Minitrue Comes to Town and Agents Lives Don't Count

The Ministry of Truth (Minitrue) in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is responsible for insuring that the Party is never wrong. It rewrites history and changes facts to fit the narrative that the Party never makes mistakes. If Big Brother predicts something that does not come to pass, Minitrue rewrites history to make sure that the prediction is accurate. Its purpose is to make sure that the Party is always right and its rule is absolute. Resistance is futile to a Party that’s always right.

That is what is so unsettling about the disappearance of stories about the Obama girls and their vacation in Mexico. The Obamas have become sensitive to the appearance that they are spending the taxpayer’s money on lavish vacations, so they decided to see how good their hold on the media is. As each story about the Mexican trip and the 25 bodyguards disappeared down the “Memory Hole” they were confirmed in their belief that the so-called fearless and independent press would erase what the Party Obamas wanted erased. We already knew that the press is eagerly rewriting his predictions about what he would do during his term in office, now they are editing the narrative for him in real time and congratulating themselves on their compliance.

The ostensible reason for scrubbing the news is that Mexico is a dangerous place and publicizing the trip for the girls places them in greater jeopardy. If so, why send them there in the first place? Claudia Rosett makes and excellent point when we take our eye off the safety of the Obama girls and focus for a moment on those 25 secret service guards who are supposed to take a bullet for the girls if there is an attack.

But that brings us to the risks faced by those traveling secret service agents — whether 25 in number, or whatever the precise total might be. Yes, their job is to protect the First Family, and that includes taking a bullet or laying down their lives, if need be, to ensure that not a hair on a First Head is harmed. We can expect to hear no complaints from the Secret Service. But those Secret Service agents quite likely have families, too. They have now been dispatched to do their job not within U.S. shores where American authorities have enormous powers to minimize the risks, nor in a place which the State Department at least regards as routinely secure for Americans to amuse themselves on spring breaks.

Instead, these Secret Service agents have been sent to provide security in Mexico, where the State Department warns that due to transnational criminal organizations, “crime and violence are serious problems throughout the country” including “homicide, gun battles, kidnapping, carjacking and highway robbery.” State reports that “gun battles have occurred in broad daylight on streets and in other public venues, such as restaurants and clubs.” Of particular concern are “kidnappings and disappearances throughout Mexico,” with local police in some cases implicated. State adds that U.S. government personnel and their families “are prohibited from travel” to some of the most dangerous areas. And though the holiday destination reported in the vanishing new stories is not on the list of Mexican provinces totally taboo for personal travel of government personnel, State warns that in Mexico, “even if no advisories are in effect for a given state, crime and violence can occur anywhere.”

Perhaps one way the White House is entitled to regard the Secret Service is that there should be no constraints on the risks its agents are asked to run, for whatever reason. Certainly if the president wants to visit Afghanistan (which he’s done twice, on highly secured “surprise” visits, during his presidency), or go to Mexico on official business, it’s appropriate that Secret Service agents are expected to go with him, and do their jobs, at higher risk, to protect him and any family members in tow. But — hoping that all goes safely and smoothly with this Mexican spring break, and trusting to the Secret Service to ensure the safety of members of the First Family, wherever they might go — may we ask, nonetheless, a question:

In the terrible event that State’s warning proves relevant, and in the course of doing whatever it takes to provide security, any of those 25 or so American Secret Service agents are wounded or even killed in the line of fire, would the White House still consider the context a non-story? Would it be irrelevant that they had been asked to run such risks not to safeguard official business, but to enable a personal holiday trip to a place under a U.S. government travel warning? One need not quarrel over whether the White House, or anyone in it, is entitled to organize holiday trips to just about anywhere on the planet. But being entitled to do something does not necessarily mean it’s a good idea to do it. Where’s the sense of responsibility to those who serve? Where’s the judgment?

A reasonable person who suggest that the Obamas don’t really regard the danger to their guards to be any concern.  When it comes to risking the lives of the agents versus the girls desire to vacation in Mexico, the agent’s lives don’t weigh very heavily in the balance.   Certainly not enough to change the minds of the First Teen Agers and their friends.

(H/T: Glenn Reynolds)