President Obama offered rare praise for the Secret Service Tuesday, saying agents worked “flawlessly” in protecting Pope Francis and other world leaders who visited the U.S. during the past week.
“When something goes wrong, when there’s a fence jumper, everybody reports on it,” Mr. Obama told reporters. “The Secret Service had to manage the pope’s visit, [Chinese] President Xi’s visit, and a hundred-something world leaders in an unprecedented fashion during the course of the last several days. And they did so flawlessly.”
He said Director Joseph Clancy and the rest of the agency “all deserve a huge round of applause for being such great hosts and keeping everybody safe.”
The protective service has endured a series of blunders and gaffes in recent years, from allowing a fence-jumper to enter the White House to agents carrying on with prostitutes ahead of a presidential trip to Colombia.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.