On a recent Saturday afternoon in Washington, several hundred children with cancer and their families filled Lafayette Square, across the street from the White House. They came from all over the country, and from Canada, to participate in a two-day program called CureFest for Childhood Cancer. Organizers had failed to persuade the White House to bathe itself in gold light to show support for their cause—to raise awareness and research funds for childhood cancer—but they had been granted a Park Service permit to assemble in Lafayette Park between 7 and 9 p.m., listen to speeches and music, and then light 100 electric candles when darkness descended.
Unfortunately, they hadn’t reckoned with the fact that the “Night of Golden Lights” coincided with the annual fundraising gala for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, which raises money for political candidates. Since President Obama was the featured speaker at the gala, he was obliged to depart from the White House to be driven to the dinner—and, of course, would be transported from the gala back to the White House. Yet since neither the Secret Service nor the Park Service seemed to know which exit or entrance Obama would use, they simply cordoned off the acreage surrounding the White House.
This meant that the children with cancer, and their parents, who had already assembled to listen to welcoming music, were summarily ordered out of the park, which was then barricaded against them. They were not allowed to return to Lafayette Park, nor were they permitted to retrieve personal belongings—chairs and blankets, for instance—which they had been obliged to leave behind. After hours of waiting, many children were fatigued, or in urgent need of medication, and neither the Secret Service nor the Park Service knew when the president would return. So, at 10:30, long after their permit had expired, the children and their parents finally went home.
The Scrapbook always makes a good-faith effort to avoid invoking the Bush Rule: that is, to imagine how the press would have treated this story—young children with cancer and their mothers and fathers ejected from Lafayette Park so the president could attend a political fundraiser—if George W. Bush had been in the White House. And we refrain from doing so here since it is not clear if President Obama had any notion of the frustration and heartbreak across Pennsylvania Avenue.
But we do mention this grotesque incident for two reasons. First, because it is sadly typical of the standard operating procedures of the two federal agencies involved. And second, because the Secret Service’s subsequent statement to the Washington Post—the closure of Lafayette Park was “put into place based on standard [Secret Service] protocols prior to protectee movements in the vicinity of the White House Complex”—is precisely the sort of tin-eared bureaucrat-ese we have come to expect in such circumstances: “The Secret Service would like to express its regret for not communicating more effectively with this group concerning the timeline for protectee movements in the vicinity of Lafayette Park.”
Note, please, that the Secret Service isn’t sorry for its colossal misjudgment, or for the needless pain and inconvenience it caused a wholly blameless, well-intentioned, completely innocent, and law-abiding group of cancer-stricken children and their families. No, the Secret Service regrets that it didn’t communicate its “timeline for protectee movements” more effectively to “this group.”
Is there no one in the Secret Service, or in the huge White House apparatus, with some measure of common sense? The Scrapbook is entirely in favor of keeping “the protectee” in the White House safe and understands the need for caution and vigilance. But surely someone must have realized that children with cancer in a nearby park posed little threat to “the protectee”—who might even have enjoyed seeing the glowing candles on his way to that fundraiser.
