I think the only time that the secret service should interfere with the people they are protecting is if they are obviously mentally incapacitated - if Bush fell off the wagon, got shitfaced drunk, and decided it would be fun to ‘push the red button’, maybe they should stop him. I want my leader protected, and I don’t want him to want to be away from his protection for any reason - if the President wants to buy and snort some coke, he should have a secret service agent with him while he’s doing it.
That’s amusing where was the SS when you-know-who was getting his tally-whacker waxed. I’m not sure they need to standing over your bed at night.
Perhaps I’m overreacting to this kid and her little escapades. My hatred for her father however knows no bounds. I wish I could feel sorry for the poor kid, stuck in the limelight like that when she just wants to be a free wheeling college kid like the rest. I just can’t though.
Oh and BTW…I never said that our elected officials had to be perfect. The party that this man fronts for however does. It’s Ok for him to get arrested 3 times. It’s OK for him to flat out lie to the public during his campain and misrepresent himself as a moderate, a “reach across the isle”, “uniter” and then turn around and appoint as many corporate whores and right wing nuts to his cabinet as possible. It’s OK for him to backpeddle on C02 emmissions. (Oh well, he gets to breathe it at least one of the worst cities for pollution is Washington D.C.) It’s OK for him and his oil buddies to make plans to punch a hole in everthing they can get their hands on but a wheel of swiss cheese. It’s OK for him to lie about what he did during Vietnam, when faced with a real man like McCain. It’s Ok for him to exagerate his business accomplishments, when he failed at all of them and was bailed out by his buddies…do I need to go on…
But Bill Clinton is a liar, so is Al Gore for that matter…please give me a break. All of them lie just some of them are more destructive than others.
The other day I heard someone ask one of the Democrats about giving Bush a honeymoon, he said yeah…“We planned to send him on the same one his guys gave Clinton”. Frankly I think they’ve failed. They haven’t opposed him and his oppressive regime enough.
Now his Drug Czar appointment…!!! Did he or did he not say during his campain that he was going to do something contructive about this insane war? I believe he did. Yet now he appoints a man that will have us funding a prison on every corner… I cannot go on.
You tell me that his child is not following in his footsteps, that’s fine but it looks sadly like she’s doing her own thing regardless of how it may look for daddy. (History repeating itself.) Hey! if she keeps it up she might get to be president one day!
Needs2know
Promise?
N2K: I hate to jump on the bandwagon when it’s already so crowded, but this is still a thread about the role of the Secret Service. The Bush bashing is neither necessary nor welcome here. If you must bash, do it elsewhere. Your disgust is extinguishing your manners.
Everyone else: For what it’s worth, one of the hosts on morning radio says he was in the bar when Jenna got busted last Thursday night. From his description, it sounded like there was a Secret Service guy in the club keeping an eye on everyone’s favorite underage drinker. The cops were in plain clothes, so when the guy approached Jennna with a flashlight, the agent apparently figured he was just some random jerk and told him to get lost. After the cop identified himself, all involved went outside, where the cop wrote out the ticket.
The Secret Service has apparently defineed a line. In support of the “protective privelege” theory the Secret Service was espousing to avoid testifying before the grand jury, the said that an agent should not testify unless they witnessed an act that they knew at the time was a felony. Of course, the whole “protective privilege” theory was shot down, but the affidavits in support of the idea spell out what they believe they should do.
So, with the Jenna Bush episode, they wouldn’t (and didn’t) intervene.
I also read a book about the presidency in which a Secret Service agent recalled threatening to arrest Ronald Reagan’s oldest son (though I can’t remember the son’s name right now). The son slapped his child in front of the Secret Service and they told him that if he ever laid another hand on the kid, they’d arrest him.
Well, I posted quickly and now I need to clarify. Though the issue in the case was about whether the Secret Service should testify, I think the arguments they were using show that they are distinguishing misdemeanors from felonies. They had argued that if the President (and, by extension, his family) couldn’t trust the agents, they would push them away. But the Secret Service itself seemed to acknowledge that prosecution (and I believe, by extension) prevention of felonies outweighs the need for a trusting relationship.