One has to wonder whether the primary threat to the life of President Obama and the First Family comes from outside of the United States; from extremists in the Middle East, from those within the United States-extremists from red states or from the Secret Service tasked with guarding them. Never in the history of America has this question found legitimacy. Today, unfortunately, it does.

It seems to have started when the mere prospect of Obama’s victory began to spread throughout the nation. Early in the discrediting effort was the attack on his birth certificate, alleging that he certainly is not a “real” American. Then, Obama was cast a Marxist, a Socialist, an Islamic sympathizer and more. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Obama displays “Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior” and numerous other derogatory comments from members of Congress, the Senate and throughout spheres of influence in the United States were heard.

Throughout Obama’s tenure as president, patriot groups have grown from approximately 150 to nearly 1100 and the numbers continue to grow.

While political support for the president was sufficient to elect him in 2008 and again in 2012, the hate growing in America that is directed at the first black president continues to swell. Threats to kill the president began in 2008 with skinhead members, and then grew to neo-Nazi groups and other extremists on America’s shores. A national conspiracy to cause the demise of the president is alive and well among these groups and many more.

The mission of the Secret Service is first to protect the President of the United States and the first family. The institution of the presidency must, at all costs be guaranteed. After all, he is the most powerful person in the world.

But one must ask, with the rising-tide of hate throughout our nation, should protection of the president require more or less vigilance than ever before particularly since threats to Obama are three times more than to any other president?

Is allowing a man with a gun onto the president’s elevator fulfilling the Secret Service’s mission? When bullets hit the White House and days pass before any investigation occurs, demonstrate a lack of protection for the most powerful man in the world? Is allowing a man to run into the White House, run past the stairway to the first family’s residence and be allowed to live, reflect the phenomenal skills of the Secret Service or does this resemble a willingness to watch, or engineer the demise of a president?