There you go with your numbers and statistitification again Jesse.  Not fair!  Don’t you understand that Jesus didn’t do statistics?  Or numbers, other than multiplying stuff? 

Really.

When Republicans arrest people based on threats and inuendo, it’s because “Adults” are in charge.
When Democrats arrest people based on threats and investigation, it’s because they’re Islamo-fascist-commie-nazies!

That last paragraph really made my head spin.  But what the heck, all the “news” makes my head spin these days.

And this kid was questioned over threats to Bush using MySpace, which is the death threat equivalent of filing a lawsuit using construction paper, Elmer’s glue and glitter.

I read the linked SF Chronicle story about the MySpace protestor, and while your argument is correct that the threat was relatively harmless, I think most of us who voted for Obama would be pretty annoyed if the exact same thing happened to Obama and the threat wasn’t at least investigated.

Change one word in the story:

She posted a picture of the president, scrawled “Kill Obama” across the top and drew a dagger stabbing his outstretched hand. She replaced the page last spring after learning in her eighth-grade history class that such threats are a federal offense.

Too late.

Federal authorities had found the page and placed her on their checklist. They finally reached her this week in her molecular biology class.

The 14-year-old freshman at Sacramento’s McClatchy High School was taken out of class Wednesday and questioned for about 15 minutes by two Secret Service agents.

Now imagine if Michelle Malkin characterized that situation as “the death threat equivalent of filing a lawsuit using construction paper, Elmer’s glue and glitter.”

Can’t speak for others, but I’d certainly be pissed.

Looking at the situation, I think your assertion is pretty spot-on, that this wasn’t a serious death threat, but that said, I’m more comfortable knowing that ALL threats, no matter how seemingly trivial, are being examined.  It doesn’t sound as if the the young girl had to endure anymore than some embarrassing questioning by the Secret Service for a few minutes.  She didn’t get hauled off to jail, she didn’t get charged with anything, she probably just got told to never, ever, ever do something that stupid again.  And I’m guessing she probably realizes in hindsight what a truly dumb stunt that was.  If I had a kid who were ever stupid enough to do the same thing, I would probably want the Secret Service scaring the crap out of him or her, too, regardless of who the officeholder was at 1600 Pennsylvania.

All that said, I agree with your overall point… the Reichwing is again acting like a bunch of whiny fucktards, something they are pretty good at.  I seem to recall people getting arrested for wearing t-shirts critical of Bush outside his rallies, whereas Obama protestors are free to stand outside his events openly carrying firearms.  If there’s a double standard, Bush is the one who got more apparant protection.

I’d still like to see a comparison between the rates of death threats to Obama and to Bill Clinton, not GWB.  It’s a pretty safe assumption that the crazy-violent baseline’s a lot higher for Democratic presidents, after all.

DTG - the reference wasn’t that it wasn’t a real death threat, it’s that of all the possible ways to make a death threat, it’s the silliest one.

Well, there’s nothing crazy or dangerous about wanting to kill a Democrat. Are you a danger to society for wanting to kill a cockroach in your bathtub?

It’s great that nuts can carry around (unloaded?) fire arms near Obama events and the Feds throw up their hands and say “what are ya gonna do?”, but if you farted in Bush’s direction you got sent to Gitmo.

Actually that’s seriously messed up. 

And now some idiot complains that threats against Bush weren’t taken seriously.

Living in Reality really is entirely optional for wingnuts, isn’t it…

Hey, sometimes people got arrested at liberal protests.  Just, they were sometimes the violent, crazy, rightwing counter-protesters, so, uh, I guess they don’t count.  Or something.

Dick Cheney was Bush’s insurance policy.

Yeah, didn’t you know that transmitting any verbal assault over the internet is a federal crime?

(It is, actually)

I’d still like to see a comparison between the rates of death threats to Obama and to Bill Clinton, not GWB.  It’s a pretty safe assumption that the crazy-violent baseline’s a lot higher for Democratic presidents, after all.

From my understanding, Obama gets more death threats a day than any other U.S. president.

Fwiw, the post that’s linked to is complaining specifically that death threats made at protests where the president wasn’t putting in an appearance didn’t lead to any arrests when the threaten-ee was Bush, but has led to arrests when the threaten-ee was Obama

The argument for why we care about this narrow set of circumstances is that, apparently, the SS gets all its information regarding protests from the MSM, and therefore we now know that the media has a liberal bias. This is not the most logical argument ever made, but the author was at least aware that threats against Bush were investigated - s/he actually uses some of the same links that Jesse provides to show that some threats were followed up on.

Why the SS has information-gathering techniques that work outside the MSM, but mysteriously cease to function at events like anti-war rallies, is not explained.

Note: I actually have no idea about the veracity of the linked article’s claim (ie, that at protests where Bush was not present, no one was arrested specifically for holding a sign that made a threat against the president), but none of Jesse’s links are counter-examples to that claim. And the last link refers to the same guy as the first link (i.e, is not an example of someone making a threat once Bush was out of office being arrested).