The Reclining Secret Service

THE SECRET SERVICE just isn't what it used to be. What it used to be was an elite group of darkly well dressed young men who did their jobs quietly. What it seems to have become is a gang with a gang culture and mentality, soliciting prostitutes in Latin America, drinking heavily, crashing motorized vehicles into the fence surrounding the White House, changing directors like diapers. Abraham Linclon, who with indredible unwitting irony signed into law thus creating the Secret Service only several hours before his own preventable death, could definitely have used the agency's protection. And, he might have been appalled at what the agency has, or seemingly has become, in the darkly humorous, sardonic manner in which only Abraham Lincoln could express the great state of appallment. Back in the early seventies, my brother-in-law was in the army, in the media department, and his job one fine day was to photograph President Nixon. The very moment he removed his camera from a pocket of his full dress military uniform, out of nowhere materialized an S.S. goon, who tackled my brother-in-law, who wasn't yet my brother-in-law, to the floor, landed square on top of him, and said, quoth: "don't move, you son of a bitch". My brother- in-law didn't move a muscle, or a single piece of polished brass, and is thus among the living to this very day. Even his army uniform didn't make a difference. Lesson learned; keep your hands out of your pockets while in the company of el presidente.But, gee, did the bastard actually have to call my brother-in-law a "son of a bitch"? A bit unprofessional, wasn't it? So, perhaps boorish behavior among our chief executive's protectors is not such a new thing after all.