Politico: Is Obama’s assassination is the only thing that can save the Secret Service?

[Blue_Tires]

A controversial column in Politico claims that the Secret Service is being grossly mismanaged and that ultimately President Barack Obama is to blame.

The piece, titled “Something is Rotten in the Secret Service,” was published Tuesday. Author and former Washington Post reporter Ronald Kessler speculated that with the detail charged with protecting the president is such a state of disarray, “Five terrorists could come into the White House with grenades and wipe him out.”

“Agents tell me it’s a miracle an assassination has not already occurred,” Kessler wrote. “Sadly, given Obama’s colossal lack of management judgment, that calamity may be the only catalyst that will reform the Secret Service.”

Kessler — who has written books about the Secret Service, the FBI and a 2004 book praising Pres. George W. Bush called A Matter of Character — lays the blame for recent Secret Service mishaps and oversights squarely at the feet of the agency’s first woman director, Julia Pierson.

Pierson’s leadership, he argued, has rendered the agency “arrogant” and reckless. She punishes competence, he said, and rewards her lackeys for not contradicting her narrative.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/politico-is-obamas-assassination-is-the-only-thing-that-can-save-the-secret-service/

[Hekate]

1. A new low: pre-emptively blaming the victim

I don't know whether to vomit or shudder. I told you guys: they want him dead.

[Cooley Hurd]

2. "a book praising Pres. George W. Bush called A Matter of Character"

...tells us everything we need to know about this author.

[liberal N proud]

3. Nice to see they are more concerned about the agency than the objective of the agency.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

4. why do we give tripe like this

the light of day? Anyone who wrote a book praising an R president is sure to come down on the other side of a D........

[onenote]

5. evidence of a secret service in disarray predates the Obama administration

Let's go back to the Reagan administration. Anyone remember Robert Latta? He managed to get inside the White House and wandered around the executive residence for nearly a quarter hour in 1985. Oh, and Reagan did nearly get assassinated. On a public street.

And if Pierson is to blame for the current state of affairs (and she certainly bears a share of responsibility), what about Bush's Secret Service director pick, Mark Sullivan. He was there from May 2006 through March 2013. During that period, there were incidents where people successfully jumped the gate, the Salahis managed to attend a state dinner uninvited, Bush had a shoe thrown at him, the 2011 shooting incident debacle occurred as did the Caragena prostitute scandal in 2012, and the Operation Moonlight scandal (discovered in 2014, but occurred in 2011).

I'm not trying to defend Pierson, whose firing/resignation was inevitable and justified. But the idea that all problems with the Secret Service stemmed from Obama's decision to make her director is ridiculous, although not surprising coming from someone who thinks George W. Bush is deserving of praise.