COMMENT: With the bud­get talks com­ing down to the wire and grow­ing [pre­dictably] more acri­mo­nious, it is worth not­ing the num­ber of small planes that have intrud­ed into Camp David air space–5 in one month. All appar­ent­ly did so while Oba­ma was at the retreat.

This is rem­i­nis­cent of a num­ber of “high, hard ones”–a base­ball reference–that nar­row­ly missed Bill Clin­ton’s chin while he was bat­ting at 1600 Penn­syl­va­nia Avenue. The phe­nom­e­non also brings to mind the mor­tal­i­ty dis­cussed in FTR #742.

Is this a form of sub-rosa polit­i­cal dia­logue, anal­o­gous to the horse­head-in-the-bed gam­bit from the movie The God­fa­ther?

“Fight­er Jets Inter­cept Third Plane Near Camp David” [Reuters]; yahoo.com; 7/10/2011.

EXCERPT: Fight­er jets inter­cept­ed a pri­vate plane near Camp David on Sun­day, the third civil­ian plane this week­end to fly the restrict­ed air space while Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma was at the Mary­land retreat.

In all three cas­es, the planes were met by F‑15 fight­er jets and land­ed with­out inci­dent at near­by air­ports, North Amer­i­can Aero­space Defense Com­mand spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Bill Lewis told Reuters.

Fol­low­ing two inci­dents on Sat­ur­day, a Cess­na 182 that was out of radio com­mu­ni­ca­tion was inter­cept­ed on Sun­day morn­ing by two fight­er jets.

The plane land­ed at the Car­roll Coun­ty Region­al Air­port in Mary­land. Lewis did not know if the plane was met by law enforce­ment but said that typ­i­cal­ly occurs in such cas­es.

The inci­dent marked the fifth time in a month that fight­er jets have scram­bled to guide civil­ian planes away from the area while Oba­ma was at the pres­i­den­tial retreat. . . .

COMMENT: Also rem­i­nis­cent of the Clin­ton years is the cas­cade of vio­lent, open­ly sedi­tious rhetoric being dis­pensed by the GOP and its right-wing allies.

The News­Max site recent­ly fea­tured an edi­to­r­i­al calling–in effect–for a mil­i­tary coup to over­throw Oba­ma. This recalls Sen­a­tor Jesse Helms’ state­ment that Clin­ton would be in dan­ger if he vis­it­ed mil­i­tary bases in North Car­oli­na.

“Com­men­ta­tor Who Called for Coup Against Oba­ma Worked in Carter, John­son Admin­is­tra­tions” by Sue Stur­gis; southernstudies.org; 9/30/2009.

EXCERPT: In a col­umn post­ed yes­ter­day at the con­ser­v­a­tive web­site News­Max, John L. Per­ry wrote that a mil­i­tary coup “to resolve the ‘Oba­ma prob­lem’ ” is not “unre­al­is­tic.”

News­max appears to have tak­en down the col­umn for its web­site, but it’s been archived at Media Mat­ters for Amer­i­ca:

Will the day come when patri­ot­ic gen­er­al and flag offi­cers sit down with the pres­i­dent, or with those who con­trol him, and work out the nation­al equiv­a­lent of a “fam­i­ly inter­ven­tion,” with some form of lim­it­ed, shared respon­si­bil­i­ty?

Imag­ine a blood­less coup to restore and defend the Con­sti­tu­tion through an inter­im admin­is­tra­tion that would do the seri­ous busi­ness of gov­ern­ing and defend­ing the nation. Skilled, mil­i­tary-trained, nation-builders would replace account­abil­i­ty-chal­lenged, rad­i­cal-left com­mis­sars. Hav­ing bond­ed with his twin teleprompters, the pres­i­dent would be detailed for cer­e­mo­ni­al speech-mak­ing.

Mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion is what Oba­ma’s expo­nen­tial­ly accel­er­at­ing agen­da for “fun­da­men­tal change” toward a Marx­ist state is invit­ing upon Amer­i­ca. A coup is not an ide­al option, but Oba­ma’s rad­i­cal ide­al is not accept­able or reversible.

While it might be tempt­ing to dis­miss Per­ry as part of the far-right fringe, his cre­den­tials sug­gest oth­er­wise. Accord­ing to his News­Max biog­ra­phy, Per­ry holds a mas­ter’s degree from North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty’s Medill School of Jour­nal­ism and has worked as an edi­tor or reporter for sev­er­al dai­ly news­pa­pers, includ­ing the Tam­pa Tri­bune, the St. Peters­burg Times and the Clear­wa­ter Sun. . . .