Maybe the Obama Administration could just try this across the board. Why did you totally miss the reality of the ISIS threat? Sequestration! Why is HealthCare.gov a complete disaster? Sequestration! Why does the Justice Department ignore every case that might be embarrassing to Obama? You know!
The Wall Street Journal gave the lie to this claim yesterday, pointing out that the Secret Service's budget has doubled in real dollar terms since 1998 - the sequester notwithstanding - but that didn't stop friendly apologist Eleanor Holmes-Norton from trying her best to lead Secret Service Director Julia Pierson into the all-purpose excuse that she hoped would set an inept bureaucrat free:
A few things about this excuse:
First, even if you did get your budget cut, it doesn't explain why the guard you posted at the front door couldn't stop a guy from running up the lawn and through that very front door, nor does it explain why your strategic deployment was such that he could make it all the way to the East Room. It also doesn't explain why they didn't alert on the guy even though they knew he'd shown up outside before wielding a hatchet. Once you get to that point, you don't need money to execute. You just need basic competence and readiness.
Second, regarding the dubious proposition that this had anything whatsoever to do with sequestration, Obama could have done any number of things to blunt the impact of sequestration. For one thing, he could have made a responsible budget deal. He refused to do that because playing with sequestration and shutdown fire polls better for Democrats politically. He could have supported a bill Republicans proposed in the House that would have given him much wider latitude in determining where to apply the cuts. He threatened to veto the bill - prompting Harry Reid to strangle it in the Senate crib - because that would taken away his ability to blame Republicans for anything that might happen.
But the sequester excuse is so absurd that it scarcely even deserves a response as substantive as that offered here. The plain fact is that the Secret Service doesn't appear up to the task under Julia Pierson's leadership. She declared in her testimony that she "accepts full responsibility," whatever that means, but no one has adequately explained how the agency that is supposed to be among the elite and most highly trained and prepared could let some lunkhead just go right through the front door and all the way to the stairway that leads to the family living quarters.
Someone needs to fix this. There is no reason in the world to think Julia Pierson is the person to do that, but at least at the moment there appears to be no inclination on the part of anyone in the administration to replace her. Incompetence is not a fireable offense in this White House. Of course, the voters set that standard in November 2012.
