Some Kind of Mickey Mouse Organization?

I didn't really have a whole lot to add the the recent revelations of security lapses by the Secret Service, But this recent piece about departing Secret Service Director Julia Pierson gives me plenty of reason to think that her resigning is the right idea.  Here's a sample:

In her 18 months in charge, Pierson also became the subject of derision among some lower-level agents for accommodating the White House staff’s wishes for less-cumbersome security over the warnings of her tactical teams. 

In the spring, Pierson was irate at what she considered the excessive security measures her team had planned for the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, which Obama hosted this summer, demanding that it dismantle extra layers of fencing and reopen closed streets, according to two agency supervisors. Supervisors who had mapped out the security plan said they were taken aback when Pierson, who worked during high school at Walt Disney World as a costumed character and park attendant, said: “We need to be more like Disney World. We need to be more friendly, inviting.”

It is not the business of the Secret Service to be "accomodating" to the wishes of White House staff (and I would bloody well like to know who those folks were) who wanted "less-cumbersome security". This president has had far more threats made against him, and the likelihood that some of them are dead serious should proportionately go up in their threat estimation. So I would far rather see a Director of the Secret Service take that stuff deadly seriously and push back.  And, with no disrespect intended to the security job done by the staff at Disney World, which in a sprawling entertainment environment has to deal with millions of visitors and numerous unique challenges--the comparison to security at Disney World and personal security detail of a world leader just ain't the same thing.

Pierson was brought in when there were some pretty serious lapses of judgement by agents on detail--but that meant she should have been enforcing discipline and refocusing the importance of that particular mission. If she was talking "Mickey Mouse", no wonder she's fresh out of Donald Duck.

But as an aside, it is very hard for me to point in any way to what the president does or doesn't say about the people who are charged to protect himself and his family. If anyone is expecting sharp criticism or direction coming from him particularly--think about what that means, Their job is their job--he isn't the Director of the Secret Service, he is, in part, their mission. If one can't see how that affects his ability to criticize the job they do for himself and his loved ones then I just don't know how to elaborate it.