Secret Service chief fails to reassure: Our view

The more revealed about the Secret Service, the worse it looks.

In the days since a knife-carrying intruder scaled the White House fence and ran deep into the mansion before being subdued, the agency charged with protecting the first family has come off more like an inept crew on some TV cop comedy than the elite force portrayed in its lore.

Tuesday's congressional hearing was hardly reassuring. Director Julia Pierson offered no reasonable explanation for the Sept. 19 debacle beyond blandly admitting that "protocols were not followed." More damning, Pierson provided no coherent plan to fix what ails the agency that holds the president's life in its hands. Instead, she ducked questions, contradicted herself and tried to downplay the depth of the agency's ineptitude.

Its lapses are now well-known to the public — and potential attackers. The agency's vaunted rings of security look more like layers of failure. After a mentally ill Army veteran jumped the fence, officers didn't unleash an attack dog. Two doors were left unlocked. An alarm had been muted, apparently at the request of White House staff.

Nor was the Secret Service's initial account of the incident accurate. The intruder got past one guard and made it all the way to the East Room, where he was finally subdued by an off-duty agent who happened to be there. One can only wonder what might have happened in a coordinated attack by armed terrorists.

At Tuesday's hearing, lawmakers also questioned Pierson about a similarly disturbing incident in 2011, in which a man fired a semiautomatic weapon into the residence from a car parked about 700 yards away. The president's daughter Sasha and his mother-in-law were home at the time.

The Washington Post reported Sunday that though some officers said they heard gunfire that night, they were overruled by superiors who initially determined that it was a backfiring vehicle and later decided it was a shootout between rival gangs. Both theories were wrong.

The crime was only discovered four days later by a housekeeper who found broken glass in the family quarters. Pierson made several unimpressive stabs at explaining all this, saying the incident occurred at night and wasn't recognized until curtains had been opened in the living room.

A 30-year Secret Service veteran, Pierson was elevated last year to clean up the agency after several embarrassing episodes. But the agency's subsequent embarrassments and her clueless explanations to Congress expose her tenure as a failure.

During 18 months in office, she failed to spot weaknesses in White House protection. On Tuesday, Pierson offered little evidence that she had remedied problems revealed by the 2011 shooting.

The hearing suggested cultural issues as well. Complacency is one. Fear of delivering bad news is another.

An overly restrained approach might also be hurting security. Intruders obviously need to be stopped by any means necessary.

If Pierson's performance Tuesday is any guide, she's not up to the job. The Secret Service needs an overhaul, best led by someone from the outside, before it becomes a national punchline.

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