“If my son is struck by a bolt of lightning, I will blame some of the people here. If his plane should fall into the sea or his ship sink beneath the waves of the ocean, if he should catch a mortal fever, if his automobile should be struck by a train, such is my superstition that I would blame the ill will felt by people here.” — Don Vito Corleone, “The Godfather” (novel)

The buck stops at the Resolute Desk. Too bad it doesn’t find as resolute a capo there as Don Corleone.

There was one and only one appropriate leadership response to the near-fatal assassination attempt on Donald Trump on July 13. 

One and only one correct management action after a security perimeter was drawn around a former president of the United States that was less than the range of a widely owned rifle.

One and only one thing for the chief executive of the world’s greatest superpower, with trillions of dollars of resources at his disposal, to do after a 20-year-old amateur was able to openly surveil and pierce that perimeter, crawl into place with an AR-15 in broad daylight and come within literally a whisker of plunging a tense and deeply divided nation into political, social and possibly economic chaos.

That one required act was this: after accepting the immediate resignation of the then-director of the Secret Service, to call in the entire next level of that agency’s management along with the secretary of Homeland Security, the attorney general and the directors of the FBI, CIA, NSA, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives.

Then inform them, in no uncertain terms, that if any remotely similar incident eventuated between that date and the November election, or if a bolt of lightning would fall from the sky near the 45th president, he would hold not just some but all of the people in that room accountable and announce their departures en masse the very same day.

Ask them what resources they needed to give him full assurances that nothing of the sort would happen again. Order that those resources be granted.

And call the meeting to a close.

No report has been filed that Joseph Robinette Biden, inaugurated as president of the United States at noon, Jan. 20, 2021 – whether legitimately or not – held such a meeting, laid down such an ultimatum, uttered such an interrogatory, or gave such a directive.

As much as a high-level dereliction of duty at the Secret Service and coordinating agencies produced the first assassination attempt, either such a leadership vacuum or a moral one – or just as likely both – brought Trump back within apparently easy range of a similarly lethal instrumentality a second time.

If Biden doesn’t have the remaining executive function, in every sense, to fulfill his most basic leadership responsibility – ensure the security of his nation’s citizens, especially one in a position of such prominence – he must forfeit his job.

In most parliamentary democracies, instead of being allowed to blither on blithely as usual, the head of government would be facing a vote of confidence in the coming days. Among Don Vito’s Five Families, such a show of weakness and indecision would result in a far worse fate. 

Yet in fact, Biden has already failed two such votes: on the part of the public in the wake of his disastrously revealing debate misadventure in June, and at the hands of the combined donor class and Mafia chieftains of his party thereafter who figuratively “whacked” him shortly thereafter.

Every day this Fredo remains in office – even given the pathetic alternative – perpetuates a fraud on the American people and puts them, the nation, and even his fellow leaders in peril.

And by the way: spare this commentator the high-fives and hearty self-congratulations county and state law enforcement and the Secret Service are sharing in apprehending the perp of another attempted murder.

Yes, the combined forces were able to thwart the deed and chase down the subject. But only after a marksman had once again pierced the perimeter and positioned and concealed himself within actual range of the approaching Trump. 

Only due to the timely intervention of a witness who spotted the fleeing felon and photographed his getaway vehicle and license plate. 

And only after he had evaded capture in two miles of busy local thoroughfares to reach I-95, and traversed 30 miles plus to a neighboring county.

In other words, only after the horse had already been let out of the barn and galloped amok, putting others in danger as well.

Even anti-Trump progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gets it. In the wake of the previous attempt on The Donald, the New York Squadster demanded that the previous Secret Service director, Kimberly Cheatle, be held accountable for the failure to extend a security perimeter beyond the range of the gunman and for the agency’s unresponsiveness to questions about what happened and why. Both of which she called “not acceptable.” 

Her liberal colleague Ro Khanna made the precise demand our disappearing president should have in a tweet yesterday.

Now, it seems that his responsibility, and his party’s potential political liability, may be sinking into the enfeebled brain of Biden, or more likely those directing his unsteady steps. In a statement issued after an inappropriately lengthy delay, Sleepy Joe allowed that he had “directed my team to continue to ensure that Secret Service has every resource, capability and protective measure necessary to ensure the former President’s continued safety.”

Yeah? About time. 

But that belated acknowledgment of lesson one in Leadership 101, as conveyed by the legendary Cosa Nostra chief, does not prevent the counterfeit commander in chief from wearing the fact of another near-tragedy like an ugly Christmas sweater.

He must go.

Bob Maistros, a regular contributor to Issues & Insights, is a messaging and communications strategist, crisis specialist, and former political speechwriter. He can be reached at bob@rpmexecutive.com.