Posted on 10/02/2014 2:27:32 AM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationaljournal.com ...
ALL Govt. is poorly run!!!! There are NO decent Liberal Leaders!!
The SS fiasco is just another sign of FedGov having reached Peak Incompetence.
Quite possible but most likely complacent. The last serious attempt on the president was over 30 years ago.
2) so PC-ized that they were ineffective or
Pierson got her job because she was a woman, there is no doubt about that. But you also have to remember what prompted her appointment. It was right after that scandal about the Secret Service Agents drinking and whoring down in Venezuela. A shakeup was definitely needed after that and I'm sure someone thought that a woman would be more believable when the agency claimed it was going to cut out the skit-chasing. Unfortunately the woman they chose was not up to the job.
3) the agents themselves really didn't care what happens to Zero
Then they need to be tracked down and fired. Immediately. This isn't a job where you get to choose to defend who you like. The agents are there to protect the President and his family regardless of who they are, regardless of how they treat the agents on the detail, and regardless of their personal feelings. If they can't do that then they have no business being in the job.
In this instance they may have a case.
Creating a massive new Homeland Security bureaucracy was one of Bush’s worst moves.
I'll take number three for the win.....this has been my thought from the beginning of this mess.
something terrible happens to the first family it will be some Muslim AA hire that is in his protection detail.
And it will be nobama’s own damn fault.
To quote hitlery “what possible difference can it now make?” None to me.
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.
I heard that once Gonzalez got inside the White House, the Secret Service agent at the door tried to stop him but it was a small woman and he overpowered her. So political correctness could have had fatal consequences if the off-duty agent had not come along at the right moment to tackle Gonzalez.
Still Bush’s fault. Always Bush’s fault. These people need a new script.
I don't think anyone knows exactly what happened. But since we're speculating then perhaps if the door had been locked or if the Secret Service had not turned off the audio door alarm at the request of the White House Usher then the Secret Service agent might not have been surprised and overpowered. It was a comedy of errors from start to finish. I doubt the gender of the agent made things any worse, or that had it been a guy it would have been any better.
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.
Hadn't heard about the connection between Rahm Emanuel and Treasury. Thanks for the info, Liz.
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