In fact, if the guards were armed, the secret service very likely required them to be disarmed. They aren't going to let just anybody guard the girls.
Posted on 01/20/2013 6:49:30 PM PST by grundle
The National Rifle Association is airing a television ad (and has on its website this four-minute video) that says the private school that President Obama’s daughters attend, Sidwell Friends School, has 11 armed guards. It doesn’t.
In fact, it has no armed guards. My Post colleague Glenn Kessler, who writes The Fact Checker column, wrote about the issue here and quoted Ellis Turner, associate head of Sidwell Friends, as saying: “Sidwell Friends security officers do not carry guns.”
Parents and students say they have never seen one either.
The president’s children are protected by Secret Service agents, which is required by federal law, but that is not the same thing as armed school resource officers.
The Fact Checker, who hands out “Pinocchios” depending on how accurate — or inaccurate — a particular story is, gave the NRA and its ad the worst possible rating, four Pinocchios. Whereas three Pinocchios are given for “significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions,” four Pinocchios are given for “whoppers.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Speak for yourself.
“In fact, it has no armed guards.”
Now.
Post links?
“...11 armed guards”
Sorry, but I won’t apologize to anyone - in this case for several reasons:
1) If the Secret Service is there, then they don’t need ‘armed guards’, simply because the Secret Service will do that job for them. Anyone that comes within a mile of that school will be tracked and greeted, long before they can pose a threat to anyone.
2) Even when the President’s family is not at the school, there are BOATLOADS of kids of high-ranking government people, including Senators and Congressmen (as well as department heads, etc.). There is simply NO WAY that such a target-rich environment (at least as a kook would see it) would he left unguarded, and it shouldn’t be. In other words, NO WAY!!!
3) Finally, if they didn’t really have armed people there, does one think they would announce it?
So, no, maybe they don’t have ‘armed guards’, but they DEFINITELY have a lot of “armed people” there - maybe janitors, cooks, office workers, etc (who just happen to be plainclothes cops). The official guards, the ones at the TV monitors don’t have to be armed, all they need are radios to reach the right people.
You really think the girls and all the other “special children” aren’t protected by armed personnel? You really think they’re going to tell you security arrangements?
This doesn’t change the fact that *no* Federal employee,past or present...elected,appointed or civil service...should have armed protection of *any* sort.And that goes for the family members of any such employee.
The school doesn’t have to employee armed guards. High profile families employee private armed bodyguards at private schools for their children and I am not referring to secret service agents. Be assured that there is plenty of lead in that school even when the first children are not enrolled.
If so, it’s only because the secret service won’t let them carry...
Personally, I hope those girls have all sorts of guards and protectors at all times.
Imagine what the country would go through if harm came to one of them.
Those girls didn’t pick out their parents-—and for all I can tell, they are nice young girls.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and I can see no reason to criticize the parenting they are getting.
One thing I will compliment their parents on is keeping them mostly out of the public view. Remember how sick we were are seeing and hearing about Chelsea Clinton?
Personally, I hope those girls have all sorts of guards and protectors at all times.
Imagine what the country would go through if harm came to one of them.
Those girls didn’t pick out their parents-—and for all I can tell, they are nice young girls.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and I can see no reason to criticize the parenting they are getting.
One thing I will compliment their parents on is keeping them mostly out of the public view. Remember how sick we were are seeing and hearing about Chelsea Clinton?
I commend you for wanting to get the facts straight regardless of some embarrassment by doing so.
Pardon my naivety in such issues, but isn’t the Secret Service armed? If so, then I think that the SS would secure the school if they heard shots being fired at the school, regardless if there was no immediate danger to Obama’s daughters.
In fact, if I was in charge of the school then I would look at the SS’s presence as a freebe with respect to not having to use school funds to pay for security. And for all we know, the school might have expressed the same thing to the SS, the SS possibly responding, “we’ll take care of it.” I don’t know.
What am I overlooking?
“Fact Checker”. ROTFL!!! I guess he’s never heard of the Secret Service.
Washington DC Police Department is two blocks away.
I would bet that the SS would not allow anyone at the school to be armed, except SS agents. There’s no telling what the policy was before the Obama children attended the school.
Way to go, WP! Draw a little more attention to the security arrangements of the president’s family. Does anyone believe the SS would allow nonSS armed personnel near one of their protectees?
If Sidwell had no armed guards, then why didn’t they refute the charges when they were first aired? I simply don’t believe the wapo article.
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