Morning Jolt - The Dirty Little Secret Service

NRO Newsletters . . .

Morning Jolt

. . . with Jim Geraghty

April 16, 2012

In This Issue . . .

1. Axelrod-eo Clown

2. The Dirty Little Secret Service

3. Boy, They'll Let Anybody into the House of Lords These Days, Huh?

4. Addendum

Here's your Monday Morning Jolt!

Enjoy.

Jim

1. Axelrod-eo Clown

It was a beautiful Sunday in the greater Washington, D.C., area -- sunny and in the 70s for much of the morning -- but David Axelrod didn't have such a great day.

First, I'll let Jim Treacher spotlight the fantastic verbiage from the president's chief strategist.

"The choice in this election is between an economy that produces a growing middle class and that gives people a chance to get ahead, and their kids a chance to get ahead, and an economy that continues down the road we're on."

Good point, Dave.

The Obama campaign has been able to devote its singular focus to Mitt Romney for less than a week. It's been a fun one, hasn't it?

Q: Who's having a worse week, David Axelrod or his boss?

A: Yes.

Step back, everyone! This man's a communications professional! Video is here.

Jen Rubin dissects the rest of Axelrod's performance on the Sunday shows:

There was plenty more that Axelrod said that was downright wrong or misleading. He "accuses" Romney of wanting to the rich to pay at a lower tax rate; what he doesn't say is both Romney and the Simpson-Bowles plan also take away deductions and credits so the rich won't be paying less taxes relative to the rest of the population.

He uses the president's favorite straw man: "No one can argue that it makes sense that people who are making a million dollars a year or more to pay less than the average middle class worker in this country." And no one is. In fact the top 10% of earners have been paying roughly 70 percent of the taxes. The bottom 50 percent pay about 3 percent of the tax load.

But let's take a step back. Where in this is a plan to accelerate growth and job creation? How does creating a sort of new minimum tax for 4,000 taxpayers assist in the recovery? Maybe that is why Obama and Axelrod spend so much time on gimmicks and phony "fairness" arguments. They haven't got a clue how to create an economic environment in which investors, employers and consumer will all benefit.

Richard Fernandez at the Belmont Club concludes:

Pity poor Axelrod. What must be truly terrifying is the growing realization among President's supporters that he could actually lose to Mitt Romney. Yes, to Mitt Romney. Not because Romney is a superlative candidate who is electrifying the American voter but because the contest is shaping up to be 'anyone but Obama in 2012'.

The core problem is the [extent] of the President's incompetence. It had always been thought that even if the President were poor at governance, he would be good at campaigning. They relied on that idea and forgot what all track and field coaches know: that the 100 meter man will not necessarily place well in the 42,195 meter marathon.

President Obama could find a second wind from somewhere. Yet clearly his key strength of futurity -- the ability to act as a blank screen upon which people could project their aspirations -- can no longer be useful in the face of his track record. Barack Obama in 2008 was a promise. Barack Obama in 2012 is a busted flush. The efforts by Axelrod to make the debate once again about the future of America have largely failed.

And they will continue to fail because many of Obama's early blunders are now coming to term. He now has a past [and] a present in addition to his ever glittering future. And the expected present consists of bulletins from an economy poisoned by his largesse; a war in Southwest Asia run on a crazy strategic premise; a foreign policy whose centerpiece is "leading from behind"; an environmental policy that is throwing up on bankrupt energy company after another will produce nothing but bad news. His people are demoralized. They are losing it. Perhaps even the Secret Service has caught the air of dissipation in the White House.

You heard about that, right?

2. The Dirty Little Secret Service

I think it's hard to attribute any Secret Service agents' egregiously bad judgment to an "air of dissipation in the White House." But the whole thing is so astonishingly reckless, one is left grasping for an explanation.

The U.S. Secret Service on Saturday placed 11 agents on administrative leave as the agency investigates allegations that the men brought prostitutes to their hotel rooms in Cartagena, Colombia, on Wednesday night and that a dispute ensued with one of the women over payment the following morning.

Secret Service Assistant Director Paul S. Morrissey said the agents had violated the service's "zero-tolerance policy on personal misconduct" during their trip to prepare for President Obama's arrival at an international summit this weekend.

Okay, the basic caveats: The U.S. Secret Service has its mystique because its mission must rank among the most stressful jobs in the world. No matter how complicated your relationship is with your boss, at least you have the option of not jumping in front of a bullet if someone shoots at him. I have a hard enough time finding Waldo in giant crowd scenes; now imagine Waldo will shoot you or your boss if you don't find him in time. Assassins don't even show the courtesy of wearing a distinctive striped shirt and snow hat.

In light of that ever-present stress -- day in and day out, year in and year out -- and human nature, it's not unthinkable that a group of men would unwind with a drink. Or two. Or too many. But for so many of them to see prostitutes joining their colleagues and not to recognize the security risk -- never mind the unprofessionalism or the marital status of the agents -- is truly mind-boggling.

Glenn Reynolds observes:

IT'S FUN TO LAUGH AT THOSE SECRET SERVICE HOOKER ANTICS, especially when it turns out that the whole scandal exploded because of a dispute about 47 bucks, but the truth is, this attitude of irresponsibility and entitlement has been an issue with the Secret Service for a while. Here's a collection of links from InstaPundit going back several years.

It's also much worse than an embarrassment. Much of the Secret Service's actual protective ability has been deterrent -- with a reputation for dedication and efficiency, they made an attack on the President seem sufficiently unlikely to succeed that it wasn't worth trying. That reputation took a big hit with this scandal.

UPDATE: "A culture of corner-cutting."

3. Boy, They'll Let Anybody into the House of Lords These Days, Huh?

Continuing the "What the heck?" theme of today's Jolt, the Middle East Media Research Institute reports:

During a recent visit to Pakistan, Lord Nazir Ahmed, a member of the British House of Lords who originally hails from Pakistani Kashmir, announced he was putting up a bounty of £10 million for the capture of U.S. President Barack Obama and his predecessor, George W. Bush. The announcement, made at a conference held in the Pakistani town of Haripur, came in response to a recent U.S. announcement offering a $10 million reward to anyone providing information leading to the capture of Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, founder of the Pakistani jihadi organization Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), and emir of LeT's charity arm, Jamaatud Dawa.

Stressing the seriousness of his offer, Lord Ahmed said he would back the bounty at any cost, even if it meant selling his house. Qazi Muhammad Asad, minister for education in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial government, was among those present at the conference at which the announcement was made.

Our Andy McCarthy remarks dryly:

What a proud day for the world's most important alliance. . . .

The bounty is an expression of solidarity with the Pakistan-based jihadist organization, Lashkar-e-Taiba, for aid in the capture of whose chief (Hafiz Muhammad Saeed) the United States has announced a $10 million reward. Lord (ahem) Ahmed regards the U.S. bid as "an insult to all Muslims" and a "challenge [to the] dignity of the Muslim ummah." The ummah is the notional worldwide community of Muslims -- and here you thought members of Parliament represented Britain. In 1998, Ahmed became Britain's first Muslim life peer. Thank you Tony Blair.

If this is the guy they put in the House of Lords, just think of whom they left out! For what it's worth, he denies it:

Lord Ahmed has denied the reports, telling the Press Association: "I never said those words. I did not offer a bounty. I said that there have been war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan and those people who have got strong allegations against them -- George W Bush and Tony Blair have been involved in illegal wars and should be brought to justice. I do not think there's anything wrong with that.

The Telegraph reports:

A Labour Party spokesman said: "We have suspended Lord Ahmed pending investigation. If these comments are accurate we utterly condemn these remarks which are totally unacceptable." . . .

In its statement suspending Lord Ahmed the Labour Party said: "The international community is rightly doing all in its power to seek justice for the victims of the Mumbai bombings and halt terrorism."

4. Addendum

The RNC video department sure has plenty of material. But it seems as if just about every weekday, they come up with some great, short web video that lays out some glaring contradiction between the president's promises and his performances.

Today, they point out how the president boldly promised that he would "not make any excuses," and since then, he's offered an endless array of excuses: his team didn't realize how deep the recession was, bad luck, earthquakes, the Arab Spring, economic headwinds, automation taking away manufacturing jobs, ATMs . . .

On Sunday, President Obama finished gift-wrapping his latest present to the RNC video department: "Usually when I take these summit trips, part of my job is to scout out where I may want to bring Michelle back later for vacation."

Awesome. Your tax dollars at work, America! Now get those checks to Uncle Sam in the mail!