I'm actually amazed that we haven't had a presidential assassination in more than 50 years, given everything we've learned recently not only about the ineptness and unprofessionalism of the Secret Service, but also about the agency's willingness to go Lois Lerner on all of us and refuse to tell the truth to Congress about it.
The president goes to Amsterdam and three agents end up drunk and passed out in a hallway, which follows a similar incident in Colombia the previous year that not only involved them being drunk, but having hookers brought to their rooms as well.
Now, a guy jumps the fence at the White House and not only gets in, but as we're not learning, gets way in, prompting the Secret Service not only to lie to Congress about the extent of his penetration of the building, but also about the question of whether the intruder was armed:
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said Monday night that whistleblowers told his committee that the intruder ran through the White House, into the East Room and near the doors to the Green Room before being apprehended. They also told the committee that the intruder made it past a female guard stationed inside the White House, Chaffetz said.
In the hours after the Sept. 19 fence-jumper incident, Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan told the Associated Press that the suspect had been apprehended just inside the North Portico doors of the White House. The Secret Service also said that night that the suspect had been unarmed -- an assertion that was revealed to be false the next day when officials acknowledged that Omar J. Gonzalez had a knife with him when he was apprehended.
"I'm worried that over the last several years, security has gotten worse -- not better," Chaffetz said.
He said his committee's request for a briefing from the Secret Service on the incident was denied.
It was not clear late Monday what Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson was told about the extent of the incident.
Senate Judiciary Committee staffers who were briefed about the investigation by the administration a week after the incident were never told that Gonzalez had made it deep into the building, said a congressional official who wasn't authorized to discuss the investigation and requested anonymity. The official said the committee later was told that the suspect had, indeed, made it far beyond the front door.
So when the Senate asks for a briefing, the Secret Service sugarcoats the details. When the House asks for a briefing, the Secret Service simply refuses. Astonishing.
I actually had the opportunity to attend an event at the White House in 1999 that took place in the Blue Room, which is adjacent to both the Red Room and the Green Room. To get inside the front door and make it all the way to the Green Room is no small achievement, especially if there's a guard right at the entrance. The story we quote here emphasizes that the guard was a female but I hardly see how that matters. The point is that, when a guy has hopped the fence and run all the way up the lawn to the door, how exactly has no one seen that and gotten in position to stop him from making it inside, let alone that far inside?
As for the aftermath, the Secret Service is supposedly a non-political agency but it sure appears to have mastered the Obama Administration's standard practice of avoiding accountability for malfeasance and just plain incompetence. The claim that Gonzalez was unarmed when, in fact, he had a knife, is worthy of the IRS story that Lois Lerner's hard drive crashed and there was no backup. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the truth, but I guess the White House prefers to start with the story that would cause it the least trouble assuming anyone would buy it. If people don't buy it, then you improvise on the fly and try to come up with something.
Serious question: Why would anyone want to run for president? If you do, you're theoretically a target everywhere you go, and this bunch of inept liars is responsible for protecting you? I've never asked Herman this question but I think I'm going to. Then again, if the Secret Service is being run like this, you'd think the president himself would see to it that the agency is whipped into shape, would you not? It's one thing to let the IRS run hog wild because they're doing it for your political benefit - even if they are screwing everyone else in the country, not that you care about that. But if the Secret Service doesn't have its act together, that could get you killed. What possible reason would a president have to simply cover that up rather than fixing it, unless he's simply so incompetent himself that he wouldn't know how to fix it even if he tried?
