Four Secret Service employees who lost their jobs in the fallout from a prostitution scandal in Colombia plan to challenge their dismissals, arguing they’ve become scapegoats for an agency under fire.
The employees plan to fight their dismissals by arguing that their behavior was not unusual for the Secret Service, The Washington Post reported Tuesday night. Their challenge emerges just ahead of a Senate committee hearing Wednesday where the agency’s director, Mark Sullivan, is set to speak publicly for the first time since the scandal erupted more than a month ago.
The Secret Service has said that its employees had a clear understanding that it was not appropriate for them to bring women back to their hotel rooms while on assignment and off duty, but current and former employees told the Post that such behavior was tolerated “under an unwritten code that allows what happens on the road to stay there.”
So where is the personal responsibility? “We’ve always been allowed to do it!” and “But Ma, everyone else is doing it!” somehow just isn’t going to cut it this time. I would hope that this excuse wouldn’t save anyone’s job.
Is this a male/female thing? Why do grown men need to be told that when you go out of town for the company, and especially when the company is the United States, you don’t pick up the local hookers? Isn’t this just part of the common sense gene?
These men are entrusted with the life of presidents. They are supposed to have common sense as well as a highly trained sense of danger and things to be on alert for. If this goes on, fire all of them and start over.
The Secret Service had better put a book in its pants anyway because the Senate Committee hearing is about to haul Mark Sullivan, Secret Service Director, before it for the talking to of his life. I expect he will be taken to the woodshed and Sullivan will have to take a licking for everyone. Maybe that will inspire him to clean things up. Pain hurts. We all know that no member of Congress would EVER do anything even remotely akin to what the Secret Service did. [wink wink nudge nudge]
oh NOW y’all want personal responsibility? Yer a little late!!
Slow: “Personal Responsibility” is very limited in your view and that of other conservatives. You rightly believe that personal responsibility covers yourself, your family, your possessions, your wealth and your future. Progressives believe that too. The difference is that progressives also believe that “personal responsibility” includes the personal responsibility for their neighborhood, their community, their fellow man, the environment, everyone’s well being and everyone’s futures.
I know that this is a broad generalization, but, it is a foundational tenet of everyone’s core beliefs. Progressives have a vast idea of responsibility and conservatives have half-vast ideas.
So the word “personal” is beyond the understanding of your average progressive. I’ll buy that.
“by arguing that their behavior was not unusual for the Secret Service,”
That’s just sad and scary at the same time….but if it’s good enough for 007……
@BSinVA
Nice generalization there. Broad brush much?
Except, you want to use government to FORCE your idea of “personal responsibility” on others while conservatives believe that doing such things is, well….personal.
Absolutely. No one understands personal responbsibility like conservatives. You can tell that by their attempt to restrict abortion rights, limit the use of readily available birth control, and efforts to keep gay individuals out of jobs like being a judge. Darn right. 🙄
As for personal responsibility, I have never found the need to be on a leash so I didn’t go off for nooners and midnighters while on the job. Has that been a problem for you, Slow?
I was smart enough and personally responsible enough to realize that slinking off for paid sex was not a job perk. Is it just men that seem to have a problem with keeping their zippers up while on the job?
I always thought that was part of personal responsibility. Perhaps I am using the wrong term?
AMEN!
Moon, I am hysterical! You’re killin’ me!
P.S. Cargo, Slow,
Geez, this is so frustrating. Even in this circumstance you guys have to argue? When you are on a job, out of the country, being paid by the government, your time is NOT all your own, especially if you are representing the United States in a formal role. It’s one thing to go to dinner, have fun, enjoy the sights, it’s another to buy sex from hookers.
I wonder how your wives feel about your lack of outrage 😉 Let me just take a gander on their behalf, you might end up sleepin’ on the couch!
You’re missing my point. I said, “That’s just sad and scary at the same time.”
The 007 part was a joke because, you know…he worked for the “Secret Service,” albeit Her Majesty’s. and he sleeps around. Don’t tell me that you need smiley faces to tell the jokes.
I completely agree that that the agents need to be fired. I completely agree that the agents should be held to the HIGHEST standard. Nothing that the agents did was appropriate and they should be summarily dismissed. I used to hold a TS-compartmented Security clearance. I know what it is to be held to a higher standard. Nothing that those idiots did was appropriate and if there are any superiors that that condoned it or looked the other way, THEY, too, should be fired.
I was arguing with BSinVA’s point.
O.K. Cargo, thanks for the clarification! I did get the joke, I love bond, especially Daniel Craig in the role.
The other difference (which you neglect to mention) is that progressives are more than willing to enforce their belief structure on those who don’t share it with threats of jail and other assorted violence.
Sieg Heil, I guess, because when all your high-minded progressive bullshit is stripped away the bottom line is that you want your worldview enforced on the rest of us. Newsflash: you’re not Mother Theresa – you’re just the other side of the same coin as the religious right.
I believe Cargo has the right idea. Many of these Agents placed themselves in a compromised situation, where they could be subject to blackmail, especially the married ones. At the very least, they are an embarrassment to their agency. One can’t be a “scapegoat” without engaging in questionable behavior in the first place. They may feel like scapegoats, but perhaps “examples” is a better term.
Ov Vey is right althought I don’t see why he/she didn’t agree with ME. 🙄
Of course that kind of behavior creates a security hole large enough to drive a mack truck through also. Perhaps this one incident didn’t do that. However, if this is SOP, then which incident will provide weak link? Perhaps just the public knowledge would attrack a breach in security.
Moreover, it is just publically embarrassing for the Secret Service to behave like that. Every time I see one of those dudes on TV now I look at them and wonder…where were you last night.
What was it you said? AMEN!!
@Moon-howler
Of course, you’ve had it pegged from word one.
Sigh….I took the lady point of view. That habit is so hard to break.
@Elena
Could you see Jason Statham in the role?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Statham
Sorry for the thread jack. Just curious what you think.
Actually, I’m NOT in favor of using the government to force one’s ideas on others. I’m pro-choice, against institutional racism, anti-religion in government and pro-education by professionals. Also, my druthers would include free transportation for those who want no government , no taxes and religious dogma as a rule of law to be politely escorted to their own part of the US; say Arizonastan or Mississppistan.
i will vouch for you, BS. I agree.
I absolutely LOVE this thought you had here. Now, can any of my genius friends spot the logic problem between the first half and the second half of this post? A dollar or an “A” for the right answer!!
Actually, I’ll go one better! Can anyone spot the similarity between the second half of BS’s post and the preacher who wants the electric fence to isolate gays?
Actually, I do believe that if we continue on this trajectory, there will be states that begin dividing on just those factors. Allow the states to enforce anti abortion, anti gay, no regulations, no public schools, etc, etc, you will see which states succeed.
A patchwork of laws will not yield a strong country.
Wasn’t I just saying something about being enslaved to your gonads. Argue for their jobs back? No honor or decency.
I agree that the secret service agents, if they are guilty, should not get their jobs back. However, they are only individuals and do not represent all agents. There are some bad apples. That was more or less my point. I certainly wasn’t defending them.
There have always been people who lack personal responsibility. I think going for nooners or midnighters on the job is an example of that. However, I am not willing to flush the entire human race because of these jokers.
@Moon-howler
I think that we’ve done quite well with a patchwork of laws. Or am I missing something?
It’s sort of hard to blink through the Civil War.
I prefer to think we all live under one set of laws.
@Cargo, look at the disparity in gun laws between Virginia, Maryland, D.C. and the Capitol grounds. If you live in Maryland, need to take someone to National Airport, and then testify on Capitol Hill, you have a real problem on your hands if you are packing heat….or rather you could, just having a handgun in your car for personal protection.
I don’t know the gun laws but I do know that between those 4 areas there is quite a lot that isn’t alike.
“I prefer to think we all live under one set of laws.”
So one set of laws that applies to all states? No state sovereignty at all? Sounds like Panem. I’m moving to District 13.
Pretty much for big things, yes.
What do you want to have state sovereignty over? Tax rate? fine. access to medical procedures? nah. Gun laws? probably not.
Fishing licenses? sure. Hunting rules? sure.
New Secret Service Rules….
Secret Service issued new rules of conduct for agents today…
They can no longer get drunk, procure hookers or go to strip bars..
The rules say that from now on, if agents feel compelled to engage
in such behavior, they can run for public office like everyone else.
Stolen from the blog, the Last of the Few