Hasn't anybody noticed government bureaucracy is out of control?

Last week this news article appeared on Yahoo Sports. It was a tale of a Green Bay Packer player, Desmond Bishop. If your team wins the superbowl, and I assume Green Bay won this year, you are rewarded with a trip to the White House and get to have your picture taken with the President. It seems Desmond Bishop didn't get to see President Obama with his team mates. He forgot his drivers license on their chartered plane. The Secret Service would not let him in without it. The story goes on to say what a shame he forgot, and so on.

What I am amazed is that this story is about the unfortunate Mr. Bishop. It was not, contrary to what I would have assumed, about the rule based bureaucracy of the United States Secret Service. Weren't there thirty team mates of this guy who could have vouched for him. It's not like some 6' 4" 280 pound look alike terrorist was somehow planted on the team plane in disguise. Did the White House staff just say "no, sorry you don't have your papers" and walk away?

Has the world gone so mad that this kind of thinking is viewed as normal? How an inflexible, unable to apply common sense, rule following gatekeeper was able to become in charge of security at the White House should be the real story. If I were the President I wouldn't feel too comfortable sleeping at night with this level of adaptive thinking protecting me. Never mind the poor hospitality the White House projects to the American people or the disappointment to the unfortunate Desmond Bishop, did his being turned away really serve a security purpose?

Have we become so numbed to government rules and regulations that we don't see anything wrong with this picture?