Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Posted on 11/28/2009 6:15:30 PM PST by kristinn
While much attention is being focused on the Secret Service for allowing uninvited socialites Tareq and Michaele Salahi to crash the state dinner for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the White House last week, the person responsible for all facets of the dinner has so far been given a pass by her friends in the media.
White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers, a Chicago pal of the Obamas, failed to follow the previous administration's practice of staffing the Secret Service-guarded entrances for dinner guests with someone from her office that could handle any problem with invitees.
The AP quoted Rogers directly acknowledging her failure:
White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers, asked by the AP on Thursday whether personnel from her office were at the checkpoint said, "We were not."
The media will be loathe to criticize Rogers, given their love affair with her. Fawning profiles by the media are filled with language that wll come back to haunt Rogers as attention turns to her failure to flag the interlopers from the moment they tried to crash the dinner at the gate, through their introduction in the East Wing, their shaking hands with the president and Indian prime minister in the receiving line and their presence in the dinner tent on the South Lawn where they met Vice President Biden and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
The Chicago Tribune slobbered its praise of Rogers back in March, highlighting her experience in helping the little people get lucky:
Desiree Rogers once made millionaires of a lucky few everyday people. Now she plans to give Americans dinner invitations to the White House.
Rogers, a svelte, stylish Chicago business executive and socialite—and a former Illinois lottery director—is turning again to Lady Luck in her new role as social secretary for a White House that hopes to balance glamor, history and an urban sensibility with plenty of populism.
...Whatever epithet ultimately sticks to the Obama White House, Rogers will be its impresario. And she, for one, rejects comparisons with Camelot: "This is not necessarily a presidency that duplicates, or copies. The Obamas have their own style," she said in an interview.
That style is livelier than the Bushes, more hip than the Reagans, more multicultural than the Clintons and more accessible than the Kennedys.
Well, Rogers certainly made Obama more accessible.
In February, Vanity Fair asked, Can Desiree Rogers Make Washington Fun Again?:
No previous White House Social Secretary has had a Harvard M.B.A. Nor have any talked openly about “branding” the Presidency. But Desirée Rogers, the glamorous Chicago businesswoman, social figure, and friend of the Obamas’, is a change agent. As she told me two days after the inauguration, she wants to be the producer of an inclusive show-and-tell from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The Wall Street Journal did its share of slobbering over Rogers in April:
Desirée Glapion Rogers is the descendant of a Creole voodoo priestess named Marie Laveau Glapion. The first time I meet her, she welcomes me into her East Wing lair—a rhythm and blues tune plays on a white iPod, a potted white orchid perches between two windows, fresh flowers sit on a heavy wooden desk. This is a woman who never sees a wilted bloom. The 49-year-old turns on just enough Southern charm to camouflage an aura of self-assuredness typically reserved for runway models or first ladies. Wearing a crisp white shirt, black patent flats and high-waisted navy slacks that would look terrible on almost anyone else, Rogers talks about her job as White House social secretary.
...Rogers, who calls herself the “eyes and ears” of Mrs. Obama, has known the first lady for nearly two decades. They met through Rogers’ ex-husband, John Rogers Jr., who played basketball at Princeton with Mrs. Obama’s brother, Craig Robinson. They have an easy way together, elbowing and joking, chatting about their daughters and smiling widely at each other, the way only old girlfriends do. Mrs. Obama pops her head in Rogers’ office to chat like someone who is still surprised that she works down the hall from her friend. Friendships with all the right people may be one of the reasons that Obama chose Rogers for the job of planning every social event that takes place at the White House—from black-tie dinners to pickup basketball games, press conferences, movie nights and birthday parties.
Summing up what she does for a living, Rogers says she plans events that “promote the Obama presidency” and make sure “the White House asset is reflective of who they [the Obamas] are.” In keeping with her corporate background and her Harvard M.B.A., Rogers uses words like “strategic plan” and “brand” when she describes how a constant string of lunches, parties and concerts can help her mission. “You have to think about it [the social secretary job], in my mind, almost like a business. Otherwise, you never get there. You get caught in linen hell and flower hell, list hell,” Rogers says as she reflects on the first series of high-profile events.
It looks like Rogers is going to end up in (lack of) security hell.
But at least she impressed the press that night:
"Desiree Rogers arrived at about 6:53 pm and stopped briefly to chat. Rogers said "We are very excited...everything looks great."
Robin "show off" Givhan, who is standing next to your pooler asked what everyone wanted to ask: "Are you wearing Comme Des Garcons?"
"Of course," Rogers replied."
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
U.S. President Barack Obama (2nd L) greets Michaele Salahi (C) and her husband Tareq (R) during a state dinner for India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (L) at the White House in this official White House photo taken November 24, 2009 and released November 27, 2009. REUTERS/Samantha Appleton-The White House/Handout
Desiree Rogers failed to work effectively with the Secret Service to keep uninvited people out of the White House and then she and her staff failed to spot the intruders at various high profile spots during the course of the evening.
It's difficult to fire friends, but the security and reputation of the presidency takes precedence over friendships, at least in a normal presidency.
Obama should throw Rogers under the bus for this, but will he?
They can vet this guy, but not a couple of reality show wanna be's? This really should be dubbed Balloon Boy Redux.
Man Bypassed Inauguration Security
By Christopher Newton
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2001; 12:44 a.m. EST
WASHINGTON –– Just after President Bush was inaugurated, a man without any security clearance bypassed three security checkpoints and shook Bush's hand – an escapade he pulled at President Clinton's second inauguration, authorities said.
The man's success at gaining access to Bush startled Secret Service agents and U.S. Capitol Police officers because security was intensified in preparation for large groups of protesters.
Capitol Police refused to give details except to say that the trespasser was unarmed and had been taken through a metal detector.
"There was an individual who had an unscheduled handshake with the President," Lt. Dan Nichols, a spokesman for the Capitol Police, said Tuesday night. "It was noticed immediately and he was removed."
The Washington Post, which first reported the incident in its Wednesday editions, said the man had a standing-room ticket for Saturday's swearing-in ceremony but somehow made it into the VIP section and into the Capitol.
The man who shook Bush's hand, was the same man who bypassed security after Clinton's inauguration in 1997, a police official said.
Nichols said the incident will be considered during a review of security that occurs after every inauguration.
The man was never under arrest.
"He did not break any laws and therefore, there was no basis to arrest him," Nichols said. "There is no law against shaking the president's hand."
The trespasser exploits during the Clinton inauguration had not been forgotten by those planning security for Bush. He was a constant subject of discussion by security officials before Bush's inauguration, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Secret Service officials even showed a videotape of the man shaking Clinton's hand to those handling security on Inauguration Day, the official said. The tape shows the trespasser approaching someone who had clearance to be near Clinton. The trespasser struck up a conversation with the cleared individual and shadowed him as he walked past a security checkpoint.
Comme des Garcons = like the boys
Look lik’d she sew de aprong to de dress. An’ where de zipper on it anyway? An’ de color? Shit. A wet grain sack be prettier “n” dat. Tain’ voodoo, it poopoo.
Nice work, kristinn - as usual.
socialite = “vapid scheming social climber”
“no one is interested in business, and the idea of SELLING AN ITEM is entirely beneath those Enlightened Geniuses of Harvard, what disgusting people!!”
hennie, could not agree with you more....growing a business these days is all about buying another company. These idiots in charge have no idea how to build an R&D dept, mktg dept and a sales force. That is way too complicated for most these days. I am in the employment field and see it all the time! SAD!
And that style would be "amateurism".
The dark shadowy group is Obama and the Chicago Marxist Mafia. The CIA and everybody else has either been neutered or driven out of business.
This is exactly like the AF1 joyride around the Statue of Liberty. It sounded like a cool idea at the time, and Bambi and his crude Hollywood buds did fist bumps and went with it, and then normal people were so freaked out that he had to do what he had to do...which was blame it on some flunky.
In this case you need to add, bona fide freaking nut.
That has to be just about the most hideous garment I have ever seen on a human being who should have had better sense than to wear it. Who had the power to convince her that she should wear that? She may as well have dumped a bucket of mud over her own head, it wouldn’t have looked any worse.
ANOTHER AMMO Belt?
Clearly, this whole sad incident is due to sloppy Secret Service procedures Obama inherited from the Bush Administration.
< /sarc>
I wish I'd known what was in this book decades ago; I had NO idea that business schools teach nothing about business, but instill a LOT of sheer CONTEMPT for non-Ivy League Americans. His book is a real page turner, shockeroo eyeopener.
Millions of dollars is just silly & passe, anybody who's anybody has billions. Things I'd never have ever thought up on my own about Harvard Business School. I seriously think that it should be closed. I'm serious. And the graduates sent to RE-education camp. Really!!
I'm not certain if the URL I cut & pasted from my google search will work, but the author's name is Philip Broughton, and his book is AHEAD OF THE CURVE.
Amazon.com:
Ahead of the Curve: Two Years at Harvard Business School
( 9781594201752):
Philip Delves Broughton: Books. http://www.amazon.com/Ahead-Curve-Harvard-Business.../1594201757
Whatever “news” the Obamistas intended to generate from this particular state dinner (maybe some photos of the President bowing to this, that or the other unknown diplomat) Tareq and Michaele Salahi took it all away.
Smoking Man was the best. Except for Dr. Mortimer or whoever it was that was Sherlock Holmes’ arch-enemy. But you never saw him in the old movies, if memory serves.
We don't know if any of what you said is true mostly because it's coming from the same sources that sought to trash "Joe the Plumber" and Sarah Palin's new baby.
whodat, I never realized you were a translator.
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