The Obamas Moving into a Condo?

President Barack Obama has decided to move with his family into one of the beautiful and functional condominium buildings in the capital. The decision makes a lot of sense: they are spacious, have views, have doormen who pick up your mail and water your plants when you travel and, most importantly, they notify you when someone is looking for you and kick them out if they are not welcome.

The above was written as satire by Andy Borowitz for The New Yorker magazine, but the truth is that it does not seem like a bad idea, given the latest events that revealed the malfunctioning of the famous and feared Secret Service, the elite government agency whose mission is to protect and look after the president and his family.

Who doesn’t remember the movie-like image of agent Timothy McCarthy, who was wounded by a gunshot aimed at then-president Ronald Reagan when somebody tried to assassinate him in 1981, and that of agent Jerry Parr, who quickly carried him to his limo, actions that were immortalized by Hollywood and by history?

However, the reputation of the Secret Service is currently very low after a series of incidents and scandals that forced the unexpected resignation last week of its director, Julia Pierson, and raised serious doubts about whether this agency, created 149 years ago, can really guarantee the safety of the world’s most powerful man and that of his wife and daughters.

Just in the last few weeks, an Iraq veteran armed with a knife climbed the White House fence and entered through an unlocked door into a room on the first floor where the president gives speeches and press conferences. Days earlier, during a visit to Atlanta, a private security agent with a criminal record entered an elevator with Obama without anyone noticing. And now we know that in 2011, bullets broke a window in the private wing of the residence when his daughter Sasha was there.

The Secret Service, the arrogant government agency that most boasts about its professionalism, began protecting presidents in 1901 after the assassination of William McKinley, but 24 months ago Americans learned for the first time of the parties with excess alcohol that its agents throw in the countries that the president visits. That was the case in Cartagena, Colombia, in 2012, when 11 of them were sent back for being drunk and having fun with prostitutes. Similar incidents occurred this past March in Amsterdam, when an agent passed out drunk in a hotel hallway.

And what about that state dinner for the Indian prime minister, during which a local couple dressed up for the occasion and attended without an invitation, which they didn’t need anyway? They drank, ate and shook the president’s hand without the Secret Service noticing.

But not everybody blames them; there are those who maintain that morale among agents is low, and that it all began to go badly when George W. Bush decided that they stop answering to the Department of the Treasury and be merged into Homeland Security, where the budget and resources assigned to them are much lower. In addition, their workload has doubled, since they are currently in charge of investigating financial fraud and cybercrime. Duties — for the same salary — that many consider incompatible with protecting the Obamas.

Those who defend the Secret Service argue that thanks to the 6,572 agents that comprise it, no president has been murdered in half a century. Others say that reforms and drastic changes are needed due to the unprecedented number of threats from Islamic and right-wing extremists that Obama receives, over twice as many as his predecessors. The White House has publicly insisted that the president still trusts them, but we know that he is furious in private. And who wouldn’t be if his life and those of his loved ones were at risk?