The Not So Secret Service
Here’s a consultant’s evaluation of the mess in Cartagena:
• The incident reflects poor hiring, poor management, poor supervision, and poor controls. Senior people need to be fired, not just the agents involved.
• This kind of brazen behavior almost always reflects a continuing and wider-spread problem. That’s why the transgressions become so flagrant, because the limit keeps being pushed so long as no one is caught.
• The President has not set a good leadership example by leaving this to subordinates to untangle. He hasn’t sent a very strong message.
• The inappropriate overreaction that will follow will penalize good people by trying to over-legislate and restrict judgment as a compensation for what has actually been inferior people acting poorly at several levels.
• The “standard vices” will be involved: drugs, prostitution, and gambling, not just one of them.
• The media are being overly generous and tentative. Mitt Romney’s treatment of his dog had more investigative journalism attendant to it than this sad mess. It makes you wonder whether the media, as with Kennedy’s assignations, actually knew about it but didn’t report it.
• Instead of being handled rapidly and firmly, this will drag on and distract people with more important things to do for a long time.
• Remember Marshall McLuhan’s sage observation: “The price of eternal vigilance is indifference.” No one can be constantly on guard and attentive for long stretches. Do you think those airport screeners are as alert at the end of their shifts as at the beginning? You’ve had bags pass through a dozen airports only to be stopped at the thirteenth.
• The President deserves better, as do we all as citizens. But where does the buck stop? Harry Truman knew.
© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.
