secret service

Everyone loves bloopers, especially when it comes to protecting the President of the United States, so PlanetPOV is developing a reality series for TV entitled, “The Top Secret Service Bloopers!” and we wanted to give our fellow Planeteers a little advance preview.

Most people are familiar with the more recent bloopers of those little dickens in the dark sunglasses and in-ear receivers but we plumbed the depths to find more Secret Service bloopers from the past. Here are our top five:

1. “Sorry About That, President Lincoln!”

In this episode, clumsy SS Agent, Dick Butterfinger was guarding President Lincoln at Ford’s Theater but when John Wilkes Booth came towards the door, he accidentally tackled himself. Booth easily stepped over him to enter Lincoln’s box and assassinate him. This agent’s name soon became synonymous with clumsiness which is why, today, we refer to someone who acts in such a way as “A Dick”.

2. “Better Off Ted!”

SS Agent John Dutton was undercover, pushing a cart as a fruit vendor while on duty to protect Teddy Roosevelt during his attempt to run for a third term. Unfortunately, when he spotted assassin John Schrank pull out a gun to shoot at Roosevelt, Dutton accidentally pulled out and pointed a banana at him and discovered his mistake too late to stop Schrank from shooting. In the ranks of the SS, this incident is referred to as “The Banana Slipt.”

3. “What’s a Book Suppository?”

On that terrible day in Dallas, SS Agent Steven Wilder was told to secure the book depository building which turned out to be the one that Lee Harvey Oswald was waiting in to shoot at President Kennedy. Agent Wilder, who was said to be easily distracted and got into the SS due to family connections, misunderstood what he was told and thought he had been ordered to secure a book suppository. Instead of inspecting the building and discovering Oswald, preventing the assassination, Wilder went to a newsstand and browsed for the thinnest paperback that could be rolled up. No one knows how Wilder’s superiors disciplined him nor whatever happened to that rolled up paperback.

4. “The Ford Escape”

The year was 1975, the place was Sacramento, California and Gerald Ford was President without being elected by the people…a Republican tradition carried on years later by George W. Bush. Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a Manson family follower, set out to assassinate Ford on behalf of the environment (Mother Nature was held for questioning but later released). SS Agent Larry Figg was heading up the detail in charge of protecting President Ford but had grown a bit peckish and couldn’t resist the prospect of a homemade brownie offered by an attractive hippy girl. It turned out that the brownie was laced with both pot and LSD. Fortunately for Ford, Fromme didn’t have a bullet in the chamber when she pulled the trigger. Unfortunately for Figg, he wasn’t actually a cloud, couldn’t float in the air and sustained severe injuries when he leapt naked out of a tree.

5. “It’s Moaning in America”

SS Agent Luke Canton was known to be a people person, he was great with crowds and took pride in it. When President Ronald Reagan was headed out of the Washington Hilton Hotel, Canton saw a group of people with assorted bulges in their pockets, kept away from the already screened crowd standing near the door. At first he told them that if they would go through screening, they could come closer. John Hinckley, Jr. replied, “Aw, come on…” and Canton just couldn’t disagree with that, allowing them to come over and stand close to the door without being searched. After Hinckley shot at Reagan and was wrestled to the ground, Canton bent down to him angrily and said, “Come on, indeed!” Shortly after, Canton was fired from the SS (his only defense in his job hearing was, “Come on…” but it was of no avail) though he later served in the George W. Bush Administration, as an SEC official in charge of keeping Wall Street back from endangering the economy.

We’re hoping to get interest in our new series from the networks, cable or Homeland Security, we think that last possibility is a natural for us as long as we don’t shoot ourselves in the foot…as Agent Watkins did when Pres. McKinley was assassinated.

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James Michael Brodie
Member

Thank you for the humor, my friend. Much needed.

I am thinking back to what I was thinking back in 2008, watching Obama stand alone on stage in Iowa. There was this unspoken feeling in the community about how safe this man and his family would be — whether he might want to think twice about running. My wife and I looked at each other that night and agreed that if this is what the young man really wants to do, then we have his back.

But there has not passed a day when we don’t worry about him being another Black martyr who leaves behind a widow and children without a father. I never met Coretta, but I covered an event with Betty, and I interviewed Myrlie.

Each time I wondered how they must have felt and how they handled their pain…

EXFANOFARIANA
Member
EXFANOFARIANA

More Secret Service Bungling By the Day
Print This Post Print This Post
By Bryson Hull on Sep 30, 2014

1The pair of recent White House security breaches was shocking enough in terms of the laxity of the Secret Service they exposed.

But re-examined in light of the revelation that a man with an assault rifle shot out a White House window in 2011—and the Secret Service didn’t find out that bullets hit the building until four days later—it almost beggars belief that the recent incidents could ever have been allowed to happen.

In the first place, it’s hard to believe anyone could sprint across the heavily guarded White House lawn and get inside before being taken down. Yet that’s what Army veteran Omar Gonzalez, 42, did. It turns out that he got even further inside than previously known. A day after the Gonzalez foray, another man managed to drive up to a non-public entrance of the White House and refused to leave.
– See more at: http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/09/30/more-secret-service-bungling-by-the-day/#sthash.MmX8fVSa.dpuf

http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/09/30/more-secret-service-bungling-by-the-day/

pinkpantheroz
Member

Ad, you forgot about that good catholic SS agent Sean ‘Swingin’ O’Toole who had to bite the bullet for his President when, visiting a South American Country, he hired some under-covered ladies to, ahem, swell the ranks of the SS. He mistakenly thought that they would offer their ‘services’ free for the POTUS. BIG mistake!

Nirek
Member

Very funny piece, Ad. I especially like your first example, (you know, Dick) as in BIG DICK cheney shooting his own friend in the face comes to mind!

Kalima
Admin

Thanks for the laughs, AdLib, but after the incompetence shown by the SS in protecting your President and the First Family, it was a well deserved put down piece.

This one article from the foreign press sums it up well.

—-

Obama’s Secret Service has become sloppy with its delusions of Hollywood grandeur

After a number of shocking security lapses, it’s time the leader of the free world’s safety was taken seriously

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/obamas-secret-service-has-become-sloppy-with-its-delusions-of-hollywood-grandeur-9768426.html

Thanks again. It was a much needed laugh in a world that seems to have gone stark raving bonkers.

kesmarn
Admin

Laugh out loud funny, AdLib! Truly one of your very best.

One question, though. When Agent Figg fell out of that tree like a stoned apple (inadvertently proving the law of gravity once again), could that have been called a “Figg Newton”?

Thanks for a much needed laugh of the day!

SearingTruth
Member

“Perhaps a shield of compassion.

Not impenetrable, but difficult to pierce.”
SearingTruth

A Future of the Brave

RSGmusic
Member
RSGmusic

Hi Adlib, Thanks the banana incident! i did not know of that one or about some others also.

I real liked the article.

I will look for the show when if comes out. Any approximate dates?

EXFANOFARIANA
Member
EXFANOFARIANA

Hinckley was doing the world a big favor.That’s all I can say.Stupendous article,AdLib.Shared on FB.

RSGmusic
Member
RSGmusic

HI EXfAN a big favor? so true LMAO!!

hugs and prosper always!!

EXFANOFARIANA
Member
EXFANOFARIANA

You too, my musician friend!Live long – IF HEALTHY – that’s my motto.Prosper always!

RSGmusic
Member
RSGmusic

OK live long if health is OK .

hugs