Posted on 11/30/2009 10:10:56 PM PST by kristinn
Will Obama Throw Desiree Rogers Under the Bus for State Dinner Fiasco?
Obama State Dinner Fiasco - Will Desiree Rogers Get Thrown Under the Bus? (Part Two woth video)
A bombshell claim by a friend of Michaele Salahi last night on Larry King Live could end up blowing White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers out of the East Wing and under the Obama bus of discarded friends and associates.
Politico reported on what was said on Larry King Live:
As far as I know, they were invited," said Teresa Foss-Conlan, one of three Salahi friends who appeared on King's CNN show Monday night after the Salahis themselves postponed a planned appearance. "I never in a million years would imagine them crashing the White House state dinner. ... I know that she had correspondence with the White House social secretary about the proper attire that she should wear as she was trying to decide about the dress and the color and if this was the proper attitre to wear."
Foss-Conlan's revelation that Michaele Salahi spoke personally with White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers is new and could result in responsibility falling closer to the White House's inner circle than previously known.
Also Monday evening, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), at the behest of Rep. Peter King (R-NY), asked Rogers to testify at the committee's hearing on the state dinner fiasco Thursday. The Washington Post reports the White House has so far declined comment on the invitation.
In case Rogers is wondering what effective guest security at a presidential dinner is like, she can watch this video by Politico of herself and fellow Obama administration muckety-muck Valerie Jarrett being forced to present proper identification before they enter the magnetometers at the White House Correspondents Dinner last May at the Hilton Washington.
Talek and Michaele Salahi are scheduled to be interviewed by Matt Lauer this morning on the Today Show.
WTTG-TV reported tonight that the Salahis crashed a dinner featuring Obama in September (via the AP:
WTTG-TV, the Fox affiliate in Washington, reported late Monday that the Salahis also crashed a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Awards dinner on Sept. 26 at which Obama spoke. The station's Web site quoted a foundation representative, Lance Jones, as saying the Salahis were escorted out by security guards after they were caught sitting at a table.
The station said that when the Salahis showed up at the dinner, they were followed by TV cameras from Bravo, which airs the "Real Housewives" reality programs, but were turned away at the door. WTTG reported that the Salahis later sneaked in through a busboy-catering entrance, and the station's Web site posted photos purported to be from the Black Caucus event.
Most the attendees at the event did not have access to Obama, WTTG reported.
A call to the Secret Service seeking comment was not immediately returned late Monday.
Thursday's hearing should be intersting for both Desiree Rogers and the Secret Service.
What a head case.... anything to get her face on TV!
I heard they won’t do interviews without a price. They set their price at 10-grand an interview.
Is that the green ‘I’d hit it’ arrow I see?
The way things are going, the feds will be paying them to teach how to infiltrate presidential security.
LOL. I think so.
Bah! It’s not what you know, it’s who ya know! LOL
Based on your photo, I say “Not Guilty”!
Desiree Rogers photo above...(the first African American to serve in this function)
She earned a Bachelor’s degree in political science from Wellesley College in 1981
After graduate school, Rogers moved to Chicago, Illinois and began working for AT&T. Soon thereafter, she became an executive for restaurant and real estate developer Larry Levy.
Beginning in 1997, Rogers worked as vice-president of corporate communications for Peoples Energy (PE), which is now a natural gas subsidiary of the Integrys Energy Group.
In 2003 Rogers was named to the board of Equity Residential, a $15 billion residential real estate investment trust (REIT).
In late 1999 Rogers and three other minority women quit the board of the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art to protest what they regarded as a slow pace on diversity issues.
Rogers aspires to modernize the art collection in the White House Presidential mansion by adding ethnic art
Rogers is an Obama family friend. Her former husband is John W. Rogers, Jr., Obama’s Inaugural Co-Chair, who was also a former teammate of Michelle Obama’s brother Craig Robinson on the Princeton University basketball team. Rogers’ brother and mother still live in New Orleans.
******
Rep. Peter King wants to know why Desiree Rogers’ team wasn’t there to stop Obama party crashers
Rep. Peter King, the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, thinks Desiree Rogers should come up to the Hill and explain why her team wasn’t there to prevent the infamous gate-crashing incident.
“We’re now going over a list of witnesses we would like, and one of them we’re very much considering is Desiree Rogers,” King told The News.
King said he didn’t want to “make it a circus” and he’d be open to a classified briefing with her office if there are security concerns, but he’s adamant the White House needs to explain its role.
“One way or the other, we have to hear from the White House,” he said. “We definitely have to have the social secretary, somebody for the White House social secretary’s office, either now or very soon in the future.”
To him, Rogers sounded especially defensive when the story broke.
“I thought it was very interesting too that Desiree Rogers, almost right out of the box, said ‘there was nobody from my office there.’ Well, if there wasn’t, shouldn’t there have been someone there, and why weren’t they there, and who made that decision?” King asked.
“Why does it turn out this was the first event they were not at and the first event that someone like this from a reality TV show crashes in?” he said. “I think there’s questions that should be answered, that’s all.”
Other than that, Ms. Rogers, how was the state dinner?
Desiree Rogers, White House social secretary, sets a new standard
Chicagoan implements Obamas’ ideas of “people’s house”
WASHINGTON — 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.
“Something that we’ve talked about from early on is making it the people’s house,” said Rogers, sitting at a table in her East Wing office, a view of the Truman Balcony behind her. “How can we salute—encourage the American spirit? That means many different things to many different people.”
Her vision includes inviting ordinary citizens chosen by lottery to join in a social life that reflects the eclectic interests of a sophisticated, young First Couple, Barack and Michelle Obama. Along with glittering state events and intimate dinners hosting artists and intellectuals, the calendar she plans includes edgy poetry slams and an egalitarian ball celebrating everyday American heroes.
You can already see changes. The R&B band Earth, Wind and Fire was the entertainment at the Obamas’ first formal dinner, hosting the nation’s governors, and soul legend Stevie Wonder was honored with a White House concert. The black-tie governors’ dinner had a more casual, modern feel with mixed-china place settings.
Even before the election, Vogue editor at large Andre Leon Talley dubbed the Obama era “Black Camelot.”
That style is livelier than the Bushes, more hip than the Reagans, more multicultural than the Clintons and more accessible than the Kennedys.
A native of New Orleans and two-time queen of the Zulu Mardi Gras krewe, the 49-year-old Rogers has been a prominent presence on the Chicago social scene since her marriage to (now ex-husband) John Rogers, an Obama confidant and founder of Ariel Investments.
Voices of Power: Desiree Rogers, Obama’s White House CEO
White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers is making the President’s house a place where “East meets West” and where business meets social.
******
Chicago’s Own Desiree Rogers to Blame for Crashergate?
Security lapse may be due to Rogers’ forcing out the guest list manager
Who’s to blame for “Crashergate”?
Fingers are starting to point to Chicagoan Desiree Rogers, President Obama’s social secretary, for letting Michele and Tareq Salahi slip by security at the front gate of the White House last week.
The couple, who were seen mugging with Vice President Joe Biden and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel – not to mention shaking the President’s hand – might never have gotten into the party if Rogers hadn’t stripped the woman whose job it was to vet such people of her power.
Cathy Hargraves, who resigned last June, was personally responsible for overseeing the invitations of state dinner guests and keeping track of their RSVPs. She also physically stood at the gate during functions and cross-checked names against a master list.
The Salahis gained entry to the White House despite not being on such a list.
When Rogers came to the White House last, she stripped Hargraves, a Bush-era holdover, of those responsibilities. “In these economic times,” Hargraves told Newsweek, I don’t think we’re going to have very many lavish expensive dinners. It wouldn’t look very good.”
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/politics/Desiree-Rogers-Shoulders—Blame-for-Crashergate-78136707.html
I *knew* it! No Secret Service agent in his right mind would let anyone without an invitation into the White house without being given orders by someone they thought had the authority to countermand their standing instructions.
Diva in the White House: Does Desiree Rogers Have the Obamas’ Back?
snip
Perhaps such pedestrian concerns as guest lists have escaped the notice of Desiree Rogers, the White House social secretary, whose job it was to plan and execute the Obama’s first state dinner. In an April 30 interview with WSJ, the Wall Street Journal’s magazine, she focused on using her Harvard MBA to “brand” the Obama presidency using the White House as its “crown jewel.” That may be good business speak, but it doesn’t translate as good public service.
Said Rogers: “You have to think about it [my job], in my mind, almost like a business. Otherwise, you never get there. You get caught in linen hell and flower hell, list hell.”
As they say, the devil is in the details. And if Ms. Rogers is not going to attend to them, she better damn well make sure somebody else does. A social secretary is normally a work horse, not a show horse.
A longtime Chicago friend of the Obamas, Rogers established her diva role in June by making quick work of Jackie Norris, the First Lady’s then chief of staff. Norris had been instrumental to Obama’s victory in the Iowa caucus. When Norris insisted on having Rogers report to her directly, not the First Lady, out she went—and in came Susan Sher, another one of the Obama’s Chicago friends.
The Obamas came to the White House with a Chicago clique that can sometimes act as though they made the president, not the other way around. Not that there’s anything wrong with having friends—it’s just that they seldom make the best employees, especially after you become the leader of the free world. Better to have your friends on the outside, where they can do you the most good, rather than on the inside where you have to clean up after them.
10K? try six figures. That’s what I heard.
The account of Cathy Hargraves, who formerly served as White House “assistant for arrangements,” raises new questions about whether changes that she says were made by President Obama’s social secretary, Desiree Rogers, may have contributed to the security.....(Hargraves was ushered out of her position, and apparently not replaced)
Her job duties included overseeing the invitations for guests at state dinners and keeping track of RSVPs, she says. On the evening of state dinners, she says, she physically stood at the East Gate portico entrance and greeted each of the guests as they arrived, checking their names off a computerized printout of those who had been invited.
But when she met with Rogers last February and went over her job responsibilities, she says, the new social secretary told her, “We don’t feel we have a need for that anymore.” Rogers’s explanation, according to Hargraves: “In these economic times, I don’t think we’re going to have very many lavish expensive dinners. It wouldn’t look very good.”
After all, they are primarily just a bunch of tough, white guys who were comfortable with guns from an early age and are probably for the most part socially and politically conservative.
No White House officials or staffers from the Chicago Machine, or Democrat donors from the ranks of the connected "Beautiful People" network in Washington, are going to be left holding the bag on this one.
We are blaming CIA agents, private contractors, Navy Seals, Guantanamo guards, FBI, we might as well start in on the US Secret Service and piss them off, too. /sarc
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