Security

I watched some of the inauguration coverage today. I don’t generally watch the speeches because the text will be available by tomorrow and I’d rather read it. But I like the pomp and protocol of the trip from the Capitol to the White House particularly.

What captured my attention was not the President or his spouse. They seem like good people to me and I voted for him. But I don’t find it riveting to watch them walk slowly down the street. That’s something even I can do.

I always watch the members of the protection detail. I’m especially fascinated by the two guys who station themselves a couple steps behind and just to the outside of the protectees. These guys aren’t in a position to wrestle bad guys to the ground and they don’t even seem much interested in the crowd or the buildings along the route. In fact, while I watched, they spent most of their time focused on the Obamas.

I have to conclude that these are the folks whose job it is to put their bodies in harm’s way while shoving the Obamas into the Beast, as they refer to the presidential limousine.  Watching them calls to mind the image of Agent McCarthy ‘making himself big’ in order to act as a human shield for President Reagan. Which of course, he did, taking the hit for his boss.

Where do we get guys and gals like this?

As the media focus variously on the President and the congress and what might happen in the next four years and what the speech really meant, I’d like us each and all to spend a moment streaming good thoughts in the direction of all the nameless people who put everything on the line today so that the rest of us could watch the pageantry.