Imagine the following scenario: You're driving along one fine evening, pretty thoroughly drunk, and ram your car through police tape and into a barricade. Suppose further that the barricade you've smashed into is in front of the White House. For good measure, let's add that the police tape you broke was marking off an active crime scene - an ongoing bomb investigation, which you've now dangerously disrupted.

The cops quickly approach your car. What are your chances of avoiding arrest, or worse?

Oh wait. I forgot to mention that you're a Secret Service agent. So it turns out you don't get shot, or Tased, or roughed up, or slapped in jail, or even detained. You just go home.

Precisely this scenario unfolded on March 4, with two seemingly intoxicated Secret Service agents crashing into a barricade at the east entrance to the White House grounds, nearly running over a suspicious object that agents on the scene were in the course of investigating as a possible bomb.