Friday, August 07, 2009

Secret Service looking into Obama-Joker fax

THE HILL


The Secret Service may investigate a fax sent to a Democratic lawmaker that depicts President Barack Obama as the Joker and warns of “death to all Marxists.”

The black-and-white fax portrays Obama in makeup similar to that worn by actor Heath Ledger in his portrayal of the Joker in last summer’s “The Dark Knight.”

On Obama’s forehead is a communist hammer-and-sickle insignia, and beneath the image is the text: “Death to All Marxists! Foreign and Domestic!”

Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) received the fax and passed it along to U.S. Capitol Police.

The Secret Service investigates threats made against the president. Ed Donovan, of Secret Service Public Affairs, said that the fax was “potentially an investigative intelligence matter.”

The fax’s image was the same featured in another recent Obama-as-Joker poster that received attention in the press earlier this week. The first image read only: “Socialism.”

The message made no specific reference to Baird and it is unclear why it was sent to his office. No other congressional office reported receiving a similar fax.

Baird has compared protesters who have shown up at lawmaker town halls during the recess to the Nazis.

“What we're seeing right now is close to Brown Shirt tactics,” Baird said in an interview with the Vancouver, Wash., Columbian on Thursday. “I mean that very seriously.”

Baird is hosting “telephone town halls” instead of live ones out of concerns of an “ambush,” he told The Columbian............

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