**Written by Doug Powers

Metaphor alert on this report about President Obama’s pick for the State Department’s security chief:

But current and former State Department officials told The Cable that confirming Starr could be a mistake and raised a string of fresh allegations against him. Among them: that the man who is supposed to oversee thousands of new security agents has shot himself in the foot. And not just figuratively.

[…]

“Starr literally shot himself in the foot when drawing an unauthorized small caliber weapon out of his ankle holster,” said a current State Department official, referring to an incident in 1981.

“Mishandling of firearms is a big no no in the foreign service,” added a former DS official.

Of course a single mishap, three decades past, shouldn’t disqualify someone from a top security post. But this was hardly the only blemish on Starr’s record, his current and former State Department colleagues say.