Milley Effect: Mayorkas declares confidence in Secret Service chief, pledges drawn-out 'independent review' into 'failure'
Is there some Biden administration playbook on responding to complaints about flaming public incompetence? Since these failures happen so often, most recently in the security failure leading up to the near-assasination of President Trump, it's positively strange how similar the responses are.
The latest instance is from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who's already shown himself to be a master at mission failure as well as worming his way out of it.
In an interview with CNN, he called the Secret Service's performance Saturday "a failure" and promised an 'independent review':
He says he "looked forward" to "studying" the findings and "acting accordingly."
Meanwhile, in testimony to Congress two days ago, he delivered this:
A president was just shot and Mayorkas has 100% confidence in Secret Service leadership? Why does Mayorkas still have his job https://t.co/UwQ6LB4YKe
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 16, 2024
That's strange stuff. The failure is unmistakeable, it doesn't need an investigation to find out if it was really a failure or not. The Secret Service, which was founded in the wake of President Lincoln's assassination had one job, and they didn't do it.
Admirals who run their ships aground or collide other ships are just about always relieved of their commands. Why wasn't Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle? Mayorkas is acting as though this was a complicated matter with lots of little nuances of interpretation that call for his "study," making this sound like some kid's term paper to follow.
Cheatle should be fired instantly if the agency is to ever regain credibility as a presidential protective operation with an elite corps of agents paid six-figure salaries. If they don't or can't do their jobs, why are they being paid for by taxpayers? The legitmacy of the entire operation is being called into question. Cheatle has had 25-plus years to learn how to do her job and she didn't do it.
In a sane world, she'd be told it's time to go.
Instead, she was given space for excuse-making, as she did yesterday to an ABC reporter, claiming that she failed to stage snipers on the assasin's rooftop because it had a sloped roof, which posed a safety hazard is laughable, given how many times snipers have been stationed on sloped roofs in the past. Ordinary roofers do it all the time. In another interview with CNN, she claimed other cops were responsible for that building, not hers.
Obviously, this is someone trying to cover her keister.
Mayorkas's weasiliness about commissioning studies along with the phony excuses of his lieutenant clearly signal that the pair of them are both incompetent and liars.
It's activity of officials on the hot seat, having failed the public trust and simply trying to get away with it. 'Look, squirrel!' ought to be the motto of this pair of incompetents.
But this isn't Mayorkas's first incompetence -- his leaving the border wide open is on a par with leaving the rooftop wide open to a sniper aiming at President Trump, nor is it the first incompetence on a wide scale seen with the Biden administration.
Scroll back to 2022.
Gen. Mark Milley, who was responsible for the disastrous Afghanistan pullout in front of the world faced no consequences for his incompetence, but like Mayorkas, called it a "failure" and pledged an 'investigation' in the wake of it, something that would merit a page 19 at news story.
Speaking of the suicide attack that killed 13 American service members, he said:
GEN. MILLEY: A couple of things. One is, as we always do on all of these things, we initiated an investigation. We're reviewing all of the video and all of that. But having said that, it -- we -- you know, what do we know, what do we don't know, what do we think sort of thing -- at the -- at the time -- and I think this is still valid -- we had very good intelligence that ISIS-K was preparing a specific type vehicle at a specific type location. We monitored that through various means and all of the engagement criteria were being met. We went through the same level of rigor that we've done for years and we took a strike. So that we did.
Secondly is we know that there was secondary explosions. Because there was secondary explosions, there's a reasonable conclusion to be made that there was explosives in that vehicle.
The third thing, as we know from a variety of other means, that at least one of those people that were killed was an ISIS facilitator.
So were there others killed? Yes, there are others killed. Who they are, we don't know. We'll try to sort through all of that. But we believe that the procedures at this point -- I don't want to influence the outcome of an investigation -- but at this point, we think that the procedures were correctly followed and it was a (righteous strike ?).
And of course, like Mayorkas and Cheatle, he refused to resign.
Exiting the scene in disgrace or getting fired by a commander in chief who demanded just basic and minimum competence on leaving the scene without people dangling off aircraft was not an option, so he got away with it, retiring with his bloated pension, never mind the mess he left behind.
Now we see the same thing in Mayorkas, as well as his inept lieutenant, Cheatle.
They may have seen how Milley got away with it and went by his playbook for escaping accountability. Or, maybe they were briefed from the top.
Whatever it was, they cling to power in the face of failure, same as Joe Biden himself does as he seeks re-election and even Democrats are telling him to get out.
A fish stinks from the top, and there is no more illustrative example than the current mess brought on by Mayorkas.
Image: Screen shot from CNBC video via YouTube.