What the hell happened to the Secret Service?!!

Good point. The secret Service should have jumped in front of the President, and hauled him out of there to the bullet proof limo. The second sceret service agent should have been pointing his uzi at the shoethrower. Major Failure. Unacceptable. Those agents better learn how to say "would you like to supersize your order?"

They were laughing their asses off with the rest of us. Too bad the guy missed btw.

After I got through laughing my ass off, my mind did turn to the SS and how inhumanly slow they moved in. That, combined with Bush's ninja-like ducking skills make me think this was some lame setup of some kind.

Ha Ha Ha :-( fuck Bush... You get my point though right?

Oh yeah.

Everyone was searched for weapons, non explosive shoes aren't confiscated, DA.

Seriously! It was Iraqi journalists who were the first to respond. This *is* a major lapse in security.

My first reaction to seeing it was how strange it is that W had quick reflexes. Usually he is drunk or doped up on pills. Hmm...

EPIC Failure

they were watching the shoe action..

SECRET SERVICE = EPIC FAIL

[link to blogs.abcnews.com]


Secret Service Shows Unusual Restraint in 'Bizarre' Shoe Incident

ABC News' Ann Compton Reports: U.S. Secret Service officials in Washington say they are satisfied their agents responded with "the appropriate level of reaction" when an Iraqi journalist hurled two shoes directly at President Bush during a Baghdad news conference.

"Everyone in that room passed through several layers of security," Agent Ed Donovan tells ABC News. Screening included magnetometers, sweeps by K9 dogs and U.S. military bomb squads. Donovan says name identification checks were done on all the journalists to confirm they were representing news organizations.

Video of the incident shows the Iraqi man stand up and hurl one shoe and then the second shoe two seconds later. President Bush ducked both. The head of the presidential protective detail was seen reaching the President's side within six seconds, by which time the Iraqi had already been pulled to the ground from behind by a man in leather jacket, likely another Iraqi.


"There doesn't appear to be any over-reaction" on the part of American agents, Donovan says, confirming the Secret Service agents who poured into the room did not draw their weapons.

It is common these days for Secret Service agents to hang back, out of camera view, when the president is in a confined room with people, like the journalists, who were allowed to bring with them pads and pens, small audio recorders, and of course their shoes.

At the press conference, the head of the president's security detail scrambled to the lectern but not until the second shoe had been thrown. President Bush motioned to the agent to standby, declining to be hustled out of the room. At least five other American agents pour in from that exit behind the President, three took positions directly in front of the President, and other agents rushed into the midst of the seated reporters. No visible weapons were drawn, which seems to show unusual restraint, since agents are trained to assume that any assault is part of a broader attack by not one but several assailants.

At headquarters, it is a given that video will be reviewed over and over again, and become part of the Secret Service training -- on what NOT to do.

Good thing it was'nt the shoe bomber.Man those ducktaped butterslappers hurt.

Major suspicious things here...

"'There doesn't appear to be any over-reaction' on the part of American agents,

WTF? Something being hurled at the president in the middle of a war zone is not something to be concerned about???

"the Secret Service agents who poured into the room did not draw their weapons."

Despite the fact that the president is in the middle of a war zone???

"The head of the presidential protective detail was seen reaching the President's side within six seconds, by which time the Iraqi had already been pulled to the ground from behind by a man in leather jacket, likely another Iraqi."

The fact that an average Joe was able to stop W's attacker before the SS shows how lax they were. They were simply not in control of the situation.

"President Bush motioned to the agent to standby, declining to be hustled out of the room."

Sorry, but during an assasination attempt the SS does not stop to let the prez tell them to stop. They grab 'n go.

Oh, wait, they let W sit there for 9 minutes at a school which schedule was made public...

Nevermind!

:merkelw:

FACE IT - the SS hates the little incompetent asshole, too. Eighty years of risking their lives to keep him alive? Fuck him! He deserved the shoe and everyone there knew it!

Knowing how they work, it is probably some planned psyops.

It would have been wild if some super secret service dude was actually crouched down behind the podium. But because he was
such a ninja he sense the incoming shoe and jumped up and intercepted it. And if he did it so fast and then disappeared behind the podium again. That would have been SOOOOOOOO COOOOOOL.

Helicopter Ben should have crashed through the ceiling and rescue his boss!!!

:heliben:

Oh shut up, there was no assassination attempt. President Bush did the right thing, and the agents did the right thing by not pulling their weapons and slaughtering everyone in the room, which is what you seem to think they should done.

Wow I must have just popped into this timeline from an alternate reality.

Thank goodness I didn't have to deal with 80 years of George Bush like the rest of you!

The SS seems to be peddling damage control. If their position that the room was secured is correct, it begs the question, WHY are they there and WHY were there so many of them? This was an embarrassment and someone screwed up royally!

No excuse for the lack of attentiveness.

The guy barely has any time left, and no one likes him. Maybe a few of the extreme right GLPs, but that is it.

No one is taking a shoe, let alone a bullet, for the posterboy of inbreeding.