For the past week or so, the news media have hyped two government scandals with very different implications. The first is the revelation that some workers at the General Services Administration (GSA) have found a way to turn their incredibly boring-seeming jobs into a taxpayer-funded good life. The second is the sordid tale of sex and debauchery among Secret Service agents assigned to protect the President in Colombia. Right now the Secret Service scandal — with its combination of a XXX rating and the intrigue of presidential security — is drowning out the GSA scandal, leading TV news reports while the story of the business-class bureaucrats fades.
For President Obama, the allegations that Secret Service agents cavorted with Colombian prostitutes is a nuisance. For assignment editors, it is a golden goose: a salacious scandal involving an elite, clandestine organization, with tinges of international intrigue. And for Congressional Republicans, it is the perfect political cudgel.
The White House Correspondents Association followed up with the White House on my experience the other day, and I now have something of an official explanation of why I was repeatedly denied access to the citizens in the audience at President Obama’s health care speech near Philadelphia. The interference, I am told, was “unintentional and [...]
This is way more than 1,000 words. In this photo essay for LIFE, Brooks Kraft gives us an inside view of the lives of the Secret Service agents who protect the President. It’s worth a clickthrough, though this one is my favorite.
