The Washington Post published an opinion piece claiming that “retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Allen West would be perfect” to take over as head of the embattled Secret Service because of his “managerial and diplomatic skills.” West, who was forced out of the military, that same day called President Obama a “charlatan” and urged the military to disobey his orders.

Former Secret Service agent and Marine Corps infantry officer Dan Emmett wrote a September 26 PostEverything piece surveying problems with the Secret Service and recommended that current director Julia Pierson be replaced with someone from the military, specifically “a true leader, not a bureaucrat.” He then lobbied for West, writing:

In this role, a true leader, not a bureaucrat, is needed. Someone like Florida congressman and retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Allen West would be perfect for the role. West has successfully demonstrated that he possesses the leadership skills of a combat officer as well as managerial and diplomatic skills of a congressman, exactly the traits needed in the next director. Highly competent and beholden to no one in the Secret Service, he would be a superb director.

Emmett does not appear to be very familiar with the former Florida congressman (the Post appended a correction to the piece noting that Emmett originally misspelled West's name). West is a partisan ideologue with a history of toxic rhetoric against President Obama. The same day the PostEverything piece was published, West implored the military to disobey “charlatan” President Obama because he purportedly “took out his pen and ordered our Military to enlist illegal aliens ... This is an illegal order and should not be followed by our Military.”

West's previous extremist comments include:

• Calling President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder “the most vile and disgusting racists.”
• Claiming “Barack Hussein Obama has an Islamist sympathy ... I don't understand where this president's loyalties lie, and I have to ask the question, whose side is he on?”
• Declining to dispute an audience member who falsely claimed that “Obama is a Muslim.” Instead, West responded that he's “not going to get into that” but the president “has an Eastern orientation, I'll put it that way.”
• Arguing that the “Democrat Party is an anti-Semitic party.”
• Accusing Democrats of being Nazis, communists, and modern day slave holders.

West's military service ended in controversy after he was “stripped of his command after pleading guilty to assaulting an Iraqi detainee during interrogation.”

PostEverything is an online Post property that relies on “a large network of outside contributors” and publishes “wide-ranging commentary on the big, in-the-moment debates facing Washington, the country and the world.” The section was widely criticized after it posted a piece with the headline (later changed) “One way to end violence against women? Stop taking lovers and get married.”