And you thought your neighborhood had problems

[alan1]

On breaks, Obama will return home to city streets - Yahoo! News

On breaks, Obama will return home to city streets
By DEANNA BELLANDI, Associated Press Writer Deanna Bellandi, Associated Press Writer – Sun Dec 14, 10:15 am ET

CHICAGO – When President-elect Barack Obama heads home for a break from the White House, he won't go to a sprawling ranch or private seaside compound.

Obama will come back to a crowded city neighborhood, creating different security challenges for the Secret Service and perhaps headaches for his neighbors.

No other recent first family has lived in a city neighborhood like the Obamas. The $1.6 million mansion he and his wife, Michelle, share with their two young daughters sits just off a busy street — a stretch of which has been closed to traffic — and his closest neighbors are just a few feet away.

"My Kennebunkport is on the South Side of Chicago," Obama said in a recent interview with the Chicago Tribune. "Our friends are here. Our family is here. We are going to try to come back here as often as possible ... at least once every six weeks or couple months."

His busy South Side neighborhood affords none of the privacy of President George W. Bush's 1,600-acre Texas spread or President George H.W. Bush's seaside summer retreat in Kennebunkport, Maine. President Ronald Reagan's White House in the West was his mountaintop Rancho del Cielo in California. President Bill Clinton moved to the White House from the governor's mansion in Arkansas.

But Obama is a Chicago transplant whose campaign was rooted in the notion that he's not like the other guys, and living in an urban neighborhood near the University of Chicago is a symbol of that, said Paul Light, a presidential historian at New York University.

Obama, who owns only the one home, was even able to paint his Republican opponent, John McCain, as out of touch with voters when the Arizona senator apparently didn't know how many homes he and his multimillionaire wife owned.

Maintaining strong ties to Chicago is one way Obama can stay in touch with the people who helped him get elected, Light said. "I don't think the public will take kindly toward any sort of signal that he is somehow losing touch with the outside world, that he's trapped on island Washington," Light said.

Like other presidents, Obama is sure to spend some of his down time at Camp David, the presidential retreat on a remote Maryland mountaintop, and in Hawaii, a regular vacation spot for him and where he spent much of his childhood.

For security reasons, the Obamas' urban oasis already has changed. Their large red brick house doesn't have the benefit of being surrounded by acres of land like other presidential retreats, so the city streets near it look like a military zone with blocks-long metal and concrete barriers. Secret Service agents and police patrol the area.

But the Obamas are hardly prisoners in their home, although the family is under the constant protection of the Secret Service.

Obama visits a nearby gym nearly every morning and then travels downtown to work at his transition office or to hold news conferences. His motorcade sometimes shuttles his daughters, 10-year-old Malia and 7-year-old Sasha, to school, and he and Michelle dine out at popular Chicago eateries.

Protecting a city Western White House poses some new situations for the Secret Service, as does any venue around the world where the president and his family need to be protected.

"We would not consider it more difficult," said Agent Malcolm Wiley, a Secret Service spokesman.

And the attention to security isn't something that will end when Obama leaves office. Before former President Bill Clinton left the White House, local officials in suburban Westchester County, N.Y., approved requests from the Clintons for security additions at their new home in Chappaqua, including an 8-foot tall fence.

The tight security near Obama's home is something KAM Isaiah Israel, a landmark Chicago temple across the street, is taking in stride.

On its Web site, the temple tells visitors what to expect when coming, including ID checks on the street and possible searches of vehicles and bags.

"We have lived with and will continue to live with the security, and people have gotten used to it," said congregation president Lawrence Bloom. He said the temple continues to run a full schedule of religious services, classes and programs.

When temple officials have met with the Secret Service, agents have told them that Obama is concerned about the imposing on the neighborhood because of his tight security, Bloom said.

Bloom wonders whether Obama's street will go back to being a bit more normal when Obama is ensconced in Washington.

"We can't be sure of that," he said.

Wow, you go out and buy yourself a million dollar home in a nice neighborhood, then some asshat of a neighbor decides to become president. Next thing you know you have SS (Secret Service) all over the place. You start having to present credentials just to get into your own driveway.

 

[William Joyce]

The tight security near Obama's home is something KAM Isaiah Israel, a landmark Chicago temple across the street, is taking in stride.

On its Web site, the temple tells visitors what to expect when coming, including ID checks on the street and possible searches of vehicles and bags.

"We have lived with and will continue to live with the security, and people have gotten used to it," said congregation president Lawrence Bloom. He said the temple continues to run a full schedule of religious services, classes and programs.

Oy, the Jews suffer so much. Oy!

 

[alan1]

The tight security near Obama's home is something KAM Isaiah Israel, a landmark Chicago temple across the street, is taking in stride.

On its Web site, the temple tells visitors what to expect when coming, including ID checks on the street and possible searches of vehicles and bags.

"We have lived with and will continue to live with the security, and people have gotten used to it," said congregation president Lawrence Bloom. He said the temple continues to run a full schedule of religious services, classes and programs.

Oy, the Jews suffer so much. Oy!

There's a Jewish Temple in Mr. Obama's neighborhood?
I bet that secretly Mr. Obama is a Jew and all this Jeremiah Wright crap was a diversion created by the MSM to hide that fact.

 

[Lycurgus]

There's a Jewish Temple in Mr. Obama's neighborhood?
I bet that secretly Mr. Obama is a Jew and all this Jeremiah Wright crap was a diversion created by the MSM to hide that fact.

 

[Old Rocks]

Let's see. A black and white mixed race Jew. Obama is sounding more American every day. Soon to be competing with Tiger Woods.

 

[alan1]

Let's see. A black and white mixed race Jew. Obama is sounding more American every day. Soon to be competing with Tiger Woods.

Or Sammy Davis Jr.

 

[random3434]

There's a Jewish Temple in Mr. Obama's neighborhood?
I bet that secretly Mr. Obama is a Jew and all this Jeremiah Wright crap was a diversion created by the MSM to hide that fact.

William Joyce can't get around the fact that a half white/half black man who lives in a neighborhood with jews is going to be his next president. It's everything he is against. He has a right to his seperate state ideas, some have suggested giving his ilk Idaho, what do you think?

 

[Old Rocks]

More important, what does Idaho think?

 

[RodISHI]

More important, what does Idaho think?

If everyone will pass the tin cup i'll drive back there see my family and get with old friends and come back and tell everyone what they have to say about it

 

[alan1]

William Joyce can't get around the fact that a half white/half black man who lives in a neighborhood with jews is going to be his next president. It's everything he is against. He has a right to his seperate state ideas, some have suggested giving his ilk Idaho, what do you think?

Why do you pose such questions?
My thoughts are simple, yet to complex for the average mind.

 

[FistyTheBadger]

On breaks, Obama will return home to city streets - Yahoo! News


Wow, you go out and buy yourself a million dollar home in a nice neighborhood, then some asshat of a neighbor decides to become president. Next thing you know you have SS (Secret Service) all over the place. You start having to present credentials just to get into your own driveway.

Yeah, but that is balanced by the FUCKING AWESOME bragging right of living next to the FUCKING PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!

Also, over time, the Secret Service will probably not check everything everybody does in a procedural, mechanical way. They will get to know the community and just do what is necessary. They will probably do such a good job that there is some of the best security possible without people even knowing it exists.

 

[FistyTheBadger]

Why do you pose such questions?
My thoughts are simple, yet to complex for the average mind.

Luckily the rest of us here are pretentious bastards as well.

 

[Harry Dresden]

Yeah, but that is balanced by the FUCKING AWESOME bragging right of living next to the FUCKING PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!

Also, over time, the Secret Service will probably not check everything everybody does in a procedural, mechanical way. They will get to know the community and just do what is necessary. They will probably do such a good job that there is some of the best security possible without people even knowing it exists.

HOLY SHIT.....sorry if i am off topic.....but you can say FUCK here without being censored?......yea i am going to like it here....

 

[FistyTheBadger]

HOLY SHIT.....sorry if i am off topic.....but you can say FUCK here without being censored?......yea i am going to like it here....

I discovered that in my research before joining the site.

 

[del]

HOLY SHIT.....sorry if i am off topic.....but you can say FUCK here without being censored?......yea i am going to like it here....

yeah, we like to think of ourselves as mature adults with extremely limited vocabularies.

 

[alan1]

Luckily the rest of us here are pretentious bastards as well.

My family lineage is quite clear. You can't prove I'm pretentious.

 

[Lita456]

Who the hell wants to live like that? Constant surviellance, secret service, forgettaboutit...............

 

[random3434]

My family lineage is quite clear. You can't prove I'm pretentious.

Well.,,,,,,,if the National Enquire says it's true, then it must be, right?

 

[alan1]

Well.,,,,,,,if the National Enquire says it's true, then it must be, right?

It was The Weekly World News that published my stories, not the national Enquirer.

 

[random3434]

It was The Weekly World News that published my stories, not the national Enquirer.

Damn, I'm gonna have to renew all my subscriptions to the rags, I'm not up on all the scandals I guess..........

Whatever happpened to eel woman anyway?