British Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing caused uproar last night by predicting the assassination of Barack Obama if he becomes the first black U.S. president.
Mr Obama, the 46-year-old son of a black Kenyan man and a white American, dismissed Mrs Lessing’s comments.
Miss Lessing said: “He would probably not last long, a black man in the position of president. They would kill him.”
She said it would be better if Mrs Clinton, 60, became America’s first woman president with Obama as her running mate.
“Hillary is a very sharp lady. It might be calmer if she wins,” she told a Swedish newspaper.
But one Democratic analyst said: “Suggesting Obama is in danger if he wins the election in November is not only divisive, it is insulting to the American people.”
Princeton University political science professor-Melissa Harris-Lacewell raised assassination fears last month, saying: “For many black supporters, there is a lot of anxiety that he will be killed. It is on people’s minds.