If you consider what incredible access members of the public have always had to U.S. presidents, you would only begin to appreciate the almost fatalistic challenges Secret Service agents face on a daily basis.
This is why, despite the assassination of JFK in 1963, a close call on Ford’s life in 1975, and an even closer call on Reagan’s in 1981, the Secret Service enjoyed a vaunted reputation ever since it assumed the full-time duty of protecting the president in 1902.
I had this unassailable reputation in mind two years ago, when I became stupefied watching members of Congress react to reports about one “knuckleheaded” agent having a spat with a prostitute as if this were sufficient to bring the professionalism of the whole agency into disrepute.
Here is an excerpt from “No Secret Service Sex Scandal … If Supervisor Were a Man,” April 23, 2012, in which I expressed my stupefaction and warned about the consequences a politically correct approach to protecting the president would have:
It’s an indication of the reflexive, myopic and opportunistic rhetoric that passes for political opinion today that some of the most influential politicians in Washington are referring to this as the worst scandal in the history of the Secret Service…
Meanwhile, former Secret Service director Basham only hinted at the undeniable truth that, if Reid had been one of the good ol’ boys instead of a newly appointed woman, this incident would have been handled just like all others had been (i.e., with the supervisor slapping the primary agent involved on the wrist and fellow agents ribbing him as a knucklehead and admonishing him to just pay up next time)…
This is why, while everyone else in Washington seems to think highly of the way she ‘swiftly rounded up 11 agents and officers and ordered them out of the country [Columbia, where they were preparing for Obama’s visit],’ I think supervisor Reid simply overreacted. This, notwithstanding all of the moralizing about their infidelity – not just to the agency’s Hooverian code of conduct, but also to their marriages.
Now, lest you think my judgment here is clouded by bad old-fashioned male chauvinism, please bear in mind that I have written many commentaries with titles like “Women Make Better Politicians than Men,” October 14, 2010, in which I proudly extol the virtues and effectiveness of women assuming positions of power traditionally held by men.
I just don’t think there can be any gainsaying that, but for Reid’s hysterical reaction:
- there would be no scandal;
- the critical esprit de corps within the agency would still be firmly intact (reports are that the agents are now turning on each other to save their own hides and some are even threatening to sue the agency); and most important,
- there would be no greater concern about the agency’s ability to protect the president today than there was on the day he was inaugurated…
Finally, human nature being what it is, I’d hate to be in Reid’s position. Because even though grandstanding politicians are hailing her as a latter-day Miss Goody Two-Shoes, the “Mad Men” inside the agency undoubtedly deplore and resent her trigger-happy officiousness. She may not see it now, but she just placed a glass ceiling over her own head as far as her career in the Secret Service is concerned.
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Unsurprisingly, this contrarian view incited readers to call me everything from politically naïve to a male-chauvinist pig. But I felt thoroughly vindicated the very next day, when no less a person than President Obama channeled my stupefaction as follows:
These guys are incredible. They protect me, they protect Michelle, they protect our girls, they protect our officials all around the world… 99.9 percent of them every day they’re putting their lives on the line and do a good job. So a couple of knuckleheads shouldn’t detract from, you know, what they do.
(Reuters April 24, 2012)
Therefore, imagine my dismay one year later, when Obama appointed a new Secret Service director who not only looked like a schoolmarm, but telegraphed her intent to transform the Special Forces-like esprit de corps among Secret Service agents into one that comports more with the camaraderie among Mormon Church missionaries. Even worse, though, there was this glaring red flag:
Despite Pierson’s long tenure, some agents interviewed about the top contenders for the job told The Washington Post several weeks ago that Pierson was considered a weak candidate among rank-and-file agents because she had spent relatively little time supervising or working high-priority protective details, spending most of her career in administrative jobs.
Pierson oversaw the Office of Protective Operations, most recently as a deputy director, but with the job of overseeing budgets, resources and personnel assignments. By contrast, O’Connor [a clearly more qualified candidate] had protected presidents, the pope and numerous presidential candidates.
(Washington Post, March 26, 2013)
It is a universal truth that, when you treat professional men (and women) like unruly school children, they will behave as such – invariably by finding passive-aggressive ways to defy your presumed authority. Not to mention the fallout if those professionals have just cause to complain about being understaffed and having insufficient resources to properly do their job:
Speaking before a House inquiry into the security lapses, Pierson remarked that the budget sequester has left the Service nearly five hundred and fifty people short of their optimum number of personnel.
(Washington Post, October 1, 2014)
Frankly, one got the impression that Pierson’s schoolmarmish leadership of the whole agency would make Reid’s goody two-shoes supervision of field agents seem too regimental and, well, too much like a presidential protection force. And, sure enough:
A critical new report from The Washington Post portrays Pierson as a consistent voice for a less robust security presence around President Obama and other dignitaries. One of the most damning details: Pierson, who was “irate” at what she considered excessive security measures for this summer’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, said that ‘We need to be more like Disney World. We need to be more friendly, inviting.’ Pierson had worked as a Disney costumed character during high school.
(Huffington Post, October 2, 2014)
Is it any wonder, then, that agents were even more anxious to derail Pierson’s leadership than they were to derail Reid’s supervision? Is it any wonder that a man, armed with a knife, was able to jump the White House fence, make it across the wide-open lawn, and run all the way into the hallowed East Room before an off-duty agent managed to apprehend him? Is it any wonder that it has already come to this:
Secret Service Director Julia Pierson resigned Wednesday, after a security breach at the White House and other high-profile incidents raised widespread concerns about the safety of the president and his family.
Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson announced the resignation in a written statement, and the White House confirmed her decision shortly afterward. President Obama ‘concluded new leadership of that agency was required,’ White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said.
(FOX News, October 1, 2014)
Meanwhile, unsurprisingly:
A recently retired Secret Service agent told MailOnline on Thursday that former director Julia Pierson’s resignation will be welcomed by the agency’s rank-and-file because ‘people in the service thought she was a joke from Day One.’
He attributed her swift fall from grace to a cadre of ‘p***ed off agents who had had enough’ of feeling disrespected by the service’s first female director.
‘Putting her in charge was part of the [Obama] administration’s push to feminize the service after the “hookergate” nightmare,’ the agent said, referring to agents who were fired after patronizing prostitutes during a security-check trip to Colombia before President Obama’s 2012 visit.
(Daily Mail, October 2, 2014)
With that, we’ve come full circle.
Except that, in fairness to Pierson, I feel constrained to note that Obama is as much to blame for any security failure that occurred on her ill-fated watch. After all, if Obama wanted a Secret Service that was more focused on protecting him and his family than on treating the White House like a theme park (and him like Mickey Mouse?), he would not have quelled sanctimonious and misguided outrage over agents patronizing prostitutes by appointing her director in the first place. He has now appointed a veteran “good ol’ boy” to replace her….
Enough said?
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