Irving Berlin’s last musical was a largely forgotten show called “Mr. President” (1962). One of the silly songs below his usual high standards included the lyric “The Secret Service makes me nervous.”
That’s how I felt after the agency, charged with protecting the president, delivered a report that said it could not find the person responsible for bringing cocaine into the White House. No fingerprints on the plastic bag. No DNA. No video of someone who might have placed it in a small locker in a visitors’ area where cellphones and other prohibited items are stored until one departs. In one of the most secure buildings in the world. With cameras and monitoring devices in plain view and also hidden on every floor. NBC News reported the agency failed to interview anyone about the incident.
The Secret Service managed to find marijuana in the White House last year. Twice. No one was arrested because the amount was under the legal threshold for federal charges, nor did it rate as a misdemeanor under D.C. law. Drugs alter the mind. Perhaps we should call it real artificial intelligence. It might explain some of the bad policies of this, and previous, administrations.
My family has been attending various White House functions since the Coolidge administration. My maternal grandfather and first lady Grace Coolidge were first cousins. A picture I treasure is of my mother (age 9), grandmother and great-grandmother standing in the White House driveway next to President Warren Harding in 1922. Harding died the following year, and Vice President Coolidge became president.
I suspect if any of them had been asked where they could find drugs they would have been directed to a nearby pharmacy. That addictive drugs are now found in a hallowed building where great presidents once served and saved the nation is another indication of how far we have sunk when it comes to what used to be called standards.