>>> In April 2001, the student tabloid at Yale University, Rumpus, ran an article that accused the Secret Service of doing a poor job of guarding First Daughter Barbara Bush, who attends the college. The Rumpus article created a ruckus, and Yale's Dean of Student Affairs ordered all print copies to be recalled and destroyed, and the online version to be deleted. (The April 2001 issue that's now online no longer contains the story.)

The tracks were covered well--even Google's cache and the Internet Archive didn't contain a copy of the article. However, TheFirstTwins.com has an Acrobat file of the original April 2001 Rumpus tucked away on the site. I've extracted the article and coverted it to HTML, below.

In an interesting side note, the Washington Post did an article about the Rumpus article, but the paper's executive editor pulled it from subsequent printings of that day's edition and, apparently, from the Post's Website, as well. (It used to be here.) Luckily, TheFirstTwins.com has kept a copy here.

[read more from Wired News and Yale Daily News]

Out of Service
by Nathaniel Pincus-Roth

In a little room in the basement of Vanderbilt lies the office of one of the most talked-about additions to Old Campus since the vending machine got those new Mini-Oreos: the Secret Service. As with other institutions at Yale with the word “secret” in their names, many have questioned the practices and whereabouts of these new arrivals. But does this group of government agents live up to its reputation as intimidating, crafty, and willing to sacrifice their lives at all costs?

Not a chance! In the true spirit of the Bush administration, these Secret Service agents appear to be the most inept bunch of weapon wielders this side of the Freestyle Dueling Association.

The Secret Service presence surely hasn’t impressed the people who live in Vanderbilt. “We were really pissed when none of them were cute,” noted an annoyed D-Porter. “But,” she added, "one of them had a little puppy." Another student lamented the lack of excitement. “I was expecting Mission: Impossible, and all I got was Inspector Gadget, but with no gadget and no cool theme song.” While many voiced similar objections, one student did point out, however, that he “hasn’t seen Barbara Bush assassinated once.”

Yet these superficial concerns are nothing compared to reports of some serious screwing up on the part of the ol’ Men in Black. Case in point: recently, a certain daughter of a certain President of the United States went with some friends to a WWF match at Madison Square Garden. Naturally, the Secret Service followed the car she was in during the drive from New Haven to New York. Everything was going well until they got to the bridge into Manhattan, where they made one crucial misstep. "They didn’t have an EZpass,” remarked someone who was in the car with Barbara, “but we did, so after they paid their toll, they put on their sirens and sped 120 m.p.h. until they caught up with us.” Hmmm… that’s not obvious. But, then again, neither is the balding, forty year-old “student” with a backpack who follows her around campus 100 feet behind her all day.

Less than a week later, however, another crisis occurred when the Secret Service office lost track of Babs altogether. A female agent went up to her room to find that Barbara wasn’t there and, clueless, the agent asked one of the freshmen in her entryway if she knew where she was. According to the student, however, the agent didn’t appear overly concerned. “She was like, ‘Do you know where she is?’ And then I said, ‘No, I hadn’t seen her.’” After a pause, the officer then nonchalantly asked, “Do you think she would turn her cell phone on?” In the Line of Fire this ain’t.

This “losing the president’s daughter” blunder suggests an overall trend with the Secret Service: a seeming indifference towards actual protection. After all, they didn’t seem to notice when a scuffle after a party in the basement created a huge gash in the wall next to their office. Their tiny cameras also apparently did not pick up a certain Rumpus reporter stealing a piece of leftover pizza from the trash can in the entryway. Then again, a Secret Service agent at the New Haven field office had “absolutely no idea” whether they had set up any cameras around Vanderbilt. Nor did the Secret Service care to see who was knocking on their door when we tried to interview them – assuming they even showed up for work that day.

Nonetheless, while the Secret Service’s lack of both secrecy and service is disturbing, a bigger question looms in many people’s minds: where do the agents drop the deuce? A close look at the Vanderbilt basement floor plan reveals that, in fact, there is no restroom located inside their office. Furthermore, no one in any of the adjacent basement suites has seen an agent “let the dogs out” in any of their lavatories, nor has anyone on the floor above. Surely the Secret Service, cooped up in their stuffy basement room, gets the urge to splurge? “Maybe they don’t, like chickens,” one student theorized. While that might be one explanation, one could also draw a connection between the Secret Service’s proven incompetence and pressing toilet needs. After all, their lack of facilities leads one to believe that, sometimes, security isn’t exactly their “Number 1” priority.

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