Disney World Government
Departed Secret Service director Julia Pierson wanted the Secret Service to become more like Disney World – more welcoming. Omar Gonzales felt welcome enough to dash through the unlocked front door of the White House with a knife. Former Director Pierson has a legacy. In fact the new culture seems to be taking hold throughout the federal bureaucracy.
Peggy Noonan calls the attitude “the new bureaucratic brazenness”. Actually not so much welcoming as we don’t give a damn what you think.
Everything sounds like propaganda. That will happen when government becomes too huge, too present and all-encompassing. Everything almost every level of government says now has the terrible, insincere, lying sound of The Official Line, which no one on the inside, or outside, believes. The other day, during the big Centers for Disease Control news conference on the Dallas Ebola case, a man from one of the health agencies insisted in burly (and somehow self-satisfied) tones that the nation’s health is his group’s No. 1 priority. And I thought, just like a normal person, “No, your No. 1 priority is to forestall a sense of panic. To do that you’ll say what you need to say. Your second priority, connected to the first, is to assert the excellence and competence of the agency with which you are associated. Your third priority is to keep the public safe.”
Doyle McManus just wants to know what happened to good old American know-how.
I like my Grumpy character – Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper. Since Obama threw him under the bus I drew him with tire tracks on his back. Too bad he’s facing you.
Empty Chair for an Empty Suit
The Obama Under the Bus Body Count rose by one this past week. When the usually reliable Steve Kroft asked the president how ISIS came to power on his watch, Obama blamed National Intelligence boss James Clapper.
Empty Chair
That didn’t sit well with the spooks and they let it be known that Obama is a no show for most intelligence briefings. Obama says, being a 21st Century kind of Commander-In-Chief, he takes his briefings remotely on his I-pad.
Maybe Clint Eastwood was on to something with his empty chair conversation at the 2012 GOP convention.
White House Secret Service
On Monday President Obama expressed full confidence in Secret Service director Julia Pierson.
Director Pierson resigned on Wednesday. It turns out the guy who broke into the White House earlier in the week wasn’t tackled at the door as we were led to believe. He knocked over a female Secret Service agent and briefly roamed the house until he was tackled outside the East Room where the president makes speeches. Director Pierson also failed to mention the president’s elevator ride with a gun packing felon.
On Wednesday President Obama expressed confidence in government efforts to control Ebola.
Jonah Goldberg explains government incompetence here.
Beheaders Beware
Last year two homegrown Islamists beheaded a soldier on a London street. The beheaders then lectured the gathered crowd until the bobbies finally arrived and shot them. A week ago Australian authorities broke up a plot to carry out beheadings on the streets of Australia.
Beheaders
Americans are armed to the teeth. Will that deter beheaders here? Maybe not. Last week a recent Muslim convert beheaded a coworker in a case of “workplace violence” in Oklahoma.
While he was in the act of stabbing another colleague he was shot by the firm’s COO.
Update:
Dick Morris says Obama is in denial over terrorism, for political reasons as usual. He claims the purpose of the ISIS beheading videos is to inspire lone wolf acts of terror here. Rather than alert the public, the president wants to bury the public’s head in the sand before the midterm elections. Morris says Obama successfully used the same strategy when he blamed the Benghazi terror attacks on a movie before his 2012 re-election.
Where Have You Gone, Derek Jeter?
Got the idea for this one from a Daniel Henninger column of the same name. It’s not a coincidence. I stole it. But I did embellished it with a picture.
Henninger links Jeter to Joe DiMaggio, another Yankee class act of a different era. DiMaggio was an even better player, plus he married Marilyn Monroe. Henninger’s interest is in great players who shut up and play by the rules.
Jeter won the game with an RBI base hit in his last at-bat in Yankee Stadium. He won’t play shortstop again. But he will come to the plate as a DH at Fenway Park where Ted Williams hit a home run with the last swing of his career.
He got chop single today in a 10-4 loss.
