A different law for Obama: Secret Service will protect him for life

When the US Secret Service first extended protection to Barack Obama on May 3, 2007, an unusual exception was made.

Under a law enacted by the US Congress in 1997, Secret Service protection for former presidents would henceforth e be limited to 10 years; previously the protection had been for life.
Mr Obama will be the exception.

He will have protection for life according to a decision by the Secret Service last year following a recommendation by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Chances are that Mr Obama will forever be dogged by racially motivated threats from homegrown terrorists or bigots. Racist threats were never far away during last year’s electoral campaign.

Owing to Mr Obama’s special circumstances, his security within the United States will almost certainly be at another level.

The occasional African tours by US presidents afford an opportunity to witness the sheer extent of this protection firsthand. Hotels where the American presidential entourage has been booked are cleared of their other guests long before the presidential party lands.

When Bill Clinton briefly stayed at Kampala’s Sheraton l in March 1998 during an African tour, helicopters packed with heavily armed American personnel hovered over the hotel overnight.

The Americans even brought their own Evian water for President Clinton at his bilateral talks with President Yoweri Museveni at State Lodge.

Not even countries like Britain are spared the attendant indignities that host countries must suffer when a US president visits. When George W. Bush made a state visit to the UK in November 2003, the Americans brought a small army of heavily armed security personnel to London to guard their commander-in-chief.

British regulations

This was despite Britain’s own security being fairly up to the job, and more pointedly, notwithstanding British regulations that frown on foreign security personnel being armed on British soil.

The Americans went further. At Buckingham Palace where Bush was to stay, they insisted on completely reinforcing all the windows within the palace wing where their president’s suite was located.

Amongst the Bush entourage were two cooks, an indicator that Queen Elizabeth’s own palace cooks were not to cook for the US president. Even in the United States, filming of Marine One – the presidential helicopter – as it takes off or lands is prohibited. The presidential jet – Air Force One – is outfitted with high-tech gadgetry to fend off hostile warplanes.

On foreign trips, an official armoured limousine is part of the tonnes of equipment flown wherever the president goes.

The Obama inauguration, like all those before it, will be conducted outside the Capitol building that which houses the two-tier US legislature. Pennsylvania Avenue connects the Capitol to the White House at the other end.

Organisers are expecting three to five million people to congregate for the event. It would be the biggest crowd ever to assemble for any function in US history.

Umbrellas, bicycles and even baby strollers are banned within the perimeter. Instructions have been issued to people coming to the venue to limit cell phone use to SMS texts only. Residents will have to walk to the events because the Washington DC metro lines underneath the city centre will be closed.

Mr Obama is going to great lengths to model his inauguration on that of his political hero, Abraham Lincoln, who, like him, cut his political teeth in the state of Illinois. When he takes the oath of office at noon on Tuesday, Mr Obama will use the same Bible the 16th US president used at his inauguration in 1861.

After he is sworn in, Mr Obama will prepare for a formal luncheon that will include foods enjoyed by Mr Lincoln and eaten off replicate china chosen by Mary Todd Lincoln for her husband’s first inauguration.

The 200 guests seated in the statuary hall of the Capitol building, including Supreme Court justices, members of the cabinet and congressional leaders, will finish with an apple cinnamon sponge, a reminder of Lincoln’s fondness for apples.

On Saturday, Mr Obama was to reprise part of the train journey taken by Lincoln before his swearing-in, travelling from Philadelphia, the first US capital after independence, to Washington and stopping to meet ordinary people along the way.

An unwelcome parallel with the Lincoln era will be the intense security on show on January 20. Lincoln had won a thin majority and seven states had seceded from the union as civil war approached. Soldiers were placed on rooftops as he rode through Washington in an open carriage in the inaugural parade from the Capitol to the White House.

In modern times, President Jimmy Carter initiated the practice of walking down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House after the swearing-in, waving to crowds along the way.

Subsequent presidents have done the same walk, at least for part of the way; the exception was President Ronald Reagan in his second inauguration in 1984 when the walk was cancelled because of severe winter weather.

Rick Warren, the evangelical pastor whose selection has upset liberal followers of the president-elect, will make the invocation. Aretha Franklin, the iconic soul music diva, will sing.

After Mr Obama has taken the oath of office, he will deliver a speech that typically lasts 15 minutes and which aims to set the tone for his four years in office.

Military aide

After lunch he will leave with the presidential military aide who had arrived with Mr Bush carrying the codes for America’s nuclear defences.

Lincoln is revered by Americans for guaranteeing the country’s unity following a catastrophic civil war fought partially over the issue of slavery. A century later, Mr Obama has become a symbol of America’s quest for racial and ethnic harmony.

With the nation perilously divided, Lincoln kept celebration to a minimum. Mr Obama however is continuing the modern practice of a free concert the Sunday before inauguration (today) at the imposing Lincoln Memorial.

The star-studded line-up will include U2’s Bono, Beyoncé, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder and Sheryl Crow. Denzel Washington and Queen Latifah will be among those giving historical readings.

The invocation at the concert will be given by Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson, whose declaration that he was gay has divided the Anglican Communion.

Usually the most poignant moment of inaugurations is when the new president escorts the outgoing one as the latter leaves the White House for the last time and climbs aboard a helicopter for the first leg of the journey back home. In this instance there is certain to be great relief as the world watches George W. Bush head back to Texas.