just how bad is it?

Headline:

When it Comes to Trump, the Secret Service May Not Just be 'Incompetent'

Among the many troubling questions surrounding the massive security failure that took place prior to the July 13 assassination attempt on Donald Trump's life, one of the most glaring ones was why Trump was even allowed to take the stage. We now know that various security personnel from the Secret Service, DHS, local police, and others were aware of the presence of Thomas Crooks and had identified him as a security concern. Did Trump just shrug it off in an effort to get on with the show? During an interview yesterday, Trump revealed that wasn't the case at all. Trump told Jesse Watters of Fox News that nobody even mentioned it to him. No concerns were raised and he was simply escorted out onto the stage as he had been scheduled to do. The rest, as they say, is history. (NY Post)

Donald Trump revealed Saturday that he was not warned about the gunman who shot him at a Pennsylvania rally last weekend despite agents eyeing the suspect for hours before the attack.

“Nobody mentioned it,” Trump told Jesse Watters in an upcoming episode of the Fox News anchor’s primetime show.

“Nobody said it was a problem.”

“[They] could’ve said, ‘Let’s wait for 15, 20 minutes, 5 minutes.’ Nobody said…I think that was a mistake,” he added.

Trump is being beyond generous by characterizing this as "a mistake." It was a mistake that came within centimeters of costing him his life. Of course, his reticence about being more critical is probably understandable. He still needs the Secret Service and he will need them for the rest of his life, regardless of whether he wins the election in November or not. (Even more so if he does.) I will once again point out that we're probably not talking about the rank-and-file Secret Service agents who make up Trump's personal security detail, or at least I hope not.

The massive security collapse of July 13 most likely took place at the management level. The team assigned to personally protect Trump appeared to do their best to put their lives on the line and cover him, even if some of them didn't appear to be fully up to the task. That was literally the case with at least two of the women who were clearly too short to keep his head covered while leading him off of the stage. But the biggest failures came from those responsible for the advanced site planning, the establishment of the perimeter, and the screening of people entering the area, many of whom were not even Secret Service agents.

Another bit of news that broke this weekend should lead us to wonder if this was all just a matter of systemic incompetence or if there might have been something darker unfolding. It turns out that Trump's team had been raising concerns and requesting additional Secret Service coverage for the past two years. They were denied at every turn.

More and more sinister. It also doesn't help that people keep invoking the divine in relation to Trump's having survived the attempt. What if there's another shooter in the wings who succeeds in blowing his head off? What will be said about divine protection and providence then? Trump himself isn't helping matters by joining in, at the RNC, in invoking God as his protector. I see all of this theologizing as just inviting more trouble. Someone out there may be crazy enough to see it as a challenge to nail Trump despite his supposedly divine aegis.