The Associated Press reports that New York state comptroller:

“Alan Hevesi publicly apologized today for a ‘beyond dumb’ remark about ‘putting a bullet between the president’s eyes.’ Hevesi hastily called a mea culpa press conference hours after putting his foot in his mouth at the Queens College commencement. The Queens College media relations office said it had videotaped the commencement but could not immediately provide a copy of the tape or a transcript. At the press conference, a contrite Hevesi repeated what he recalled saying in the speech.

The comptroller said he was merely trying to convey that Sen. Charles Schumer has strength and courage to stand up to the president. ‘I apologize to the president of the United States’ as well as to Schumer, said Hevesi. ‘I am not a person of violence. I am apologizing as abjectly as I can. There is no excuse for it. It was beyond dumb.’ Hevesi said he hadn’t been in touch with the White House but he hoped his apology reached President Bush. Hevesi also called his comments ‘remarkably stupid’ and ‘incredibly moronic.’”

There is no doubt that this is one of the stupidest remarks made in a political speech in recent memory, making New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin look like a rhetorical genius, and, arguably, by contrast, elevating even George W. Bush to the rank of eloquent orator. But isn’t such a threat against the president also illegal?

According to the Cornell Law School U.S. Code web site Section 18, United States Code, 871 provides that

“(a) Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from any post office or by any letter carrier any letter, paper, writing, print, missive, or document containing any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States, the President-elect, the Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President of the United States, or the Vice President-elect, or knowingly and willfully otherwise makes any such threat against the President, President-elect, Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President, or Vice President-elect, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.”

The law requires that somone “knowingly and willfully” make a threat “to inflict bodily harm” on the president. Hevesi clearly satsified these requirements. In general, the law has been interpreted by legal scholars to require that the threat be credible, that is, that the person making the threat at some level intended to carry out the threat or had the ability or predisposition to carry it out. Arrests of individuals who have allegedly made threats against the president’s life are not uncommon, however, and generally involve people who are just plain angry, but who do not seem to be making credible threats.

In April of this year, Vikram Buddhi, a Purdue University graduate student was arrested for allegedly posting a Bush death threat on a Yahoo Finance message board. In September, 2004, the Secret Service arrested Sue Niederer, a 55-year old Hopewell, New Jersey housewife and the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, for allegedly making threats against the president. Niederer apprently posted several threats to the web site counterpunch.org, in which she said she “wanted to rip the president’s head off” and “shoot him in the groined area.” And in August 2004, Tampa, Florida police officer Joseph Mazagwu was arrested and charged with threatening to kill the President when he was in Florida in July of that year.

It will be interesting to see whether anyone advocates charging Hevesi in connection with the remarks.