Washington – Rocker and gun rights champion Ted Nugent says he will meet with the Secret Service on Thursday to explain his raucous remarks about what he called Barack Obama’s “evil, America-hating administration” — comments some critics interpreted as a threat against the president.
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“The conclusion will be obvious that I threatened no one,” Nugent told radio interviewer Glenn Beck on Wednesday. Nugent said he’d been contacted by the agency and would cooperate fully even though he found the complaints “silly.”
The controversy erupted after the self-styled “Motor City Madman” made an impassioned plea for support for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney during the National Rifle Association meeting in St. Louis last weekend. “We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November,” Nugent said of the Obama administration.
He also included a cryptic pronouncement: “If Barack Obama becomes the next president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.”
Outraged Democrats circulated the remarks and suggested they were threatening. Secret Service spokesman George Ogilvie confirmed that the agency was looking into the matter but declined to give details. “We are aware of the incident and we are taking appropriate follow-up,” Ogilvie said.
Nugent said he was simply trying to galvanize voters. The hard rocker, best known for ’70s hits like “Cat Scratch Fever,” is a conservative activist and has a history of heated and sometimes vulgar criticism of Obama. Nugent endorsed Romney after speaking to him last month.
Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz called on Romney to “condemn Nugent’s violent and hateful rhetoric.”
Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul addressed the issue with a brief statement: “Divisive language is offensive no matter what side of the political aisle it comes from. Mitt Romney believes everyone needs to be civil.”
Utter silliness!
Stick to the issues Obama instead of sicking your goons on the people.
Amazing that the secret service and all obama’s democratic handlers weren’t equally concerned when the black panthers put a bounty on the head of George Zimmerman. Not one word of concern, much less an investigation.
Not to worry fellow Republicans! Obamas secret servicemen performing the investigation may be suspended by Obama before moving on this if they act like their colleagues did in Columbia. Obama should certainly be protected and chase down any viable threat. Just saying that he’s shown recently that he’s his own worst political enemy to cause an election loss for himself.
WHAT DO THE nEW BLACK panthers, al sharpton, farrakin, union thugs all have in common; they can lead violent threats to individuals or groups of individuals and eric holder does absolutely nothing but sells guns to Mexican drug cartel. obamanation was suppose to be the must open administration ever and it sounds like the KGB. Oh forget it is part of the KGB, I forgot include obama former energy czar van jones who is a commie, and bill ayer who killed a judge
I agree that its silly to waste scarce public resources to “investigate” this vulgar dreche. Nugent’s rhetoric, is no worse than the venom spewed by Mark Levin and other right wing fanatics but they are entitled to their views.
Will the NKVD retroactively investigate all the socialist liberal democrats including Debbie Blabbermouth Schultz & Nancy Stretch Peolsi for all the horrible things they said about President Bush?? Oh sorry, I forgot, its ok for socialist liberal democrat manure to say those things.
OK, folks, time to take a pill for your Obama derangement syndrome and do a thoughtful analysis. Nugent said that if Obama were re-elected, Nugent would be either dead or in jail. How would this happen? One reasonable interpretation, considering that he is known to be armed and to loathe Obama, is that he would do something violent which would cause him to be killed or arrested. The Secret Service is charged with protecting the President. Part of this job involves investigating all threats and they can’t ignore what this moron said. If there is nothing to it, they will close the investigation. There, wasn’t that simple?