February 3, 2025

Inspector Clouseau Professionalism

Let’s pray that we see less Inspector Clouseau bureaucrats and more competent, highly qualified people in the Trump administration.

You have to be of a certain age to remember Peter Sellers in “The Pink Panther” movie series released in the 1960s through 1980s. Sellers played the bumbling French Police Inspector Jacques Clouseau, whose antics had you laughing so hard you thought you were going to wet your pants. Yes, Steve Martin did a remake in 2006, but it was nothing compared to the original.

The “Pink Panther” series was made for comedy, not for training films! The Biden administration bounced back and forth between a clown show and a “Pink Panther” remake. I know what it’s like to have to tolerate incompetence. After being medically retired from the Marines, my desire to go into the FBI was not possible.

My training in CID (Criminal Investigation Division) by a top-notch Marine Corps investigator caused me to set the bar for professionalism very high. That made it hard to settle for less. But one of my first partners brought me back to reality. Private security firms apparently had lower expectations than I did.

I never knew how Sam came to be employed. Apparently, somebody knew somebody who knew somebody! Sam was older than me (23) and had never kept a job for very long. Our first assignment together was typical of his capabilities. Sam was very overweight (or under-tall — not sure which) with bad eyesight. Not good when you’re an investigator trained to look for things.

We were surveilling a tracking company in which our undercover investigator identified an employee who was stealing late at night. We parked away from the terminal and walked across a cornfield to approach the property under the cover of darkness in the snow. Sam’s vision was bad; night vision was nonexistent. I told him to stay close and just follow me. As we approached the terminal, I heard a grunt off to my left, followed by a string of curse words. I saw Sam about 20 feet away, having walked into a tree.

Apparently getting distracted by a rabbit, he looked away for a second and then, looking back, thought the tree was me. The surveillance went well. We caught the thief loading his car two hours into the shift. The owner and the police were called, the thief was arrested, and our client was very happy. As it was February and freezing cold, everyone was happy to be done.

Sam offered to buy me coffee and a doughnut on the way home. It was 2:00 a.m., and three police officers were the only customers. Sam went to the cash register to pay. When he reached for his wallet, his .38 cal. revolver fell out of his waistband, clanging on the tile floor. Time stopped for everyone as the officers sat there looking at what was unfolding before their eyes.

I broke the moment by immediately raising my hands over my head, saying we were investigators with IDs. On a cold winter night, I was sweating bullets and praying I didn’t survive Vietnam just to get shot in an apparent holdup! Sam only screwed up one more case with me before he was fired.

Which brings us to the incompetence of the Biden administration, where diversity trumped experience and capability. We had a DEI vice president and Cabinet-level appointees who were not qualified but checked the right diversity boxes. Ability matters; competence matters!

Let’s pray that we see fewer Inspector Clouseau bureaucrats and more competent, highly qualified people in the Trump administration.

Something to pray about!
Semper Fidelis

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