Oct 4, 2014 4 min read

With almost 150 years of hindsight, it’s flabbergasting a president of the United States was allowed to sit virtually unprotected in a playhouse at the most divided, conflicted juncture in the country’s history.

And, retrospectively, it’s still hard to comprehend the astonishing folly almost 51 years ago of having a president ride through a major American city in a convertible with his protectors trailing a couple of car lengths behind him and the lightest degree of reconnaissance work having been done on the motorcade route.

John F. Kennedy himself reportedly observed on the morning of Nov. 22, 1963, that a gunman could perch atop a building, carry out his horrible deed and there’s nothing he or anyone else could do about it.

We, unfortunately, have learned some lessons on protecting our presidents in the hardest way possible. No longer do we see our chief executives travel the way President Kennedy did on that fateful day – a presidential motorcade is now a kind of rolling fortress, with the president sequestered behind bulletproof glass and a bombproof chassis, with vehicles for bodyguards, aides, medical personnel and communications equipment hard on his bumper. His residence is now heavily fortified and patrolled. Gone are the days when Americans could bring a picnic basket to the grounds of “the People’s House.”

Well, perhaps we should amend that to say those grounds are heavily fortified and patrolled only in theory.

Events in the last few weeks have shown, despite the perception the president of the United States moves in a snug blanket of security, that blanket is frayed and in need of some mending. A knife-carrying intruder was able to make his way into the White House Sept. 19 just minutes after President Obama and his family left for Camp David. The man apparently was able to get all the way to the East Room before a Secret Service agent subdued him. Then, the president reportedly stepped onto an elevator with a man carrying a gun and possessing a criminal record when he visited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta three days before the White House incident. Again, the Secret Service was asleep at the switch.

With two such faux pas happening in one week, we have to wonder how many others have occurred over the years that have not come to light.

After a fierce grilling on Capitol Hill, Secret Service Director Julie Pierson resigned Wednesday, and there are calls for reform within the Secret Service. While no president can be secluded in an impregnable stronghold for the duration of his or her tenure – they are not monarchs or dictators, but citizens who must be accessible and accountable – there clearly must be some changes made within the agency.

First, it must be funded so it can be properly staffed. Thanks to the budget sequester, it is about 500 agents short of its ideal level. As The New York Times pointed out, “Though money cannot be the only reason for these errors, people inside the agency say the cuts have led to staff burnout, low morale and unmonitored posts.”

While it might be possible for one person to do the job of two people in, say, the Commerce Department, that shouldn’t be the case in the Secret Service, given the vital and perilous nature of their work. The agency needs to be properly funded. Moreover, a top-to-bottom review needs to be carried out to determine where they are falling short and how vulnerabilities can be eliminated.

In an age of turmoil abroad and no small amount of rancor and discord in our own politics, we can ill-afford to repeat the mistakes of the past.