waters.
The difference is that Waters is a leftist leaner; Trump, the target of leftists. But there’s another difference that should be noted, as well.
The left, when it gets angry, doesn’t mind going violent. It’s quite conceivable some nutcase in the vein of the Scalise shooter could see Waters’ remarks as a “heck yeah” moment to plot a presidential attack. The Secret Service, if nothing else, should call in Waters for questioning, and do it in a very public manner. At the very least, the agency would then send the message to any would-be attackers that the feds are watching, are listening and are taking threatening remarks against the president very seriously. After all, it’s not like prior Secret Service agencies haven’t cracked down on free speech for previous administrations.
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