Bill Kristol thinks Barack Obama will swing by Afghanistan for a surprise visit on his way back from Copenhagen. Sounds reasonable. But Bill: Why all the detail?

The Secret Service detained a man at a Maryland town hall yesterday carrying a sign reading, "'Death To Obama, Death To Michelle And Her Two Stupid Kids." Why don't Republicans at least say, "Don't threaten to kill the president"?

MSNBC just aired video of a man with a pistol strapped to his leg waiting for Barack Obama to arrive at a townhall in New Hampshire.

In 1981, John Hinkley shot Ronald Reagan, to impress Jodie Foster. He has been locked up in a mental ward ever since. It is time to free him, screenwriter and warblogger Roger Simon says, for some reason.

Terrorists maybe tried to assassinate Jimmy Carter in Gaza today. Whatever happened, he's fine now.

Crazy people of America: stop telling everyone that you're going to kill prominent politicians! We know you're too dumb and crazy to do it, but the Feds don't!

Someone placed a personal ad in the Warren (Penn.) Times-Observer calling for Barack Obama's assassination. But to understand the ad you have to know history and stuff, so no one at the paper really got it. It's kind of like The Da Vinci Code.

Today is the 45th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination, the subject of a new novel and unending, inconclusive debate. We may never know the real answer about what happened that day in Dallas, although the coming years will see more and more declassified documents released to the public, finishing with Jackie O's oral history about JFK that enters the public domain in 2044 if all her children have passed on. The photos and footage of that day tells a grave story that eclipses mere words. Click for images that will still move you 45 years after the fact:

If you only read the Washington Post for one thing, read it for its offbeat profiles of weird people in the Style section. Screw politics! Today they profile an author named Max Holland, who's spent the last 12 years—12 years!—working on a book about the Kennedy assassination. His big revelation in that decade-plus of research? That maybe there was a gunshot before the Zapruder film started filming. But, a shot that missed! So who cares, right? Are Kennedy assassination people the most serious-minded crazies in America? Very possibly:

Yazmany Arboleda, the masterful young media manipulator and artist of debatable talent, still has the national press talking two days after the Secret Service shut down his "art exhibit" about the Assassination of Barack and Hillary. But that's okay, because now the kid is digging his own grave with grand pronouncements. Hoax, you say? No, this whole stunt is probably just over your head:

As predicted, Yazmany Arboleda—the publicity-seeking artist hastily shut down by the Secret Service yesterday for his exhibit about the "Assassination" of Barack and Hillary—made a clean sweep of the New York media. He is truly a master of his craft. The stories run the gamut, from the Post's throwaway one-off to the Sun's cautious warning that this whole art project might be a big hoax. And let's hope it is; it would be worthwhile comeuppance for the equally publicity-seeking New York Police Commissioner, who really should have had better things to be concerned about yesterday:

Yazmany Arboleda, the Assassination artist shut down by the Secret Service this morning, apparently has quite a history as an art world prankster. Does that mean that his whole idea of setting up a controversial art exhibit across the street from the NYT building was just a prank? Well, even if he was serious about the exhibit, it's still basically a publicity-seeking prank on the media. The aesthetic philosophers amongst you can debate the implications of his motivation. [Unbeige]

Turns out the frenzy over Sen. Hillary Clinton's unwise decision to invoke the murder of Robert Kennedy while schmoozing some newsfolk can be traced back to that old reliable right wing conspiracy. "Mrs. Clinton's remarks were initially reported online by The New York Post, whose reporters were not traveling with the Clinton campaign but were instead watching a live video feed of the meeting with newspaper editors. Its report quickly jumped to the Drudge Report, then whipped around the Internet and on television, with outraged comments piling up on Web sites."

The Roswell Beacon, a small paper in Georgia, ran this cover (which is not a spoof) last week to illustrate a story about how area "White Supremecy [sic] Groups" have been making threats against Barack Obama. The story itself is pretty straightforward, but the cover now has wild-eyed liberal types upset. But the Beacon's publisher has vowed to stand up to "liberal blogger thuggery"! Honestly, this one's not so bad. At least they didn't put it on an overpriced sweatshirt. Larger picture after the jump.

Today, you must have heard, is the 40th anniversary of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination. He was shot to death while standing on the balcony of a Memphis hotel at 6:01 p.m. on April 4, 1968. The night before, he had given his last speech—the prophetic "I've been to the Mountaintop" sermon—in which he told the crowd, "Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now." King was tired, and had to be specially cajoled to go to the church that night; he ended up delivering his own eulogy. Considering the circumstances, it was his most moving speech of all. Were he alive today, King would be nearing his 80th birthday. A full clip of the speech is below. Have we reached the promised land yet?