When the Secret Service got sloppy!

The US Secret Service, established in the wake of the American Civil War back in the mid-1800s, was originally mandated with stabilizing the nation’s then-shaky financial system by suppressing widespread counterfeiting of the US dollar. With time, the agency’s operations evolved to take on the full-time responsibility of providing protection to the President of the United States following the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901. Arguably the world’s most badass law enforcement agency—at least according to Hollywood propaganda and plenty of theory—the Secret Service has recently headlined the news for all the wrong reasons.

Since independence, four (sitting) American Presidents have been assassinated; three of them under the Secret Service’s watch. However, there have also been multiple assassination attempts in the past. Recently, the world’s most loved and most hated man, former President Donald Trump, came within an eyelash of getting translated into the next dimension when an assassin’s bullet kissed his ear and almost blew his mind—quite literally! If there’s a creature on this planet that actually knows the sound of death, it’s Donald Trump! It’s certainly a miracle he escaped walking in the inglorious footsteps of the likes of Abraham Lincoln and J.F. Kennedy. Not only did Trump’s near-deletion underscore the great risks associated with vying for and occupying the Oval Office, but it equally highlighted the Secret Service’s recklessness and consequently re-ignited the numerous conspiracy theories floating around about the agency, its sister organizations—CIA, NSA, FBI et al—and the powerful underworld of the deep state!

By their own admission, for instance, the Secret Service repeatedly rejected the Trump security team’s requests for additional resources and staffing in the past couple of years due to what they termed as ‘resource constraints!’. Contrast that with the billions in security aid that the US administration unreservedly dishes out to places like Ukraine. If that’s not ironic enough, how about this: at the crime scene in Pennsylvania, the untrained 20-year old shooter seemed to have carried out better reconnaissance of the rally site than the highly-experienced Secret Service. How else do you explain their non-deployment at an obvious vantage point, which the gunman eventually occupied? Oh, wait, there’s an answer to that from the now-resigned Director of the Secret Service: the steep-sloped rooftop posed a safety risk to her team of counter-snipers. Coming from the head of the agency, how’s that for some serious sloppiness! Show me a more brilliant way to fuel conspiracy theories about the deep state’s plans to get rid of Trump!

Of the past 27 Directors of the Secret Service, only two have been female, including the disgraced Kimberly Cheatle. Ideally, the Secret Service Director should have the strategic planning skills of Magnus Carlsen and the reflexes of Sho Kosugi (remember that ninja from the 90s?) high on Amphetamine. The Director must be able to dodge bullets, catch knives with their teeth and look cool while doing it. In an unexpected twist, Trump, the protectee, dodged a bullet and looked really cool after doing it.

Despite her twenty-something years of law enforcement experience, the most usable skill that Ms. Kim flaunts is her ability to maintain a poker face even while telling a stone-cold lie. Kimberly’s incapacity to perform basic mathematical calculations like determining the angle of slope of a rooftop didn’t particularly reflect well on her resumé, and thus brought into disrepute whatever achievements she may have attained in the past decades! To add salt to injury, in what turned out to be an epic shitshow on Monday, Kim finally appeared (she had to be dragged!) before a congressional hearing and barely provided answers to a barrage of extremely important questions, despite being grilled like a T-bone steak. Kim’s evasiveness didn’t exactly go down well with Congresswoman Nancy Mace who described her in the most colorful way. “You’re full of shit!” she said to the Director’s face on live TV.

In hindsight, and at the risk of sounding misogynistic, there’s perhaps some well-reasoned arguments for the gender imbalance at the top ranks and generally in the Secret Service’s rank and file. First off, women are emotional creatures, prone to outbursts of tears, laughter, and everything in between; often without warning. Imagine the mayhem if a female agent suddenly broke down into tears while protecting the President? The enemy would surely take advantage of this moment of weakness, launching an attack while she’s busy searching for tissue.

Women and secrets are two words that should never be in the same sentence! And it’s not that they have lose lips. It’s just that they possess this incredible secret-spilling superpower. Women have the uncanny ability to communicate telepathically, especially when it comes to explosive secrets. Without even saying a word, they’ll simply give each other the ‘hey-me-seated-on-a-gossip-grenade’ look; and before you know it, the entire town will have felt the tremor of what you did last summer! They’re probably better off as detectives. After all, they’ve got that natural ability to sniff out secrets like a bloodhound on a trail. You’ve got to give it up for Kim Cheatle, though, for remaining tight-lipped at the congressional hearing—she’ll go down in the history books as the only woman in recent memory to have defied female instinct and kept her mouth shut. Only that it thoroughly worked against her!

Reviewing the footage of the agents surrounding Trump after the shooting, it was conspicuously obvious that the only small people next to him were the female agents. Trump is a fairly huge guy. The last thing you want is a bunch of midgets giving him protection. It’s like wearing a swimsuit that doesn’t fit and expecting your unmentionables not to get exposed! Generally, women are shorter, smaller, and less muscular than their male counterparts. This is a well-known fact and there’s no shame in that. How could a petite woman possibly shield the President from a bullet when she can barely lift her own purse?

When John Hinckley, President Reagan’s would-be assassin, fired several gunshots at him in 1981, one of the Secret Service agents stood straight up between Reagan and the gunman. He took a bullet to the chest and ultimately protected the President. At Trump’s rally, a female agent was seen ducking. Understandably so, cos that’s naturally what women do in the face of danger and uncomfortable situations. They’re much on the lookout for the swiftest exit. In contrast, the instinct to protect is innately of the male species.

Whereas it’s arguable that women are exceptional multitaskers capable of juggling multiple tasks at once; do not forget the old adage: “Jack of all trades, master of none.” As the agents hauled Trump into his vehicle after the shooting, a visibly agitated female agent struggled to holster her gun. Meanwhile, at her Secret Service recruitment interview, she was like: “Yes, I’m capable of scanning the area for threats while holstering my gun, while covering the President, while ducking; all at once and under immense pressure!”. On the other end, in the heat of the moment, her female colleague was too busy reaching for her pair of shades from her pocket, I guess so she could look cool for a historic photo moment. That, rather than focusing on the task at hand: protecting the President.

Overall, the Secret Service’s performance in protecting President Trump has been about as reassuring as a parachute that only opens on the third attempt. Not surprising that a few hours ago Kim Cheatle finally bowed to pressure and threw in the towel, except with a nasty dried-in stain on her legacy.

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