bout 14 years ago I was assigned to a protection operation in Toronto in support of a visit by Vice-President Cheney. We didn't have a lot of down-time between the travel/walk-thru day and the visit and, as a result, I was extremely exhausted when the Vice-President arrived the next day.

Approximately 8 hours in to my 16-hour-plus day, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police Officer I was working with, seeing that I was tired, offered me a chair to sit in. I thanked him but turned down the chair and stood for the rest of the shift.

I didn't turn down the chair because I didn't want it, I turned down the chair because it looked bad. I was a Secret Service Agent and I wasn't going to give off the impression of weakness to our cordial RCMP counterparts. I was proud of our agency and, although I have long since departed the Secret Service, I still am.

Relatively minor acts like this are repeated all over the world, every day, by men and women in our military, law enforcement and diplomatic corps who proudly wrap themselves in our flag and conduct our country's business with dignity and honor.

I write this because our President could learn something from these men and women. Golfing every weekend, taking multiple, extended vacations, attending fundraisers the day following our Ambassador's murder in Benghazi, and fooling around in bars in Colorado taking pictures, such as the one attached taken last night, while our border is collapsing, Iraq is falling, our IRS is targeting innocent citizens, and our vets are dying on VA waiting lists, is an embarrassment to our county and to the citizens looking for answers to the tidal wave of crises going on right now.

It's long past the time to lead and the President has nearly impeached himself. We do not have 2 more years to wait for him to take this job seriously. The people of the United Stated deserve better. Get serious, get out of the bar, and get down to the border.