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I'm sorry. I have watced this thread long enough. My uncle is retired secret service and stood on President GHW Bush's guard. After a protracted discussion with him the following becomes obvious: The man who threw the shoes should have been shot after the first one and before the second. That is the policy. They had no idea what he was throwing, or what was in it. The SS sole purpose is to protect POTUS. It most certainly IS an assault. While the purpose (now understood) was not to kill, only to humiliate, the fact remains that any sudden "attack" like that on a head of state can only be considered a direct threat. The dude is lucky that all he got was an a$$ beating and not 115 grains of lead in the frontal lobe. I suspect this incident is under VERY close review and a couple of people are going to quietly lose their positions over this one.

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Chronomat, Steel/Gold, MOP Dial, 2-tone band (2008)
Super Avenger Black Baton Dial (2009)
Bentley B04 GMT Silver Dial (2013)
Avenger Blacksteel Baton Dial (2014)

Uhmmm... I didn't know that throwing a shoe at someone was a criminal offence, but I may be wrong.

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Collection
GMTIIc
Daytona
Nautilus 5711
Deep Sea D-Blue
Submariner Hulk
Tudor BB - FOR SALE
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Aerospace
Navitimer World
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Navitimer 01 LE 788/2000

Take it from someone who was involved in the Chicago rally for President elect Obama the secret service has everything under control. Very much so.

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YOU CAN'T HAVE A GREAT TIME WITHOUT A GREAT WATCH.........MAKE IT A BREITLING

In international events it does not matter. It is the perception of harm to the POTUS, and nothing else.

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Chronomat, Steel/Gold, MOP Dial, 2-tone band (2008)
Super Avenger Black Baton Dial (2009)
Bentley B04 GMT Silver Dial (2013)
Avenger Blacksteel Baton Dial (2014)

Bonedoc you are very correct. The emergency response team that I'm on has done security in the past for Bush and other VIPs along with leaders from other countries. Someone will be reviewing what happened and it will never happen again. We have worked with USSS and the orders were respond quickly to ANY action towards the person we were to help protect. But until you have worked in these guys shoes you can't say anything. They are some of the best in the business. If you watch the tape it even shows President Bush putting out his arm to stop one of the agents. Its sad it happened and I'm just glad President Bush was not harmed.

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YOU CAN'T HAVE A GREAT TIME WITHOUT A GREAT WATCH.........MAKE IT A BREITLING

Well, it could have very well been something else. I'm sure anyone who would have harmful intentions in the future, reviewed the response (or lack thereof) very carefully as well.

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You posess personal knowledge and expertise that I do not. This entire evalutation is through the eyes and thoughts of my uncle, who was fairly livid about the matter. I was really only responding to the less that serious posts bandied about. The upside from him seemed to really emphasize the gravity of this. Not necessarily for what it was, but for what it could be NEXT time.

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Chronomat, Steel/Gold, MOP Dial, 2-tone band (2008)
Super Avenger Black Baton Dial (2009)
Bentley B04 GMT Silver Dial (2013)
Avenger Blacksteel Baton Dial (2014)

Bonedoc sorry if you think I was knocking what you said I agree with you and I think this post went the wrong way. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Now I'm going to see if I can get some photos of one of the secret service watches, thats what this was about.

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YOU CAN'T HAVE A GREAT TIME WITHOUT A GREAT WATCH.........MAKE IT A BREITLING

I am a little surprised they didn't shoot the guy before the second shoe got launched. Whether you like or hate the current president doesn't matter. Popular or not , the president , any president, needs to be protected. At the least they should have jumped in front of the shoe or something; really, they looked pretty lame. That is their ONLY job, to protect that man in public.

Bush waved off the Secret Service after the first shoe was thrown. That's the only reason the guy is sill breathing. Yes he was "handled" but Bush didn't want it to be more of a scene than it had to be.

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SuperOcean Chrono
Steel Avenger Seawolf

That is not true. Bush didn't wave anyone after the first shoe. The only thing he did was duck. After the second shoe he holds an agent. An agent which didn't even reached for his gun.

I'm just repeating what my friend, the SS agent who was there, said...the same guy this thread was originally about.

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SuperOcean Chrono
Steel Avenger Seawolf

That's very cool about the Secret Service guy and
his Breitling. But as many times as they've shown
that silly shoe throwing incident on TV, they've never
shown the kind of watch the thrower was wearing.
Wouldn't that have neen great if he was wearing a
Breitling, too?

Steve

PS. By the way, Mario, sounds as if you could've had a great career
at Guantanamo torturing the prisoners, innocent or otherwise, hmmm?

Bonedoc,

As many times as I've seen the shoe-throwing footage,
I think that if our SS guys had pulled out their pieces
and started blasting, there would've been a lot of
dead journalists and others. George has enough problems
with the Press; I don't think he wanted to add such a
slaughter to the list.

The incident was handled well -- and the shoe-thrower was
given a just -- and painful -- punishment, I think. Enough said.

Steve

With all the Atrocities the current President has commited in the past eight years in office I would say he has gotten away lightly with just a shoe thrown at him, shoes how effective the SS really is in protecting him!

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All the best.
Ian