Congressional Hearings: Broken Service, Broken Leadership At The Secret Service
During today’s congressional hearings House members blistered Director Kim Cheatle of the Secret Service over the incident in Butler, Pennsylvania where Trump was almost assassinated – most saying she should resign or be fired. She provided almost no facts about the incident, she deferred to the FBI’s investigation for details of the day and refused to provide details on her own investigation. After nine days of investigation, much of the uncontroversial detail should have been at her fingertips, but it seemed to me that she was reasonably clueless in even the basics of events.
It was mentioned that she had not visited the Butler site, and that she had not talked to any of the agents until three days after the incident. Every leader from the CIA (station chiefs and team leads up to and including the Director himself), every business leader, every police chief, and anyone who is truly responsible for the people who work for them would have been on the ground on site within hours. In a crisis situation, speed is of the essence. Responsible leaders want to know RIGHT NOW everything that can be known. I don’t respect anyone who would do otherwise, and the fact that she did not go there shows a lack of integrity and work ethic.
Based on this testimony, it is clear to me she is the epitome of the “Peter Principle” i.e., she has risen to her level of incompetence, and suffers the Dunning-Kreuger Effect, i.e., she has vastly overestimated her own capabilities. Not only does she not display leadership within her organization, she does not even have the fortitude to protect. She presides over a broken Secret Service and she is content to leave it broken for now.
Some major points that lead to Cheatle’s incompatibility with the job:
She is not prepared to fire anyone for incompetence. When pressed, Cheatle would not commit to firing anyone for incompetence, she could not even fathom the possibility. ANY leader must be prepared to fire incompetence. Retaining incompetence in an organization that vows never to fail is a recipe for failure. But she seems to have the attitude of many government employees, that no one should ever be fired and government jobs are jobs for life. This quality alone makes her incompetent to lead the Secret Service.
Further, she has not relieved anyone on the team that exhibited breathtaking incompetence, they are still on duty and persons being protected have the possibility of being protected by those incompetent people. Think about that for a minute. She knows there is incompetence in that team somewhere, that incompetence almost got someone killed. If she doesn’t know who that is, then the entire team should suspend all of them. Would you go to a surgeon who killed his last patient? How about a mechanic whose repairs have failed? How many times should your food spoil before you fire your refrigerator repairman? Yet she is allowing incompetent Secret Service agents to continue trying to protect people. How does this happen?
She has the goal of producing a report in 60 days. She is NOT prepared to do anything to fix the Secret Service until the reports are done. So the flaws in the Secret Service will remain at least until then. What? So a broken Secret Service remains as it is, during the last 100 days until a Presidential election?
Cheatle denied that DEI had any effect on the Secret Service, but one congressman noted that DEI has been a major focus of Cheatle and that she has targets for hiring women and minorities. This and other comments in the hearing lead me to believe that Cheatle’s focus has not been on excellence.
My conclusion? Cheatle has no control over the Secret Service, she is out of touch and she has no leadership skills. Nothing will get fixed while she is there. But she won’t quit, she must be fired.
In the meantime, Trump and Harris are traveling around the country campaigning, and may indeed draw the agent whose incompetence allowed Trump to be fired upon. The Secret Service of legend would never have tolerated such risk.
Joe, Republicans have taught me to stop, look, and listen. Starting with news blackouts during war, the ability to pause, investigate, and then pronounce the summary and the resulting actions to fix, is just plain smart thinking. Ready, fire, aim, is not.
Republicans have always taught me that you cannot stop all terrorism, mass shootings, shootings, and such. It’s the great unknown that kept Frank awake at night. Yes, there seems to be a SService breakdown to allow clear-line-of-sight at 150 yards. BUT —- we need to know what the breakdown was, where did a person, the process, or both fail. And only then take the necessary action to remedy. Including firing.
But you don’t do it in 24 hours, two days, or maybe even a week. And you don’t trot these folks out for every committee, etc. you can think off to grill them one more time about things they expressed in the last grilling. That’s grandstanding, not oversight.
We have learned much about the shooter, but without a live suspect, writings, online chatter, etc. he seems a lone sort keeping his issues to himself. He seems to have been hunting a high priority target, including Biden and Trump, so this may have been suicide by spectacle with convenience making the choice. That given, we still need to know why the clear line of sight and why he could fly drones, walk around with an assault rifle, etc. which certainly points to a Secret Service failure. And THEN take the actions to preclude it happening in the future while taking best guess as to stopping it for now any way we can UNTIL we have the data to do it perfect.
But dragging folks to the House for interim reports, updates, grilling’s, and grandstanding just makes for sound bites, not progress. There will be a time for oversight, but stop the ready, fire, aim. Chances are that’s what got us here in the first place.
Any leader worth his salt will know every detail that can be learned in the minimal amount of time, they will talk to their people, they will review all of the video and communications that can be reviewed. What happened should never be in doubt. These are aspects that are under her control. I’ve been part of quick reaction teams in the past, you don’t wait three days to talk to the people on the ground, you park your rosy red ass in the middle and ask questions and make assignments (this is called “showing leadership and competence” it actually makes everybody feel better). It is an easy thing to compare a written plan to the actual deployment of your own people. If she were a true leader she would have have those answers in the first hour – unless of course there is something to hide. This was the biggest failure of the SS in three generations, and the target just happened to be a political enemy of the President. Important enough for her to take personal charge of? Or not?
You are right that investigating the shooter himself could take some time. This is the “why” of the situation. Congress was asking about the “what.”
But my question is how the shooter got off so many shots with some of the best snipers in the world looking at him through their scopes. 400 feet is a chip shot for a sniper, they all have exceptional eyesight and are aided by their scopes if they need. You can’t say their wasn’t a shot, the guy was exposed while he was shooting.
But you missed the point of the article. The people who screwed up are still operational, she refused to take them off the line. So Trump and others for the next 60 days could have compromised agents on their detail. THIS is a massive failure of duty.
And by the way, I wrote an article a while back about how to stop all mass shootings in their tracks. If you can find it and post the link, then I will grant you “senior status” here with all of the benefits that implies.
Well, I disagree with you Joe as to reason, but she should of, and has, stepped down.
While I feel the House is ridiculous, both sides on this, her response was not professional.
She is right to pick the time: 60 days, but she should have pushed most of these dumb shit questions to the date. Or give a date to respond. Hemming, hawing, deflecting and defending were unprofessional. Someone says “you’re full of shit,” and you take them apart. Some Democrat says “what about the gun problem,” and you direct them to the correct meeting. These guys would impeach anything that moves just to get time on FOX and other courts of public opinion.
Should it be faster than 60 days, should there be interim reports —- now that’s worthy of oversight at this point. Not arguing the lack of facts and conclusions. Should it be nine days —– not for good answers. We don’t even know who the killer is and his motive. Should something be done ASAP to shore up SS protection —- I am pretty sure it is and it has, but she could professionally explain short term actions in lieu of the final report as well.
Joe, I led product teams, mostly new. As such I worked with the unknown inventions, troubled projects, and impossible deadlines. Also scrutiny from the top levels of a Fortune 100. It really suck if you don’t adhere to a rigorous process in reporting knowing even that will be trashed in times of crisis. My adage: tell the truth and if you don’t know the truth, tell them when you will tell them the truth. If I said 60 days, you can bet all discussion would be about that and most other weird questions would be pushed to that Worked for me for a couple of decades.
I have always found the process to work catastrophes is as important as the work. Republicans taught me that with their news blackouts during war, and their ability to say nothing until it’s time to say it and instead tell you when they will say it and stick to that process. Democrats seem to want to spew out whatever they know at the time before studied conclusions can be made. Think that’s how we got Harris……
FYI: was that the kill the mass killers tome? I think I commented on the ridiculous nature of that salve for your soul. I will not search it for you. As I have stated, your search engine blows dog dicks in hell and I refuse to try it. Too bad since there is much ammo there for me :>) But I understand why you would want to hide the past. Likewise, your free speech extremism could use some transparency in that you are restricting free speech and no one seems to know the manner of your doing it. I have my last restricted paragraph, I would email it to you, but then you would have to change your name :>O
Really Frank? “Product teams” is your comparison to life and death situations where people are being shot, or buried under rubble from an explosive, or where someone has been kidnapped? Yes, I can see where you think 60 days is fine, even if it is 60 days where a flaw could allow potentially the next POTUS to be assassinated.
You have not been censored at all to my knowledge (except for the poetry thing, and that still stands).
Joe, I see your point, and you have your head, be happy. Did that make the report come out faster?
Did you know that in the history of the Secret Service, with all the assassinations, and assassination attempts, that I think no Secret Service director has ever been forced to resign? JKF guy — brain splatter all over the car —- kept his job, although no President rode open car again. Regan’s director kept his employment with two attempted assassinations. Think one of the Roosevelts got punked at twice in the open car. He kept his job and didn’t even stop the open car. And so on and so on.
My point was this lady, professionalism, and process. And while I see your point, I used my example of the highest levels of management, and trust me, my guys at the top were smarter than any of the fools you have put in charge of the House, requiring oversight on top projects. As if the survival of all it’s employees was as important as protecting a President. But my point was she failed on the process, and she was not professional. IF she had been, she would have resigned before the meeting. Instead she had a failed meeting, fell into the trap, and resigned. No other Secret Service director has done that I think.
These Congresspersons had nothing of value to offer the situation. She came for a beating, a beating she took because she was unprofessional and did not use the process to navigate these waters. And its the same whether life or death, business, science, or the military. Yes, hers is the more important job being so close to death, but the process remains the same. The manner the lead uses to illuminate oversight remains the same. When I learned this as a young product manager in love, my life became easier as my world came under control even when in total chaos and crisis.
And yes Joe, a few times the issue was life or death. We had a power issue where a couple of buildings burned for example. And it took longer than 60 days to find the killer and yes, we were on the carpet every day on that one. Thank God I did not have the lead……. Once I came up against Sherriff Joe Arpaio and his people actually looked at me across the table and hinted about me being there, it’s their jail, and the pink suits for road details…. I used the process, committed to a date to specify the fix, they were happy, I was out of there, and at the date told them I could not fix it because it was not broken, but I did put their request into the pile of all requests for the next release, and then refused the sales team the deep discount they were enjoying. Said the same thing to the angry VP after he got the call from Joe and he took that process message back to Joe. See, process man….. Dicked him by using the process and barely broke a sweat (except for the pink suit suggestion moment).
As to the 60 days, I said I don’t know, and probably that date could be moved up, but nine days is probably a joke. The process would have allowed her to offer interim reports for any end date as well. She did not. Also, she should have been prepared to say what’s being done immediately because you must know that they must be already changing things, tightening things, whatever. Even if for security reasons she could not be specific, she could have said something about it. She was so caught up in her emotional jockstrap that she lost all sight of any process and just became a whipping post for these ass hats who persecute all and prosecute none.
I said: “Should it be faster than 60 days, should there be interim reports —- now that’s worthy of oversight at this point. Not arguing the lack of facts and conclusions. Should it be nine days —– not for good answers. We don’t even know who the killer is and his motive. Should something be done ASAP to shore up SS protection —- I am pretty sure it is and it has, but she could professionally explain short term actions in lieu of the final report as well.”
Joe, my analogy was to process and using the process to “handle” your overseers, especially when they are as stupid as this House —– both sides of the aisle on this one. It’s the same in business, science, government, and the military. The only way to handle these crisis is to establish process, use the process, and fall back on the process when the shitheads turn the fan on. She failed. IMO, it does seem that the Peter principle was in effect.
As to the censorship, Joe, you should believe me when I say I posted the thing, or something really close, three times and it failed three times. If you are not blocking, then something is. This is not the first time either. You can see the three parts I posted, only one short paragraph that would not post is missing. I did not test putting the three parts together and attempting a post, but I did try the paragraph and it was shot down twice more. You may not be restricting, this was certainly no moderator, drunk or otherwise, and you can rest assured that it happened. Again, not the first time, but I cannot put a handle on what the trigger or triggers are.
And I do not think you censored my poetry, you just asked me to stop, I did. But since then, I have snuck a lyric or two in……..sorry……earworms……
The Congressional hearing actually offered a lot of value, they forced an incompetent director to resign, which was probably their biggest intention. Anyone watching could see. You still don’t understand the difference between bureaucratic BS and actual imminent danger. If you had a fire and there was danger of another fire, would you not evacuate the building until the “report” was done? And if someone said the report was going to take 2 years and your company had to support those people in the meantime, I bet the timeline would shrink. But in a real actual terrorist/assassination incident, hours and sometimes minutes count.
The blocking is in your head (except for the poetry).
Oh Joe…. I think we agree she should resign. You see this House’s oversight did it: I say she did it to herself. Like I said, this proved the Peter principle in action, and the actions were hers. I am sorry, but if you add up all the current House’s investigations, the results, you have to conclude they are ineffective, at best. McCarthy’s at worst.
It’s not that they shouldn’t have called her, it’s her response to their stupid partisan bullshit that was the failure, if she had followed the process, she would have made it through. Instead, she defended, deflected, and
Again, whether life, death, or something less, the process remains the same. Or highly similar. She failed in establishing process, much less maintaining it. And yes, Joe, life and death has a higher priority over product. Never said it did not. Quit beating the horse —- it’s dead, she’s gone, you have your head.
Again, if you think immediate actions to correct deficiencies were not taken by the SS, then you were never in that line of work.
And if you think I made up the PBP restriction on a single paragraph for unknown reasons and therefore must be my fault —— that error is on you because I reported exactly what happened. Denial is not just a river in Egypt Joe, and you turning a blind eye does not change reality. If you want to claim one thing, and do another, again, that’s on you Joe. I just provided input. I can work around your blindness and shortcoming as you restrict free speech and then say it ain’t so, Joe.
OOOOPs, that’s Frank Reagan staying up nights, I am fine…….
Also, I should add, no matter what you do, there’s always a way. Republicans taught me that too. And more guns does not cure that issue.
When Competency is NOT a criteria for getting and holding a job.
How do you fire a person for not having or showing competency?
DEI = Failure
After all that is how she received the job to begin with!
For that matter, all the current White House Staff as well.
Those are the right questions.
I am taking great delight at watching Speaker Johnson telling his party to stop the racist, gender-based, attacks on Harris. Answers the definition of PRICELESS.
How do you know when you are a racist or misogynist>
I think when your leader asks you to stop being a racist, to stop being a misogynist, you have a pretty strong hint that “Houston, we have a problem here.”
That’s the right answer Mr. Johnson. Too bad you didn’t ask the right questions sooner.