Pierson Punted: Obama, Congress Must Now Undo Bush-Era Injustice to Secret Service

National Journal ^ | October 1, 2014 | RON FOURNIER

[right-wing agnostic]

It's not enough. Julia Pierson's otherwise distinguished career at the Secret Service ended Wednesday when she resigned as director of the disgraced agency—her last act the right one. Now President Obama and Congress must do their part to fix the Secret Service.

They should start by undoing a Bush-era reform approved by Congress in the name of hardening U.S. defenses against terrorism. After 9/11, several Secret Service agents, including those in leadership, warned me that no good would come from plans to yank the quasi-independent agency out of the Treasury Department and fold it into the fledgling monstrosity that would come to be known as the Homeland Security Department.

"We are who we are because we aren't a bureaucracy," a senior Secret Service official told me in February 2003, a month before DHS swallowed the service.

At the Treasury Department, the Secret Service's leadership had autonomy, and its agents were encouraged to consider themselves elite. The Secret Service was not just the leading law-enforcement agency at Treasury, it was at the apex of the entire profession. Only the best cops became agents.

The Secret Service leadership could draw on the agency's reputation and relative independence to defend its budget, its professionalism, and its mission from political encroachment. Before 2003, the director of the Secret Service was a player—somebody even the president and members of Congress had to think twice about crossing.

By contrast, Pierson—and, I would argue, any Secret Service director inside the DHS labyrinth—was just another bureaucrat fighting for turf, money, and autonomy in one of the largest, least efficient agencies in Washington. As we see at the Internal Revenue Service, the National Football League, and the many other acronymed entities, it's easy to lose sight of your calling from inside an ossified institution.

[SoFloFreeper]

Bush’s fault? Really? Team BO seized power 6 years ago.

[EternalVigilance]

no good would come from plans to yank the quasi-independent agency out of the Treasury Department and fold it into the fledgling monstrosity that would come to be known as the Homeland Security Department.

I was just going to say that very thing last night on another thread, and got diverted.

[LS]

While I think we need to eliminate Homeland Security, these breaches were totally on Zero. They were either

1) utterly incompetent

2) so PC-ized that they were ineffective or

3) the agents themselves really didn't care what happens to Zero

[EternalVigilance]

Usually the results of incompetence or malice are about the same. So it doesn’t really matter how you got there. You’re there.

[Alberta's Child]

Let me get this straight. The author of this article is saying that the Department of Homeland Security is a bureaucracy but the Treasury Department is not? That bureaucracy was the reason why some knucklehead was able to scale a fence and run into the White House?

It's also worth noting that if the Secret Service had remained under the umbrella of the U.S. Treasury Dept. then they would have answered to an admitted tax scofflaw under Obama's first Treasury Secretary.

The guy who wrote this article sounds retarded. And I don't use that term very often.

[Organic Panic]

How many SS agents are affirmative action hires? It is 100% fact that the feds hire based purely on some affirmative action matrix hence it is infected with the least qualified people to ever hold jobs. If, God forbid, something terrible happens to the first family it will be some Muslim AA hire that is in his protection detail.

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

SoFloFreeper:" Bush’s fault? Really? Team BO seized power 6 years ago."

See , the Demorats accept responsibility for nothing
It is the Demorats War on WOMEN !!
The Demorats support Islam control of Women , where women are only property,
value is lesss than a camel, that is why they have so many wives.
And why so many Demorats 'fool around' with other women, while married .
And yet they blame the Pubbies ...Go figure !!

[urbanpovertylawcenter]

We get the government leaders we deserve and they get the SS protection they deserve.

Choices have consequences, but voting these days decides nothing, the vote counters decide everything.

Just keep me alive until I can get my JP Morgan Golden Parachute!

[al_c]

Didn’t take them long to blame Bush.

[bert]

Or...... the urgency and esprit de corps usual for the agency has atrophied for this president.

With regard to Barack Obama, the wookie and the spawn, the SS just doesn’t give a damn any more

That’s the reason. All the blather is just that.

[Liz]

It's worth noting that if the Secret Service had remained under the umbrella of the U.S. Treasury Dept, they would have acted WRT an admitted tax scofflaw and tax cheat ----Obama's first US Treasury Secy Tim Geithner.

Many, many thanks for the lead-in....and for the tidbit about the SS/Treasury angle. Those comments give the following activities new meaning.

===================================================

THE KINGPINS OF CHICAGO CRIMINAL POLITICS IN OUR WH wasted no time.....they had a stranglehold on the US Treasury (and the US Census) from day one.

The minute Obama/Valerie/Rahm/Axelrod/Geithner, and that diseased bunch of criminals, landed in the WH they did two things that were apparently crucial to their evil plans

(a) they took control of the US Census;

(b) Obama placed his COS Rahm Emanuel in control of the US Dept of the Treasury (the IRS).

THE SMOKING GUN---WSJ REPORT--On Jan 20, 2009 Timothy Geithner was appointed Obama's Secy of the Treasury. But within three weeks, the Obama White House tightened its grip on Treasury. Obama put his COS, Rahm Emanuel, in charge of Treasury---Rahm Emanuel's dual role was an unusual move.

When he got to Treasury, WH COS Rahm Emanuel was so involved in the inner workings of the Treasury that the phrase "Rahm wants it" had become an unofficial mantra among subservient govt staffers, prostrate in obeisance, scurrying to accede to Rahm's wishes, according to Treasury government officials. Reported by WSJ / 05/31/09

More here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124113406528875137.html

==================================================

POINTS TO PONDER The connection between (1) the US Treasury agency---the IRS---(2) conservative-targeting, and, (3) the WH's malevolent parasites at Treasury becomes clearer.

================================================

THIS MADE ME LAUGH OUT LOUD shortly after quitting his powerful WH job as Obama's COS, Rahm held a presser declaring he "just remembered" he really, Really wanted to be Mayor of Chicago. Then Rahm announced he had magically "raised" $10 million for his campaign in "just a matter of weeks." (waiting for hysterical laughter to die down). Ya gotta wonder how much Wall Street Rahm wired offshore when Obama put him in charge of the entire US Treasury.

=========================================================

Keep in mind---the SS's other function is to monitor counterfeiting, money laundering and other funny money schemes. Looks like the Chicago criminal combine had a much larger plan from the getgo.

[Sacajaweau]

Part of Obama’s “gotta hire a white woman” period. Bet she’s glad to be the hell out of there.

[areukiddingme1]

OMG! Blame Bush...that is the best they have.

I can remember an incident where President George W. Bush actually protected one of his agents.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX3aaWlUmpc

The incident occurred on Saturday November 16, 2004.

[BlueYonder]

Reshuffle the bureaucracy!

That’ll fix it.

Dead flat brilliant, I tell you.

[Bogey78O]

“I swear the ship sank not because we appointed an incompetant captain and a lackluster crew but because we arranged the deck chairs poorly.”

Treasury and DHS are both cabinet level departments with the same problems albeit different goals. That DHS is run poorly so SS should be in Treasury is not a good argument to move SS but to gut the political hacks and poor performers from DHS.

[nhwingut]

1. Blame Bush.
2. Claim Treasury is not a beauracratic monstrosity.
3. Absolve Obama of any responsibility after 6 years.

End of story.

[Jack Hammer]

Six years later, and it’s STILL Bush’s fault.

Unless it goes right, of course, and then it’s due to Obama.

[sport]

Sixty years later, to some, it will still be Bush’s fault.

[DoodleDawg]

Bush’s fault? Really? Team BO seized power 6 years ago.

Bush folded it into that nightmare conglomoration known as Department of Homeland Security. Which, since the primary job of the Secret Service is to ferret out counterfitters, made no sense at all.