NOT SURPRISING – AT 8:49 P.M. ET:  This is really about assassination, but with a jihadist twist.  From The Times of London:

SCOTLAND YARD is preparing to embark on a wide-raging review of the security of all 650 MPs in light of intelligence that lone Muslim “self-radicalisers” may be targeting politicians.

Well-placed police officials said yesterday that the perceived security problem has now extended across all MPs, with the possibility of an attack by a self-radicalised Islamist extremist now being raised in recent intelligence reporting.

The latest intelligence coincides with growing concern in the Metropolitan police and Whitehall about David Cameron’s decision to jettison much of his personal-protection detail and his insisting on walking around and travelling without motorcycle outriders.

Terrorist “chatter” is said to have spiked recently as the England football team prepare for next month’s World Cup finals in South Africa.

But senior security sources say the real threat is also growing closer to home, with individual politicians among high- profile individuals at risk of being singled out for a shooting or stabbing attack similar to that involving Theo Van Gogh, a Dutch film-maker, in 2004.

COMMENT:  If there's concern in Britain, there's got to be concern here, the land of the Great Satan.  We've already taken an airliner strike on the Pentagon.  And remember that another airliner on 9/11 was headed for Washington before crashing in Pennsylvania.

It is awfully hard to protect all members of Congress or the administration, given the freewheeling nature of American politics. 

On March 1, 1954, four Puerto Rican nationalists fired 30 rounds inside the chamber of the House of Representatives, wounding five congressmen.  A repeat, even something on a larger scale, is well within the realm of possibility.

May 22, 2010