Blaming Firefighters for Fires
Terry H. Schwadron
Sept. 18, 2024
The Secret Service finds itself on the defensive once again — not for what it did to protect Donald Trump at his West Palm Beach golf resort, but because someone made the apparent attempt to shoot him at all.
One might think that having seen the Secret Service run afoul of its own protective planning procedures in an earlier assassination attempt, a success in foiling another plot would be hailed as a victory of sorts.
Instead, even before we’ve heard the details about the captured would-be shooter, we’re hearing that Republican-led congressional committees want to call another set of useless hearings in Washington to review the agency procedures. Headlines about the incident are reflecting the service’s defensive crouch.
Once again, we’re blaming the firefighters because there was a fire. Rather than praising an apparent strategy to locate and end a threat, our societal reaction is to suggest that if the Secret Service was effective, there would have been no attempt in the first place. Questions remain about whether the Secret Service had a good protection plan or followed its own procedures, but those are not what is being asked.
And the criticism has the fingerprints of political partisanship all over it. Elon Musk uttered the unsayable out loud, tweeting a “joke” he since has deleted that no one is trying to assassinate Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, which, of course, is wrong as well as nonsensical. Assorted Republican congressmen already are lined up to attack the protective agency over not arranging yet more security — so that Trump can spend his day golfing without prior notice to the Secret Service.
Blaming Firefighters for Fires
It’s a familiar refrain since my former own job responsibilities, among other things, included assuring my former bosses that as a newsroom (I worked in three), my organization always were ready to cover events in far-off places, set up instant communications, and to publish every day, on demand, through mechanical, technological or human frailties. The only constant was that failure was unacceptable, and that whatever the problem, we were supposed to have anticipated it so that it never came about.
Clearly, that is an unsustainable (and stressful) strategy. Even the best preparation can’t stop bad things from happening. As any firefighter would say, the issue centers on our ability to respond, not to declare that problems never arise.
We have a strange attitude in this society about preparation and mitigation that permeates our economy and culture and seasons our politics. The best minds in the country were thrown for a loop by Covid, for example, and we are still arguing about not only our responses as a nation, but by blaming Chinese labs or mask mandates, we should never have found ourselves vulnerable to a mass contagious disease. Meanwhile, it turns out that the Biden administration, among all else, had to restore an office to prepare and protect against such contagions that Trump had eliminated as unnecessary.
On the campaign trail, Trump insistently repeats that on his watch, Russia would never have invaded Ukraine, or that with him in the White House, the Israel-Gaza war will be settled quickly, that Iran and North Korea will not develop nuclear weapons (they are doing so), and that there is no reason for Americans to worry about the state of the rest of the world, whether for climate or military reasons. Harris takes the exact opposite view of each, stressing international alliances and diplomacy.
Much the same is true for the lack of “preventive” care we bring to political positions about housing and homelessness, border enforcement, health care access, education and inflationary economics. In general, we are willing to spend tons of money to rebuild after destructive hurricanes and firestorms, but not on the programs for prevention.
Protecting a Golf Course
The situation about the golf course shooter is still developing, meaning that drawing wide conclusions is difficult. But with two seeming assassination attempts within a month against Trump, there are questions galore about how to protect someone who declines to follow advice.
It seems impossible for even a robust Secret Service, an agency that says it needs more personnel, to safeguard an open golf course when news photographers can see Trump through the bushes teeing off. Does the service ring the golf course with agents every 25 feet? In this case, an agent moves a hole ahead of Trump and his golfing party to examine the bushes for a rifle barrel — and then acted when he saw something untoward. But the agency personnel apparently did not sweep the perimeter as a matter of its routine.
Since the Butler, Pa. assassination attempt, it has been fair game to demand that the Secret Service coordinate its protective planning and communications better. It is fair to criticize the agency for the various mistakes that have been made public.
But to assume that the service is singling out Trump for less-than-stellar protection or that it is the job of the Secret Service to anticipate every crazy person who might take a shot at a candidate seems unrealistic.
Just maybe, Trump might forgo golf until Nov. 5 or try indoor weightlifting or chess. Just maybe, the candidate should hold big events indoors, where security is more possible.
Just maybe, candidate Trump should stop using language that seems to encourage violence, and just maybe, such a candidate might look at the consequences of allowing and encouraging the proliferation of weapons and “open carry” laws that seem to muck up the very law enforcement on which he campaigns.
Let’s stop blaming a lack of foresight for the fact that bad things can happen. It is just possible that the Secret Service deserves praise this time for stopping a shooting.
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