It’s no secret that in George Bush’s Washington, incompetence and/or malfeasance seem to be prerequisites for really great promotions. George Tenet described dubious intelligence as a “slam dunk,” helping to pave the way for a tragically unnecessary war. For that mistake, he was given a shiny Medal of Freedom. John Negroponte, once involved in covering up Central American death squads and propping up a Honduran dictator, was pulled out of carbonite and awarded the post of Deputy Secretary of State. Condoleeza Rice didn’t think a memo stating “Bin Laden Determined to Strike Within the United States” was important. She was given the entire state department to run.

So it comes as no surprise that the United States Secret Service ordered the Dallas police department to stop checking the crowd for weapons at a Barack Obama rally. It’s getting harder and harder for the incompetents and the malicious to stand out in Washington. They’ve got to do something to shine, and letting another Oswald or Sirhan Sirhan slip into an Obama rally might just be stupid enough to work. Maybe.

What I want to know is, who at the Secret Service is bucking for promotion?

**UPDATE: I called the Secret Service. Secret Service Spokesman Ed Donovan acknowledged that screening of the crowd for weapons was halted about an hour before Barack Obama appeared. He said the Secret Service was following a “layered security plan,” which involved practices other than weapons-screening. “It wasn’t as if there was a decision to just stop checking people,” Donovan added. “It was never part of our plan to screen every member of the audience for weapons.” According to Mr. Donovan, the Secret Service tailors its protocols to each individual site, and this particular site didn’t require a thorough examination of the crowd. He wouldn’t detail the measures taken in Dallas that supposedly rendered individual searches unnecessary, saying that to do so would “help them defeat us.”

Whoever came up with a layered plan that doesn’t include running everyone in that stadium through a metal detector should start clearing a place on the mantle for his medal.

Hillary Clinton today continued her efforts to prove you can totally screw up a Presidential campaign even without the involvement of Donna Brazile. It’s an ambitious goal, by the way, considering Brazile has been involved in a losing Democratic campaign almost every election cycle since Jimmy Carter (her latest gig was piloting the doomed Lieberman campaign of ’04).

Concerns about the integrity of the 2004 vote in Ohio prevented Kerry from disproving the Brazile Rule (though he did try his best by conceding as quickly as possible when it appeared he was in danger of losing his loss of the state).

Many observers believe Clinton may succeed where Kerry failed because she’s willing to stoop lower than — well, pretty much anyone. Today, her campaign circulated a photo of Barack Obama wearing Muslim-looking clothes (a photo taken during a four-state tour of Africa last year. Wearing traditional attire is a custom most politicians adhere to when visiting Muslim nations).

If there’s anything Democrats likely to vote in the upcoming primaries are sick of, it’s race-baiting, fear-mongering, hypocritical (see picture to right) xenophobes who use the ghost of 9-11 to scare up votes. There’s a good chance this will turn more people away from her than it will from Obama. A damn good chance. The Brazile Rule is on the ropes, baby.

The Obama campaign apparently isn’t the only campaign racking up endorsements. A couple days ago, Chris Dodd, his former primary competitor, jumped aboard the Obama train. The train made a stop in Georgia today, where super-delegate John Lewis, civil rights icon and former Clinton supporter, climbed aboard and switched his super-allegiance. But those endorsements pail in comparison to the coup Clinton pulled off. She managed to win the endorsement of dead Texas governor Ann Richards. They’re not sure whether they can also win the support of Harriet Tubman, but anonymous Clinton insiders are optimistic they can count on Rosie the Riveter to help sway the crucial fictional character vote.

I really don’t know how the Clinton campaign does it. Bunch of geniuses, over there.