Good Read Part Deux - An Inauguration Assassination Plot?

By Karl Klockars in News on Jan 4, 2010 10:00PM

President Barack Obama with John Brennan, his counterterrorism adviser, in the Oval Office in May. Photo by Pete Souza/The White House

If you have some time in your back-to-work schedule to pack in another long read today, check out the New York Times' look at the Obama version of the war on terror. It's a long discussion of the evolution of President Obama's struggles to find his way through the country's ongoing fight against extremism, but at the very front and center is a question: Was someone planning an assassination attempt at Obama's inauguration?

As the motorcade moved out, they updated Obama on gathering evidence of a major terrorist plot to attack his inauguration...A group of Somali extremists was reported to be coming across the border from Canada to detonate explosives as the new president took the oath of office. With more than a million onlookers viewing the ceremony from the National Mall and hundreds of millions more watching on television around the world, what could be a more devastating target?

Beyond the possibility of an attack last January, it's a very in-depth piece about the administrations adjustments (and non-adjustments) to Bush-era policies, about the process of closing Gitmo and about the way the Obama team is not letting themselves be defined by terrorism. Between the insider info and the way the NYT rushed this to the public in the wake of the Christmas Crotchbomber, this is good information to squeeze into your brain before you split work today.