SECRET SERVICE UPDATE: A reader writes:

Thanks for highlighting the cover story about the Secret Service. I’ve had a number of interactions with them, and although many of them are clearly very professional, there are a few bad apples who are compromising the security of the President.

A friend of mine has done some advance work when Bush travels to his state. He’s encountered similar serious lapses — classified itineraries just lying around detailing the President’s every move. At least once, he’s received an e-mail update from the website Democrats.com detailing the President’s minute-by-minute schedule days before any of the people who were supposed to be in the loop knew anything (and these schedules are NOT supposed to be released to the public). On one trip, he encountered a rather belligerent agent who repeatedly referred to the “fucking White House,” and had to be reprimanded by the higher-ups in D.C. for trying to screw with the order of the motorcade in such a way as to delay the whole trip.

Now, flash back to September 11, and the leak of the code name for Air Force 1. I don’t think this is an isolated problem.

Here’s the disturbing conclusion: “If you choose to highlight this, you can attribute it to an anonymous correspondent. I don’t think I need a knock on my door at 3 AM.” Hmmph. I’m tempted to invoke G. Gordon Liddy, but I won’t.