The Secret Service

Is Sarah Palin right? Will boys just be boys?

Some find it hard to trust the United States Secret Service employees following the prostitution scandal in Cartagena, Columbia. Their actions could have deadly effects on the safely of our country.

Bad behavior with alcohol and women by military and Secret Servicemen is  not a new problem. The inspector general for the Homeland Security Department, Charles K. Edwards, calls it a “cultural problem, ” meaning  that in some countries, prostitution is not illegal.  Such behavior has been tolerated by the head office, according to two congressional staffers. An investigation is under way and is expected to take about a year.

The Secret Service’s primary job is to protect the treasury  and the finances of the United States against fraud and counterfeiting. Since the assassinating of President McKinley in 1919, they have been charged with  protecting our president and a whole raft of other people associated with the government including  children of former Presidents until age 16 or 10 years after the presidency.

So who are these people? They are United States citizens and come from a variety of backgrounds. New trainees start out at Glynco Georgia for a ten week course in basic criminal law and investigative techniques. From there they go to a facility outside Washington DC where they receive seventeen more weeks of training including “extensive education in marksmanship, control tactics, water survival skills, and physical fitness.” They are experts at their jobs with continual upgrades and  training.

We have become used to seeing them in suits and ties,  sunglasses, on roof tops,  hovering close to the president and others connected to our government. We’ve developed confidence that they will protect our president and others from internal and external threats.

It appears now that the training they have received in moral terpitude has been lacking. Johns Hopkins plans to rectify that. They are tasked with providing ethical  training for 100 Secret Service men.

It is sad and offensive that we find it necessary to assign a chaperone to travel “on all overseas trips” to monitor  the Secret Service’s use of  alcohol and prostitutes. And by the way, who chaperone’s the chaperone.

Sadly, what the President and the Secret Service  men were doing in Columbia got lost in all the hype about scandal.  Vice President Biden has stated that the United States “will not budge” on its opposition to legalizing drugs. President Obama went to Cartagena to meet with Latin American leaders and start an “open and honest debate” on  the war on drugs.  Now that’s a problem that effects everyone.