Secret Service dispatched to neighborhood feud

It's hard to think of a federal agency that has burned through an impeccable reputation as quickly as the Secret Service. Two incidents, one involving prostitutes and another involving an agent so intoxicated he could not walk might be excused as the sort of things that happen to all good agencies as over time an occasional bad apple or two finds its way into the basket. Better training and more selective recruitment would be the prescribed bromides. The latest incident to come to light was not the failing of the rank and file agents. In fact the agents were so concerned that the operation in which they were involved was illegal and worried about their own liability that they kept records of their involvement and their superiors’ instructions.
Incredibly agents responsible for patrolling the White House grounds were dispatched to rural Maryland to protect then Director Mark Sullivan's aide, Lisa Chopey after she had a fight with her neighbor. Sullivan has since retired and the present director, Julia Pierson, was supposedly unaware of Operation Moonlight even though she was Sullivan's chief of staff. Sullivan did did not order the operation himself but the two field agents who did have since been prompted by the agency. The duration of the operation is still disputed. One account states that Moonlight lasted only a few days over the Fourth of July weekend while others say it went on all summer. More.
Sullivan defended the action noting that the agency has a tradition of protecting its employees. Yes, everyone should have the protection of a private army when the neighbors are bitchy but to a larger point what agency in the Obama Administration has demonstrated a minimum of competence or respect for the law? From taxpayer funded 6 figure parties described as training seminars at the GSA, to credit card theft at the Postal Service, to viewing porn on the job at the SEC and EPA, to the violations of Tea Party activists by the IRS's tax exempt and audit divisions, to the ATF and the circus that was Fast and Furious are but a few examples of abuse of the public trust and misuse of federal assets. At some point even the most uninformed and partisan will have had enough.