Now this is not to say that the events of the last 2 days or so is the first time that the +United States Secret Service has screwed up royally; but this is perhaps one of their worst, if not the worst screwup in the past 2 1/2 years. Apparently the intruder made it further into the White House Grounds and into +The White House itself than the Secret Service had originally said, and was more heavily armed than originally described. What was lucky was that President +Barack Obama was not in +The White House at the time of the incident, as +PoliticusUSA describes.
In a separate article, +PoliticusUSA makes the situation clear that the +United States Secret Service bears the most responsiblity for allowing this breach to happen because of the misjudgment of the most senior agent on +The White House site of a car backfiring, when what the agent was actually hearing was gunfire. But while I may be heartened that Congress is holding hearings into how the Secret Service allowed the breach to happen, it does deserve a considerable chunk of the blame, particuarly +John Boehner and the +House Republicans, for allowing the sequestration to happen. Had the +House Republicans bothered to work with +Senate Democrats, the sequester would not have been enacted and the Secret Service would not be down 550 agents.
However, as I said previously, management in the +United States Secret Service is ultimately responsible for ensuring that an incident like this doesn't happen again. They are ultimately responsible for ensuring the safety of the first family at all times, in addition to all visiting heads of state and heads of government. In some cases the service has grown complacent when it comes to managing threats, not willing to adapt new means of protecting the first family from all enemies, both foreign and domestic, or unwilling to adapt new tools to combat these threats. I just hope that they get their act together, in addition to Congress.
In a separate article, +PoliticusUSA makes the situation clear that the +United States Secret Service bears the most responsiblity for allowing this breach to happen because of the misjudgment of the most senior agent on +The White House site of a car backfiring, when what the agent was actually hearing was gunfire. But while I may be heartened that Congress is holding hearings into how the Secret Service allowed the breach to happen, it does deserve a considerable chunk of the blame, particuarly +John Boehner and the +House Republicans, for allowing the sequestration to happen. Had the +House Republicans bothered to work with +Senate Democrats, the sequester would not have been enacted and the Secret Service would not be down 550 agents.
However, as I said previously, management in the +United States Secret Service is ultimately responsible for ensuring that an incident like this doesn't happen again. They are ultimately responsible for ensuring the safety of the first family at all times, in addition to all visiting heads of state and heads of government. In some cases the service has grown complacent when it comes to managing threats, not willing to adapt new means of protecting the first family from all enemies, both foreign and domestic, or unwilling to adapt new tools to combat these threats. I just hope that they get their act together, in addition to Congress.
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