I’VE WRITTEN HERE BEFORE about the Secret Service’s problems — see this collection of links — but here’s a new kind of embarrassment:

First Daughter Barbara Bush had her purse and cell phone stolen as she had dinner in a restaurant in Buenos Aires, Argentina, even though she was being guarded by a detail of Secret Service agents, according to law enforcement reports made available to ABC News. . . .

The purse snatching took place on Barbara’s first night in town while she was dining in the picturesque San Telmo neighborhood. According to the reports, the Secret Service agents failed to notice the incident.

They’re supposed to be looking for assassins, not petty thieves. Still, this is embarrassing, and I imagine that Barbara Bush’s cellphone may have had numbers in it that shouldn’t fall into the wrong hands.