Missing Patriotism: The Roots of a Prostitution Scandal
The Secret Service’s sexcapade in Cartagena, Colombia, is the equivalent of having the members of a presidential honor guard parade down the street while swaying drunkenly with prostitutes draped across their shoulders. Our liberal media is doing its best to minimize the backlash of this disgusting event on the Democratic Party, because it in fact represents a crowning blow to our cherished American exceptionalism and our vaunted worldwide prestige.
Two days after September 11, 2001, I landed in Berlin on a trip with my wife, an American political analyst. We were having lunch with friends at the enormous KaDeWe department store, and I wandered off in search of something to bring back for our dinner. The manager of the food department, noticing the American flag on my lapel, asked if I was an American. “Champagne for everyone,” he ordered, when I told him I had just flown over from the U.S. “Without America and the Airlift, we would be speaking Russian now,” he explained. Soon after that, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi stated: “We will never forget that we owe our freedom — our freedom — and our wealth to the United States of America. And our democracy.”
“I decided I won’t wear that [flag] pin on my chest,” Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic contender for the White House, announced publicly on October 3, 2007. “Instead, I’m going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testament to my patriotism.” The next day, his campaign explained what being a patriot meant: “Speaking honestly with the American people about this disastrous war [in Iraq].” Senator Obama labeled that war an apocalyptic mistake and called for the unconditional withdrawal of our troops. Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate majority leader, famously declared: “The war is lost.” Democratic Congressman John Murtha, chairman of the House Appropriation Subcommittee on Defense, solemnly told the Washington Times: “All of Iraq must know Iraq is free — free from United States’ occupation.”
After Senator Obama was elected president, he began wearing the American flag pin. Indeed, there is no better place than the White House to inspire patriotism. The leaders of his Democratic Party, however, continued to condemn their own country’s wars, and to portray our brave military forces as Genghis Khan hordes. Retired general Wesley Clark, a former NATO commander who had just lost his attempt to win the Democratic nomination for the White House, even wanted Congress to “determine whether President Bush was a criminal by advocating a war against Saddam Hussein,” and he looked the other way when one of his supporters grabbed his microphone to call our commander-in-chief a “deserter.”
How did our venerable American sense of patriotism arrive at this low point?
On May 27, 2008, Senator Joseph Lieberman described the problem in a nutshell. “Democrats under Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy forged and conducted a foreign policy that was principled, internationalist, strong, and successful,” he said. “Now, the Democratic Party sees America as the main danger to the world’s peace. [According to the Democrats,] the Soviets and their allies were our enemies not because they were inspired by a totalitarian ideology fundamentally hostile to our way of life, or because they nursed ambitions of global conquest. Rather, the Soviets were our enemies because we had provoked them, and because we failed to sit down and accord them the respect they deserved. In other words, the Cold War was mostly America’s fault.”
In my other life, when I told Ceaucescu that we were losing money on every product we were exporting to the West, his prompt solution was: “We’ll make it up in quantity.”
I’m sorry, I have to look askance at someone whose job had him interacting directly with Ceaucescu. He was not a nice man (and that is perhaps to most blatant example of understatement ever put on this website!).
I long ago agreed with you, in my own way, that Ceausescu was not a nice man: on Christmas Day 1989 he was executed by his own people at the end of a trial whose main accusations came almost word for word out of my book Red Horizons (Regnery, 1987).
“Last week, Mr. Knight must have been turning over in his grave. The fact that all eleven Secret Service agents and all ten military personnel sent to Cartagena for the single purpose of protecting the president of the United States were found to have been involved with prostitutes during that trip indicates that their disgusting behavior was far from accidental.”
It all starts from the top. We never quite know what Obama’s leadership skills INSIDE the White House are. In other words, how does he manage the Secret Service and what type of an example does he set for them? Does Obama just let the Secret Service do whatever it wants to, or does he take in interest in how they do their job? Sometimes, leaving a Federal agency to its own devices can be a disaster. Just look at what the ATF and the Justice Department did with Fast and Furious. We always watch the president, but who is watching the people who protect the president?
Obama’s a very strange bird in one respect: in general, Democrats are micromanagers, and Republicans a re delegators. Obama’s the singular exception to that rule. Owing to his unique background of absolutely no experience running anything, he delegates. And probably to the last guy he talked to.
The government has been running on autopilot for the last 3-1/2 years. Why do you think Rahm split?
The episode about Obama’s proud refusal to wear a flag pin makes me burn every time I read it.
May I make a suggestion to all PJ readers: anyone who isn’t wearing something patriotic every day — a scarf, a lapel pin, a tie clip (!), whatever — start doing so! And add a flag bumper sticker.
I wear my Army Veteran hat daily in the heart of Bwaney Fwank country.
It is not well-received.
And I do it anyways.
What was that Churchill said? “You have enemies? Good, that means that once in your life you took a stand.”
That’s the spirit! And thank you for your service.
Please note that wearing the US flag as apparel is considered to be disrespectful and a violation of “Title 4 USC § 8 – RESPECT FOR FLAG: (d)The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery. It should never be festooned, drawn back, nor up, in folds, but always allowed to fall free. Bunting of blue, white, and red, always arranged with the blue above, the white in the middle, and the red below, should be used for covering a speaker’s desk, draping the front of the platform, and for decoration in general”.
I would also think that displaying the US flag in a location where it will become dirty or tattered (such as a bumper sticker) is also disrespectful.
I don’t want to come off as pompous and a flag scarf doesn’t seem nearly as bad as a t-shirt or shorts but please remember that we are at war and the remains of fallen US armed forces members begin their journey home from Bagram and Kandahar in a coffin draped in a US flag (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyqCldow6nE).
I have seen enough of bikinis with the American flag, so that is just dead letter.
Yeah, I think we knew all that. I think we knew the difference between patriotic-themed accessories and cutting up a flag to patch a hole in the crotch of your jeans.
But folks, in case you didn’t get my meaning, please don’t cut up a flag and patch the crotch of your jeans with it.
I stand by flag-themed bumper stickers.
A flag pin is not a flag. It’s usually not made of cloth. It’s a pin with an *image* of the American flag on it.
What that law refers to is someone actually wearing a flag.
I would have thought that the principal that the US flag and its images should be treated with respect (for example not worn as a scarf or “du-rag” (http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-73468747/stock-photo-long-hair-senior-motorcycle-man-wearing-leather-jacket-and-american-flag-bandana-motorcycle-helmet.html)) was an obvious no-brainer. It also seems clear to me that that those who display the flag or its image in this manner detract from rather than add to any intended patriot message (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/get-a-brain-morans.
Obviously other commenters differ and they are free to wear the flag and its image as they please and also to stick it on their mud splattered bumper stickers because “it’s a free country” and you are “Born In The USA” (http://assets.rollingstone.com/assets/images/story/bruce-springsteen-announces-new-album-world-tour-20111120/1000×306/main.jpg ). I would suggest though, that it’s not a good idea if one is attending a midnight “ramp ceremony” or “hero ceremony” on some FOB in Afghanistan.
Ion brings nothing but clarity, thank you.
In some ways I can’t really blame the Secret Service guys. They have sworn to protect the President but what is going through their minds when they have to protect this idiot. I would imagine the only thing that is keeping them from hesitating for a second before reacting to a threat is that Biden would be the one to replace him.
I’ve had some strange assignments in my time but I sure couldn’t handle that one. Back in 1968 I was stationed at MCRD San Diego and got grabbed to stand a security detail when then President Nixon flew in to SD airport. We started out in full class A greens with an M14, a magazine with 5 rounds and a bayonet. Then someone started worrying we might take a pot shot at him ourselves so they took back the ammo. Then they decided since we didn’t have any ammo we wouldn’t need the rifles so we took them back to the armory. Then someone else decided to give us back the ammo. We ended up standing out along the runway with a bayonet and five rounds of ammo. No rifles but we had ammo!
An excellent description of everyday life in the European Union:)
How did you manage to fly 2 days after 9-11?
ash: Thanks for the sanity check.
Mark Twain once said, “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.” I think American patriotism gets redefined after each US Presidential administration. This usually depends on the character and performance of the sitting President. I worked in Federal Law Enforcement during the Bill Clinton/Lewinsky scandal. It was a demoralizing time — to say the least — for federal agents across the board. Patriotism took a beating then just as it did during the Nixon/Watergate scandal and oh, so many other scandals throughout our history.
America is still the great hope of the nations and I concur with Mr. Pacepa, in that we will correct our past and improve our future. The world waits with bated breath as America fights to uphold her unique principals of Liberty, Trust in God, and “Out of Many, One.”
There is nobody claiming US military is not patriotic, yet there were the same number of military involved as secret service with prostitutes in Columbia. Its because this has nothing to do with patriotism.
There is a breakdown within the Secret Service, it needs to be rooted out and examined in light of day. Soliciting prostitutes is lack of defined leadership within the Secret Service, and its a sad day to watch this revered agency be rightly dragged through the gutter.
This had obviously been going on for some time and often enough that over 20 govt and military felt comfortable soliciting prostitutes immediately before a presidential visit. There is a breakdown within the Agency, and it must be dealt with openly and honestly.
It is an open secret when GOP and DNC conventions come to a city, there is a small army of high class prostitutes that are brought along, to service delegates of both parties every which way possible.
There is an air of Hypocrisy to be shocked when prostitutes are contracted for conventions and part of regular and established business in Washington DC. People on media outlets are getting carried away with feigned surprise and its as disgusting as soliciting prostitutes.
The Secret Service was out of line, and house cleaning is required. But the people trying to make this a political event will end up being eaten by the animal they are feeding.
I claim the U.S. military, under it’s current generals, is very unpatriotic.
Oh, come on; it is an “open secret” that whenever there is any gathering or convention of any sort of group with money or power, there will be a gathering of prostitutes of all classes; that’s what they do. Government isn’t even a particularly attractive target since most government employees, even political appointees, are at best middle-middle class, and they don’t have a whole lot of money and have to account for their money to the employer, a spouse, or both. If you’re on $100 – $200 a day per diem, the typical rate, try hiding a $500 – $1000 tryst with a stripper from the inquireing mind of a spouse; don’t ask me how I know!
“We are evidently dealing with a new culture at the Secret Service.”
Probably about the same time the US federal goverment decided to fill those positions based on a person’s sex/race instead of qualifications. It is no longer about finding the most qualified staff and merit based promotions, but fulfilling poltically correct hiring practices.
I’m sorry, but if frequenting a house of “ill repute” and its “boom boom girls” precludes patriotism, then the United States Army Vietnam had a major absence of patriotism problem among the troops to go along with their over utilization of Penicillin.
“The leaders of his Democratic Party, however, continued to condemn their own country’s wars”
Well they still don’t condemn the Operation Enduring Insanity in Afcrapistan. Of course that’s because Obama has doubled down on it LBJ style by escalating the American troop level there more than 2 fold. And let’s not forget we got into WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam under democrat presidents.
I assume the Secret Service has entrance requirements and that a modicum of intelligence is one of them. But maybe not, one of the agents was so stupid he tried to stiff, is that a pun???, the girl and the whole mess blew up. An $800 payment probably seems cheap to him and the rest of them at this point.
It all starts with leadership, if this had happened on a ship in the Navy, the Captain and his officers as well as many of the non-commisioned officers would have been fired, because there is no such thing as a bad ship, just bad officers.
There is nothing wrong with the Secret Service that firing the leadership from Obama on down wouldn’t cure.
It’s hard for something like this to happen *on* a Navy ship at sea. But once that ship docks, are you kidding?
Sailors on leave looking to get laid has happened since the days of John Paul Jones.
Congratulations on completely missing the point.
This has absolutely nothing to do with patriotism.
It has to do with male libido, something that has existed since the dawn of humanity.
If you look at American history, you will find that soldiers in every U.S. war from the Revolutionary War on down consorted with prostitutes. “Camp followers” followed Washington’s army around. In the Civil War, they followed General Hooker’s army around. (There were thousands of cases of STDs reported in both these armies.)
And in World War II, the Government constantly warned our men in uniform to not just beware of the Nazis, but also beware of STDs:
http://assets.flavorwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/SheMayLookCleanBut.jpg
http://assets.flavorwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/boobytrap_0.jpg
And yet all our men in uniform were patriots serving their country.
But they were also MEN.
And MEN don’t stop thinking about sex when they go to serve their country.
I thought the Secret Service was supposed to be an elite agency. “I didn’t know she was a hooker” and “I didn’t have sex, I was too drunk” don’t measure up.
Bingo. THIS is the crux of the problem. These clowns were stupid and unprofessional, and compromised security as a result.
I doubt there is anybody on Obama’s staff who is mature enough to realize why this is a problem. Likely all they can see is the political angle.