SEEN ON FACEBOOK: “In case you haven’t heard, the Secret Service is keeping an eye on Ted Nugent. The other eye is scanning for hookers.”
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BRIDGET JOHNSON: Why The Secret Service Sex Scandal Really Matters: “The image of insecurity that this projects to our enemies is damaging — and could have proven fatal in Colombia if the agents, reportedly boasting in the brothel that they were assigned to protect the president, let the wrong person into the bedroom. . . . When agents are drunk, boasting of a cool covert job, and hiring ladies of the night, you never know what’s going to come into that agent’s room — and what wrench can be thrown into the U.S. security apparatus.”
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: Secret Service’s Colombia scandal has election-year implications.
BAD OPTICS: So how’s the Secret Service scandal affecting Obama’s messaging? Well, if you search “Cartagena Hookers” on Google Images, you get this:
REPORT: Obama “Angry” If Secret Service Allegations Are True.
Well, he needs to think about the signals being sent from the top.
Pictured on the left, above, is Jon Favreau, who still works for the White House at a salary of $172,200 a year. According to the linked article, Obama calls him his “mind reader.”
This leaves reader Paula Colozzi unimpressed: “$172,000 for recycled speeches, as recent reviews of Obama’s speeches have been shown to be. A bit overpaid perhaps.” Hey, recycling is going green.
REP. ISSA: Secret Service misconduct allegations reveal ‘pattern of behavior.’
UPDATE: 20 or more US agents could be involved in Colombian hooker woe. “Agency sources said hookers routinely hit on agents traveling abroad, but the supposedly top-notch government workers are trained to know that prostitutes — and booze — represent serious breaches of security.”
IT’S FUN TO LAUGH AT THOSE SECRET SERVICE HOOKER ANTICS, especially when it turns out that the whole scandal exploded because of a dispute about 47 bucks, but the truth is, this attitude of irresponsibility and entitlement has been an issue with the Secret Service for a while. Here’s a collection of links from InstaPundit going back several years.
It’s also much worse than an embarrassment. Much of the Secret Service’s actual protective ability has been deterrent — with a reputation for dedication and efficiency, they made an attack on the President seem sufficiently unlikely to succeed that it wasn’t worth trying. That reputation took a big hit with this scandal.
UPDATE: “A culture of corner-cutting.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Rae Leggett emails: “That’s one hell of a plot for an action movie, that would never get made. The Secret Service is always portrayed in movies as above reproach (‘Vantage Point’), except for the one bad apple. What if the whole detail were compromised by blackmail?”
OBAMA’S WAR ON WOMEN (CONT’D): Busted Secret Service Agents Refused To Pay Hooker. “Most of the Secret Service agents embroiled in a prostitution scandal brought women back to their Colombia hotel rooms before President Obama arrived in town for an international summit, Rep. Pete King said Saturday. King said the raunchy rendezvous involved 11 agents and went sour when an agent refused to pay one of the women, who were presumed to be hookers.”
Well, what can you expect from a White House that pays its female employees 18% less than the men?
And I guess the Secret Service agents were just picking up on the attitude at the top.
SO, ASIDE FROM THAT BUSINESS WITH THE HOOKERS AND THE SECRET SERVICE, HOW’S THE SUMMIT GOING? Fausta Wertz has some news.
PROBABLY HOLDOVERS FROM THE CLINTON DETAIL: Obama Secret Service Agents Recalled From Colombia for Soliciting Prostitutes. But seriously, a dozen?
But then, it’s a boys’ club over there. Has been since day one. Related: In Early Obama White House Female Staffers Felt Frozen Out.
Gosh, I wonder why?
UPDATE: Secret Service Pickup Lines. I like “Show me your Oval Office.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: Military ensnared in Colombia Secret Service scandal. “Five U.S. military members have been ordered confined to quarters over possible involvement in inappropriate conduct at the same hotel here as the 11 Secret Service personnel sent home in an unfolding scandal involving local prostitutes.”
What we have here is a failure of leadership.
A VISIT FROM THE SECRET SERVICE. “Something doesn’t sit right here.”
SECRET SERVICE PAID HACKER INFORMANT $75,000 / year.
SECRET SERVICE BREAKS JIM TREACHER’S KNEE. Well, who could blame them, really?
UPDATE: A reader emails:
Yeah, that ain’t funny. Not even close.
Those scumbags are going to get away with this without punishment. There will be bureaucratic stonewalling and legal arguments and paid administrative leaves and national security and so on and so forth and nothing meaningful will happen except to waste a lot of money.
This is part and parcel of the division between the political elite and the rest of us.
Isn’t there a Titles Of Nobility clause or something to prevent this?
UPDATE: Later reports say it was State Department security guys, not Secret Service.
ABC NEWS: Third Gate-Crasher Discovered at White House State Dinner. “‘The Secret Service’s investigation into the security events surrounding the Indian State Dinner on November 24, 2009, has revealed that a third individual, who was not on the White House guest list, entered the State Dinner,’ a statement from the US Secret Service reads.” If they can’t secure the White House, can they secure the country?
UPDATE: Reader Ed Stephens emails: “If they can’t run a dinner party, how can they run health care?”
A LOOK AT Brazil’s leading Obama impersonator. Complete with fake Secret Service agents. Who may at the moment be looking better than the real thing. . . .
ABC NEWS: Secret Service Shows Unusual Restraint in ‘Bizarre’ Shoe Incident.
That’s because the whole thing was staged. It’s another sneaky Bush ploy — in 2001, the heroes of the Arab world were men who crashed planes into buildings. Now, men who throw shoes. All part of the plan . . . .