Can Keystone Kops really keep President Obama safe?

A man with a knife gets into the White House while an armed thug gets to ride in a lift with Obama

Charles Laurence

EDITOR'S NOTE at 11.55pm on 1 October: Since this article was posted, US Secret Service director Julia Pierson has resigned. She told Bloomberg News: “Congress has lost confidence in my ability to run the agency. The media has made it clear that this is what they expected.”

The White House is not the place you would expect to witness a real-life version of the Keystone Kops.

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Charles Laurence is a US correspondent for The Week.co.uk. He is a former New York bureau chief for The Daily Telegraph. He divides his time between Manhattan and Woodstock, upstate New York.