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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day – PR over substance edition “How will the service rebuild in the wake of its catastrophic failure? The agency might argue that it is striving to bulk up, adding personnel needed to thwart assassins. On Monday, the Secret Service advertised two openings. The positions could be found at the U.S. government’s employment portal, USAJobs. Those hired will each be paid $139,395 annually. With what essential mission will they be tasked? Counter-sniping? Evasive driving? No. The title of both jobs is “Lead Public Affairs Specialist.”
– Eric Felten, Wall Street Journal ($).
The humorous writers and mockers of government idiocies, such as the late H L Mencken and P J O’Rourke, would have had much sport with this sort of story.
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Didn’t Mencken and O’Rourke target people who thought themselves NOT idiots?
I’m not sure the USSS folks think that of themselves, or at least we should credit them with enough intelligence and self-awareness that they know what utter eff-ups they are! And if they are aware that they are idiots, it takes the fun out of ridiculing them.
I almost wrote something here about compassion for them but their incompetence has been so costly that they deserve none of that!
“…let God sort them out!”
Every day I find another reason to re-watch “Idiocracy”; it’s now a prepper movie!
Well, no man can serve two masters, so this will help them with that 30% of employees being women by 2030 goal.
Actually, the USSS seems to have three openings right now.
Having watched parts of the inquiry into the Trump Attempted Assassination it sounds like DEI and incompetence all around, but the woman in charge (can’t remember her name) was obtuse to the point of obstinacy..
No wonder they started both perjury and impeachment proceedings against her.
Probably moot now that she’s resigned though.
Failure?
There are… persons… on-line bemoaning that the assassin missed his shot against Trump and expressing hopes for next time. I’m cynical enough to believe that the Secret Service higher-ups are also thinking this very loudly, if not saying it, and almost cynical enough to believe that they are actually saying it very quietly in private.
We’re in a Cold Civil War, here in the US, and it’s as if a Confederate soldier had been assigned to guard Abraham Lincoln, or a Union soldier to guard Jefferson Davis. Or as if the KGB had been tasked with protecting President Reagan and the CIA with the protection of the USSR’s Politburo members.
The name I’ve seen given is “Cheatle”.
I assume they need to give a fake name for security reasons, but if it were me, I’d pick a pseudonym for my DEI hires that wasn’t so blunt.
Deep Lurker has it right. People are blaming this debacle on incompetence; I think the true cause is much more sinister.
If you believed that “literally” Hitler himself was about to ascend to the Presidency, what wouldn’t you do to stop him?
The head of the Secret Service resigned in order to sever the ties with bigger players. She has been designated to take the fall.
Watching her performance and recalling the near identical stonewalling by Lois Lerner I wonder why on earth Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro allowed themselves to be imprisoned for contempt of congress when all they had to do was show up and repeat “I don’t recall” ad nauseam for several hours.
As this same tactic was carried out to perfection by Hilary Clinton maybe it’s a girl power? Alternately in the context of the point blank refusal of Eric Holder and more recently Alejandro Mayorkas to obey summonses with zero consequence Bsnnon and Navarro may have been trying, and succeeding, in proving it’s a democrat power
Up to 1960 the United States Federal Government, whilst vastly too large, was still, basically functional – then came Jack Kennedy and style-over-substance. The media dominated government – obsessed with PR and spin. Whether it was the unionisation of government workers (which even Franklin Roosevelt had prevented – when it was demanded in his time) or going to war in Vietnam with no plan to WIN that war (yes President Kennedy and Defence Secretary McNamara just ignored the assessment of the Joint Chief of Staff that it was necessary to have large scale conventional forces in Laos in order to cut off the flow of enemy supplies into Cambodia and South Vietnam – the Joint Chiefs always knew it would NOT be possible to cut off enemy supplies by air power alone), the Federal Government became a matter of “public relations” rather than practical achievement, even the famous Moon landings, whilst very impressive, contained no plan for any practical purpose – not even sustainable space flight.
Since 1961 the United States Federal Government has become progressively (deliberate choice of word) more and more dysfunctional (to take a word from the Harvard sociologist Talcott Parsons – ironically he supported the “reforms” that transformed American society from a “functional” society, to an increasingly “dysfunctional” society), with everything, for example “Food Stamps”, judged on what media headlines it will produce – not on the basis of its long term impact on society.
As for the Secret Service – the night before the murder of President Kennedy all but one of the Secret Service agents who would be on duty the following day (the day of the murder of President Kennedy) were drunk in a strip club. I am not saying that had they not been hung over they would have prevented the murder – but it is not good for the people protecting the President (well all but one of them – one was a Mormon and did not go to the strip club and get drunk) to be hung over.
That would have been unlikely to have been the case when Eisenhower was President – and shows how, even in a couple of years, the American government had become dysfunctional.
President Kennedy himself set a terrible example – as he was on drugs a lot of the time, an open secret to the people around him (but carefully kept from the public by a media that was already, even 60 years ago, utterly corrupt and totally biased).
I repeat – the United States Federal Government in 1960 was too big, vastly too big – but it was still a serious body, filled with serious hard working people.
It certainly is NOT now.
Which makes “Civic Nationalism” the worship of government institutions (for example corrupt politicians describing the chambers of Congress as a “sacred place”) even more absurd than it otherwise would be.
In 1960 the Federal Government was vastly too large – but it was not unionised and it was under the control of a President (Eisenhower) who had a lot of experience of controlling large bureaucratic bodies.
Even under President Reagan there was a sense that the government machine was not really under the control of the President – as things such as the amnesty for illegal immigrants in 1986 or the forcing of private hospitals to give “free” (i.e. paid for by other people) “emergency” health care to anyone who turned up, showed – the President was not getting accurate information (and neither was Congress), because the officials were not really working for elected politicians any more – the President and Congress were not really in charge any more, which, to some extent, they had been – even as late as 1960.
As for the intelligence agencies – I respect CIA Director William Casey and defend him against the out of context (or just fake) “quotes” that float around on the internet – but he died in 1987.
Most later CIA Directors, for example, endorsed Joseph “Joe 10% for the Big Guy” Biden for the Presidency – they did that knowing (yes knowing) of his life time of bribe taking (including from the People’s Republic of China) and his senility. And they all pretended that such things as the Hunter Biden laptop (which they knew to be real) were “Russian disinformation”.
In short the American “intelligence community” is as corrupt and useless as the rest of the Federal Government.
Famously (or rather infamously) there has not even been a real effort to kick out illegal immigrants since Eisenhower left the Whitehouse.
The Federal Government is unable, or rather unwilling, to guard the borders of the United States – but it wants to police borders on the other side of the world.
It it was not so tragic it would be funny.
Speaking of borders on the other side of the world – are we really expected to believe that the intelligence agencies, on which so much money is spent, did not know of the build up of thousands (yes thousands) of Islamic warriors for the October 7th 2023 attack?
If they, the American – and the Israeli intelligence agencies, really did not know – then they are useless and should be dismissed, and if they did know why were no defensive measures taken? Was the plan to use the attack to “get Bibi out”?
Similar questions could be asked of the health authorities in relation to Covid – first denying that it was a danger (the World Health Organisation was echoed by Dr Fauci and co), then denying that it was a product of the Wuhan lab (when they knew it was a product of the Wuhan lab – which Peter Dazak of the WHO and the Eco Health Alliance, was deeply involved in – as were various agencies of the American government), then denying there was any Early Treatment (indeed deliberately smearing Early Treatments), then pushing medically useless, indeed incredibly damaging, “lockdowns”, and finally pushing toxic Covid “vaccines”.
Again either these people in various governments (and corporate bodies) are incredibly stupid – or they are doing harm, incredible levels of harm, on purpose.
At this point “Group Think” is not a sufficient answer for why they have done such terrible harm.
Paul:
After the Bay of Pigs disaster and the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy did not have a high opinion of the CIA or the JCS.
With regard to Vietnam, he had actually visited the country when it was still a French colony. He understood the place better than most American politicians. He allowed 16,000 advisers to be based there, but did not envisage an American combat role. On 11 October 1963 he signed National Security Action Memorandum 263, which directed that 1,000 advisers should be brought home before the end of 1963, and all should be withdrawn by the end of 1965. On 22 November 1963 he was killed. We will never know if he would have kept to the aims of NSAM 263, but that was his direction of travel. He took war seriously, and did not want the USA to be bogged down in a war on the mainland of Asia. He viewed members of the JCS such as Curtis LeMay as hawks whose judgment he could not trust.
JohnK.
It was President Kennedy’s changes to the plan that doomed the Cuban Exiles at the “Bay of Pigs” – a landing site that he personally choose, against the wishes of both the CIA and the Pentagon (which wanted a different landing site), he also, personally, denied air support – thus dooming those men to death or capture.
President Kennedy made a big show of accepting responsibility – whilst privately getting the media to push the line that it was the CIA and the Pentagon not HIM who had failed.
As for the Cuban Missile Crises – the Marxist regime in Cuba remains there to this day, thus showing the utter failure of the Kennedy Administration.
As for Indo-China.
Had President Kennedy really understood the area he would have put large scale conventional land forces into Laos (as recommended by the Joint Chiefs) in order to cut enemy supply lines into Cambodia and South Vietnam, he did not do so. Nor did he have any plan to eliminate the Marxist regime in North Vietnam – the only alternative policy.
And it was also President Kennedy and Defence Secretary McNamara that forbad the very word “victory” thus dooming the United States into being “bogged down”.
I am afraid you have fallen for the “JFK” myth – in reality he was a useless Commander in Chief, and followed bad domestic policies as President (Food Stamps creating a dependent underclass as in Ancient Rome, FCC establishing a de facto leftist cartel in television, using the IRS tax police against conservative opponents – and-so-on)
But he was a master of spin and Public Relations – as were the people around him.
I am no fan of the CIA of the period – for example all but one of their agents in Cuba was a double agent really working for the Marxist Castro regime (and the one real agent they had was against their rules – as he was “run” by James Jesus Angleton – who, as head of counter intelligence, should not, by Agency rules, have been running agents at all) – but Kennedy was worse.
By the way James Angleton was also responsible for saving Italy from the Marxists – if Mr Angleton was really “mad” (as many people say he was) I wish he had bitten some other high ranking officials of the Agency – they might have done a better job.
Paul:
The Bay of Pigs plan could never have worked. Kennedy allowed it to go ahead on the basis that he would not allow US forces to become involved. I think the CIA chose to believe he would. It was their plan, and it failed, and they hated him for it. I am convinced this had a lot to do with events on 22 November 1963.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved without an atomic war. The survival of the pathetic regime in Cuba was a small price to pay to avoid that. The JCS were putting immense pressure on Kennedy to authorise air strikes and an invasion, without the knowledge that the Soviet commander on Cuba had tactical nuclear missiles under his personal command. An invasion could easily have led to a nuclear exchange, and at times Kennedy was almost the only cabinet member who opposed it.
As to Vietnam, there is the problem that Laos was a sovereign state. The US could hardly decide to place an army on its territory, even if that would have been logistically possible. Kennedy seems by his actions to have decided not to to enter into a land war in South Vietnam. Johnson did so, but in a cack handed manner certain to lead to exhaustion and thus defeat. It was Johnson and McNamara who tried to run the war from the Pentagon, and who refused to use air power to its full effect over North Vietnam. This did not happen until Nixon decided to do it in 1972.
I think Kennedy’s foreign policy was conducted seriously. He wished to avoid a nuclear war. If he had followed the advice he received from the JCS and the CIA, we would not having this discussion now.
I note that the Kennedy elephant in the room, namely the addiction to drugs administered by that acolyte of the man who drugged Hitler, isn’t mentioned.
Kennedy had no business being in office, let alone the presidency. He was a know-nothing playboy who was more concerned about getting laid than doing the job, and if it interfered with his sex life…? He wasn’t doing it. Which was why he compromised his own White House security to allow unvetted prostitutes and others in, even while his family was in residency.
He was a classic example of why you don’t put people like him in charge of anything. He was highly charismatic, and that was about the end of his qualifications. His “strategic thought” was childish, his impulses wildly out of control, and I suspect that whoever shot him in Dallas actually did the nation a huge favor, along with his legacy. Had he lived out his tenure as president, done the full 8 years? There’s no telling how much damage he would have done through sheer stupidity and inability to control his baser urges.
He’s deified in everyone’s memory only because he was assassinated. If he hadn’t have had that happen? He’d be remembered mostly as a con artist and a corrupt cocksman who couldn’t keep it in his pants for the most important job in the Western world. The whole “Camelot” fantasy was a product of the fever dreams of the media and his father’s PR flacks. Hell, even his father wasn’t too fond of him, but with Joe being dead, he didn’t have a choice but to put up the dissolute playboy as the family’s political figurehead.
The entire Kennedy crew should be remembered more as America’s Borgias than what they are. They were scum, from top to bottom. Good grief, look what they did to poor Rosemary, just because she was doing the same thing her brothers were. That lobotomy wasn’t done for any other reason than to reduce the risk of scandal for the rest of the family, and none of them so much as protested Joe Sr. doing that to her.
Kirk:
You may have mentioned before that you are not a fan. But I think the arguments I have put to Paul are valid. Kennedy did avoid a nuclear war when it easily could have happened. The JCS were absolutely gung ho for an attack on Cuba, oblivious to the presence of tactical nukes on the island. And it is clear that before his death he had decided against a major troop commitment to South Vietnam, and had planned to remove the advisers by 1965. We will never know if he could have done this, but that was the direction of travel. You are right about his personal failings, but I was not writing about them.
Tin-foil hat update:
Two new theories are floating around now … (1) a private equity company called Austin Private Wealth supposedly shorted 12 million shares of Trump’s media company the day before the shooting. They now claim that it was a clerical error. (2) Apparently, CNN has had a policy of not covering Trump events live for quite a while – they have a personal animosity toward Trump and have chosen not to give him air time. In fact, in the last two years they have only covered a single Trump event live – and it happened to be the rally in Butler. Pure co-inky-dink, naturally. This is the same “news” organization that was notified in advance of the raid on Mar-a-Lago …
Edit: the CNN live coverage preceded the shooting.
John K. I respectfully disagree.
For example, already in 1961 most Cubans hated Castro and the Marxist regime (the New York Times pretended that the Castro brothers were not Marxists in the 1950s – but they both were, the NYT was lying, it lies about many things) – but the Cuban people had no real support in the face of a ruthless totalitarian Castro regime.
President Kennedy was useless – partly because his mind was clouded by drugs, but also because he was “educated” and surrounded by “educated” types.
As for the military and the CIA – they should have resigned when it was obvious how useless Kennedy was, for example that he had no intention of cutting Marxist supply lines by putting large scale military forces on-the-ground in Laos – that he wanted to fight a war with no intention of winning that war (like the rest of he establishment – “educated” people that they were).
Korea has both right and left flanks covered by the sea, – South Vietnam had an exposed left flank (a land border to the west – not just the north) – this was not a secret, the Joint Chiefs of Staff understood this – and understood that it could not be just countered from the air, that large scale conventional forces would have to be put into Laos in order to cut enemy supply lines to Cambodia and the Republic of Vietnam. But they were not allowed to do so – because the “educated” people (such as Robert McNamara) had no intention of winning the war – victory was forbidden, a “political settlement” (i.e. defeat) was the objective from 1961 onwards.
But resigning is hard – loss of position, loss of prestige, possible loss of pension, and-so-on. So military officers hung about during the Kennedy, Johnson and Richard “Paris Peace Accords” Nixon Administrations.
As for denying air (and other) support in 1961 in Cuba – no one thought that, even as drug addled as he was, that “JFK” was serious about that.
By the time it was clear he really was serious about the treachery – it was too late.
And he personally picked the “Bay of Pigs” landing site – he seems to have wanted to get rid of a lot of anti Communist Cubans.
The DGI (Cuban Marxist intelligence and security police) arrested vast numbers of Cubans after the landing failed (a general crackdown on dissent) – these civilians were taken to places like the Isle of Pines where Marxists such as Herman Marks (no relation) tortured many of them to death.
Jack Kennedy blamed everyone else for his own blunders – and learned nothing from his blunders.
And neither did Johnson or Nixon – who were much the same as him.