Just nine days after joining Twitter, the Secret Service had its first major public relations blunder. Earlier today, posted on the @SecretService account: "Had to monitor Fox for a story. Can't. Deal. With. The. Blathering." The tweet was deleted promptly, and the agency said an "internal follow-up" was in progress.

"An employee with access to the Secret Service's Twitter account, who mistakenly believed they were on their personal account, posted an unapproved and inappropriate tweet," read a statement from the agency this afternoon. "We apologize for this mistake, and the user no longer has access to our official account. Policies and practices which would have prevented this were not followed and will be reinforced for all account users."

Too bad: this was the first tweet from the account that read like it came from a human being.