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November 22, 2004
"Guards! Seize him!" ...So Chile wants W unguarded, eh?
Wizbang has a nice little commentary up on the Chilean Secret Service kerfuffle. (There's an excellent summary of the incident here.) Paul feels that W did something very foolhardy when he dived into the scrum of scumbags to rescue his Secret Service agent. I share his concern, but I have to disagree.
My first thought when I heard of the incident was, "Now that -- that is a mensch!" As Paul points out later on Wizbang, it's certainly not something you can imagine any other president doing.
But my second thought was, "Why are the Chileans dead set on separating the President from his Secret Service protection?" They were certainly expecting the SS men; in fact, there had been extensive haggling over the topic of who was going to provide protection for the President. The Chileans were insisting on total responsibility. Very suspect. Why would you want total responsibility for the security of someone so important, whom so many people want dead? If anything were to happen, Chilean security would be accused of more than laxity; they'd be accused of complicity.
And when the President showed up, as expected, with his Secret Service men, these thugs felt the need to physically, manually tear the agent away from the President's side. Very odd, no? The very fact that Chilean security was physically attempting to separate them suggests that W was right not to want to be separated, whatever the cost. The man has good instincts.
I'd love to know the full story on this one. In any case, it's creepy.
Update: Alarming News has a few excellent stills that tell the story, in case you're unwilling or unable to download the video (linked in both the Alarming News and Wizbang stories).
Posted by EtherPundit at November 22, 2004 12:12 AM Category: Bush Administration