Bureaucracy: Saving the World From 10-Year-Olds

Seriously people, whoever is in charge of kicking 10-year-old kids off of White House tours needs to be fired. Not for incompetence (though that's obviously present), but just because it's a job that doesn't fucking need to exist.

The White House apologized Thursday for turning the family of a Medal of Honor recipient away from an exclusive tour last week because the late veteran’s 10-year-old grandson was wearing shorts.

Vernon Baker, the last surviving black Medal of Honor winner from World War II, was buried Friday at Arlington National Cemetery after dying in July from complications of brain cancer at age 90. He belatedly received the military’s top award from President Bill Clinton in 1997, after historians concluded he’d been wrongly denied because of his race.

On Saturday, his widow and grandson went to the White House for a special tour of the West Wing, which includes the Oval Office and rooms that are in use.

The staffer who was to lead the family wasn’t sure whether 10-year-old Vernon Pawlik’s attire — shorts and a T-shirt bearing a picture of the boy’s grandfather — was considered appropriate, officials said. Another winner of the military’s top award, Thomas Norris, also was turned away because he was not previously cleared for the tour.

By: Brant