It’s no secret. Just about everyone has a Twitter account today, including the secretive Secret Service. Most of its tweets are rather bland, with information about recruiting events and various awards. Still, the 20,000 followers are eagerly on the lookout for some exciting news about national security.
They came close enough on Wednesday, when the following tweet appeared in their feeds: “Had to monitor Fox for a story. Can’t. Deal. With. The. Blathering.” So, it’s not only Obama …
The tweet was quickly taken down, but in this age of re-tweeting and screen captures, it apparently wasn’t fast enough. The tweet du jour made the rounds of the Twitterverse, causing the Agency to backtrack quickly.
“An employee with access to the Secret Service’s Twitter account, who mistakenly believed they were on their personal account, posted an unapproved and inappropriate tweet. … The tweet did not reflect the views of the U.S. Secret Service and it was immediately removed.” This was followed by the inevitable apology and a denial of access by the twitterer to the account.
But that was hardly enough for the many people who read the tweet. Why, they wondered, was the Secret Service monitoring über-patriotic Fox News? Who in particular was doing the blathering? Was it O’Reilly? Hannity? Beck? The world may never know.
What we do know, thanks to a later explanation by Secret Service spokesman Edwin Donovan is that the security group monitors “all the different news organizations throughout the day.” So, Fox was not subject to any special scrutiny.
Of course, that leave the question: What was the story for which he ex-twitterer was monitoring Fox. For an agency with “Secret” in its very name, it is unlikely that we will ever know.
