We’ve been hearing more about Omar J. Gonzales’s romp through the White house the other day. Apparently he got around inside a good deal more than was initially reported; he made his way all the way into the East Room before he was brought down. In the process, as it turns out, he “overpowered” a female Secret Service agent. This got me thinking the same things that the sight of this police officer did a couple of months ago.
Here’s a thought: mightn’t it make sense to have the special agents guarding the Leader of the Free World be large, strong men, capable of physically impeding the progress of burly intruders?
Well, perhaps, I suppose. But only if one were willing to place the effectiveness of our public institutions at doing the things they were created to do — fighting wars, putting out fires, guarding the President — above the wish to make everybody feel good about themselves, by denying the transparently obvious realities of the actually existing world. And that, of course, would make one a very bad person indeed.
The awkwardness of this exposure of the conflict between these antagonistic aims has not escaped the editors of the Times. Their original story, as cached by Google, began:
An armed man who jumped the White House fence this month made it far deeper into the mansion than previously disclosed, overpowering a female Secret Service agent inside the North Portico entrance…
The word ‘female’ has now been removed. Draw your own conclusions.
Meanwhile, ladies, as for stopping fast-moving intruders, here’s how we guys do it.
Update, 10/2: see the Secret Service’s disparate physical standards here.