On the Sunday before the Democratic Convention, four men were arrested in Denver and held on suspicion of attempting to formulate a plot to assassinate Sen. Barack Obama on national television. The story practically slipped by the American media. Although brief accounts dotted blogs at a few outlets like the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and the Huffington Post, the story was generally buried.

Across the Atlantic, however, British news outlets made a different judgment call. Most of the mainstream daily newspapers chose to headline with the Obama “plot.” The Guardian, The Times and The Independent all pegged the story for a front-page feature, focusing on the prevalence of racism in America as a breeding ground for “rednecks with rifles.” British TV stations covered the story, too. National newscasts teased the story throughout the day, including the BBC, and the public were a-buzz with talk of the “Obama assassination plot.”

So, what happened here? Was it underplayed by America, or over-played everywhere else?

CBS Denver reporter Brian Maass broke the story. One of his sources in the Denver police department told him Sunday that they had been briefed about a possible plot to assassinate Obama.

“From there, I spoke to another contact of mine in law enforcement who was in a separate briefing and had been told the same thing,” said Maass, who spoke with Pop and Politics over the phone. “I ended up speaking to somebody who helped me out with the FBI’s internal bulletin that they had put out on this, which they gave to me verbatim. That was an enormous help.”

With hard evidence to back up the claims of a possible plot, the story ran on CBS Denver the next day (Monday, Aug. 25). On Sunday evening, Maass had interviewed one of the supposed “conspirators” on camera. Although the footage was picked up by a few news outlets, the story remained a local feature and didn’t make national headlines in America on the same scale it had in Britain. Why?

“I think people wanted to take a “wait and see” attitude toward it,” said Maass. “That would be one guess I have.”

Because the four men had been arrested and nothing had actually “happened,” there was no credible “plot” to speak of. The US Attorney’s office announced that nothing of significance had been discovered, and that was that.

But according to Maass’ report, although Tharin Gartrell, 28, had been arrested for driving “erratically” in his truck, the police had found good reason to suspect a possible assassination plot. Two sniper rifles were discovered in the back of the vehicle, “along with camouflage clothing, walkie-talkies, wigs, a bulletproof vest, a spotting scope, licenses in the names of other people and 44 grams of methamphetamine.” When the police went to contact an “associate” of Gartell’s, the suspect jumped out of a sixth floor hotel window. Maass’ report says that the man was wearing a swastika and had connections to white supremacist organizations (it’s tough for a guy with a name like Shawn Robert Adolf.)

A third man arrested Sunday morning told police outright that the other two men had “planned to kill Barack Obama at his acceptance speech.” He then later told Maass his thoughts about Obama: “He don’t belong in political office,” said the suspect, Nathan Johnson, 32. “Blacks don’t belong in political office. He ought to be shot”.

Los Angeles Times reporter, Andrew Malcolm covered the story in their “Top of the Ticket” blog, “because it was breaking and interesting and had good video.” As to why it wasn’t picked up more broadly, Malcolm said he could only guess. “Federal officials, for their own reasons were pooh-poohing it from the start,” Malcolm told Pop and Politics in an email. “[You] can’t expect them to scream, “Run for your lives!” with 50,000 people in town and the world watching.”

In the end, the story seeped out of the wire and was replaced by short blurbs stating that the whole thing was nothing but the product of “racist rantings” from a bunch of meth druggies. US Attorney Troy Eid described the men as “meth heads” who wouldn’t have been able to pull-off a full-fledged attack.

But why did the story spark such little interest at home, when it garnered far more attention abroad? And what is happening to these guys now? The CBS Denver report was full of questions that remain to be answered. If there was no “credible plot”, then why did these guys have a full sniper’s kit and warrant an investigation by the FBI, the secret service and a terrorist task force?

One of the suspects, Shawn Adolf, is apparently being held on a $1 million bond for “drug charges”. According to bailbondservices.com, a million dollar bond is equivalent to a murder charge. Possessing a firearm as well as being sought for drug offenses equivalents to $20,000 of bail bonds, according to the site. Even if Adolf had a bomb inside the Democratic Convention, he would only get hit with a $500,000 bail bond amount for carrying an explosive in a public place.

A report from Australia suggests that a woman was also arrested and notes that “Obama has had secret service protection for 18 months thanks to credible death threats against him”.

Perhaps the cover-up was less sinister than practical. The British daily The Independent accused authorities of playing down the plot and being “determined not to allow the investigation to overshadow Mr. Obama’s big moment” at Invesco Field Stadium. Being that the potentially dangerous circumstances were cushioned by the pillow of the Atlantic Ocean, the British media—renowned for sensationalism—could flag the story for its “wow” factor and color it with hype. Meanwhile, the American press chose to take precautions.