Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle Still Having a Job Is Peak Left

Serious question. Does the Left believe its role is to serve the American people, or does it believe its role is to serve government workers and unelected bureaucrats? I ask this blunt question because Joe Biden has yet to fire a single person in his administration despite numerous instances when a termination (or two) was more than justified. For example, the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle resulted in the preventable death of thirteen U.S. soldiers, the death by drone strike of an innocent family, and the abandonment of not just an entire military base but billions of dollars worth of weapons and equipment on that base now in the hands of our enemies. Yet, not one soldier, civilian Pentagon political appointee, or national security advisor or staff was fired or even demoted. Not one.

Two years later on September 30, 2023, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan speaking at a confab of lefties infamously made this claim about Biden’s foreign policy: “The Middle East Region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.” Mind you, other than the normal lobbing of rockets in Iraq and the death of both terrorist leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Iranian terrorist mastermind Qasem Soliemani by U.S. forces, nothing occurred in the Middle East Region during Donald Trump’s four years except the breakout of peace deals via the Abraham Accords and the boxing in of Iran. Sullivan’s claim, as is his tendency (see the Russia collusion hoax), was a bold-faced lie and he knew it. Eight days after he made his false claim, Hamas launched its attack on Israel resulting in the death, rape, and kidnapping of over 1,000 men, women, and children, including Americans some of whom remain hostages. Biden again didn’t fire a single person who missed the mark on this attack, including Sullivan.

That brings us to United States Secret Service (USSS) Director Kimberly Cheatle. Let me just say, as someone who spent two-and-a-half years at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with a chunk of that time in the Secretary’s Office overseeing the USSS, I have great respect for the men and women who put their lives on the line to protect their assignees, including the President. I spent time in the USSS Director’s Office when Ralph Basham occupied that spot. Basham was a top-notch director who expected accountability and results. I’m confident what happened last Saturday would never have occurred under his watch. I’m also confident had it happened, President George W. Bush and Secretary Tom Ridge or Michael Chertoff would have fired him unless Basham beat them to the punch with his resignation.

It was bad enough that neither Biden nor his impeached political hack appointee DHS Secretary Alejandro “Ali” Mayorkas moved to terminate Cheatle within twenty-four hours of the assassination attempt on Trump. With all of the mistakes made that we’ve now learned about over the last eight days, Cheatle’s continued employment is beyond shocking. Frankly, both Cheatle and Mayorkas deserve to be fired immediately for their dereliction of duty and poor management. How many debacles will Mayorkas commit before he slinks off (though the Right should relentlessly and aggressively pursue him legally for as long as it takes to hold him accountable). Trump’s blood and the death and injury of innocent Americans is literally on their hands. Biden’s hands too are soaked in that blood. The American people will fire him on November 6.

Well, Biden dropped out as I was writing this piece so he has now been held accountable in a way neither Cheatle nor Mayorkas have been. That’s befuddling. Add to the above examples of debacles without accountability these events:

• The toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, and the federal response;
• The disastrous border invasion;
• The invasion of Ukraine again by Russia;
• The ill-fated dock debacle in Gaza;
• The death, rape, and injury of Americans by illegal immigrants; and
• The removal of the Houthis from the terrorist list.

Not one person has been fired for any of these events. Not one. Thus, it is fair to ask who the Left serves—the American people or government employees who fund the Left, vote for the Left, and who impede at every turn the Right’s efforts to fix America’s problems when it is in power? I personally experienced the last aspect when worked for Bush. With Biden’s move to make it harder to fire federal employees no matter what they do, the answer seems pretty clear.

It is not impossible to get accountability over government workers. When I was the Deputy Director of the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies, we had an employee who was allegedly spending five or more hours a day on porn and other non-work related websites. When the human resources folks told me there was little we could do, I pushed back hard. I had our IT department monitor when he signed on and off each day, every website he visited, and how long he spent on each website for thirty days. Once done, we printed out the thick results and I sat down with him to let him know he could either resign or we’d have to release the data to the Denver Post. Needless to say, he resigned on the spot.

When I was at DHS running the $3.6 billion office focused on preparing America cities and states for terrorist attacks, I asked the managers of the three branches to provide me a list of their top 25% performers for year-end bonus consideration. Instead of doing that, the bureaucrats tried to spread the bonus funds to all employees regardless of their performances. Again, I pushed back hard and said we would not provide bonuses to those workers who merely did their jobs; rather, it would be unfair to the top performers if they got less than they deserved so managers didn’t have to tell the others they were not getting bonuses that year. As you may recall, my boss also demanded accountability. When the response to Hurricane Katrina went south, Bush fired Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown and replaced him with U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen.

At some point, Americans must wonder why the Left never fires its appointees or government workers. From placing bad teachers in “rubber rooms” for years on end to using union processes to shield scofflaw government workers from getting fired, the Left puts more effort into minimizing accountability than it does to making sure the government funded by the people works for the people. USSS Director Cheatle is just another glaring example of the Left’s dysfunctional way of doing business (or not doing business).

P.S. For those wondering, no, I don’t think Biden dropping out and being replaced by (it appears) Kamala Harris changes the dynamics of the presidential race or my previous declaration that Trump will win (barring a self-inflicted wound). Harris is deeply flawed (see her previous failed run for president), disliked by many (lower approvals than Biden), carries the same baggage as Biden (his record is her record), and fundamentally is an unserious person who has won’t be able to fake it into the White House (she is a real life version of Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy).