Why would you call your daughter Desiree/ They call it paradise I don't know why You call someplace paradise, kiss it goodbye
Posted on 12/02/2009 7:05:23 PM PST by SilvieWaldorfMD
The White House will not allow Social Secretary Desiree Rogers to testify on Thursday before the House Homeland Security Committee, which is looking into how aspiring reality TV stars Tareq and Michaele Salahi crashed President Obama's Nov. 24 state dinner, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
And, as the Obama White House kicks off its heaviest entertaining season of the year, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina ordered new guidelines on Thursday to avoid a repeat of such an incident. Messina issued a memo spelling out that in the future personnel from the Social Office will be on duty at each Secret Service guest checkpoint. Rogers has been criticized for not posting a staffer at the entrance to the East Wing, though members of her office were in the vicinity.
In the memo, Messina said the White House did not do "everything" it could have done to block the Salahis from entering. The Secret Service admitted it goofed and did not even try to contact the Social Office when the Salahis name did not appear on the guest list.
(Excerpt) Read more at politicsdaily.com ...
(P.S. I didn't see this posted anywhere on FR)
Hah, just let a Repub try that and the pack would
have been in full cry.
Why would you call your daughter Desiree/ They call it paradise I don't know why You call someplace paradise, kiss it goodbye
Because, unlike in the Bush White House -- where staff members from the Social Office used to work ALONGSIDE with the Secret Service, with clipboards in their hands checking off guests -- the Obama White House staffers were actually INVITED to the party and where busy mingling with the guests and thus unable to get "down & dirty" and ACTUALLY DO THEIR JOBS!
This administration is such a joke, they are letting the Secret Service take the blame for their mistakes. Congress should force Rogers to testify and then force her to resign.
The buck stops way over there.
Apparently they are going to claim Executive privilege.
I’m still finding it impossible to believe that someone from the WH did not “escort” the Salahis in one way or another at the checkpoints...... would ANY Secret Service official really allow someone through who was not on the list, unless someone from the WH was there to say it was OK??? Either the Secret Service is incompetent or else the WH was more deeply implicated than we know to date.
Since I strongly doubt that the Secret Service is incompetent, the reasonable suspicion is that someone from the WH authorized the passage of the Salahis through the checkpoints. What, does the Secret Service just let people “talk” their way through such checkpoints?? Very hard to believe!!!!
Not guilty!
WP Reporter Roxeanne Roberts notified First Lady’s Staff Crashers weren’t on the list @ 7:25 pm
Matthews: Let‘s move on. Clearly, the Secret Service is taking a hit here. But is this a White House issue, too? Where were the White House staff the other night? And why weren‘t they stationed at every checkpoint, like they used to be?
ROBERTS: ... misidentified them, but I didn‘t think so. And I said, Can you tell me why they‘re not on the list? And she said, I don‘t know, but I‘ll try to find out. And I didn‘t hear anything for the rest of the evening.
And the reason I think that‘s important is that even after they got inside the White House, the staff had two opportunities to go upstairs to the reception, discreetly pull this couple aside and verify that they were supposed to be there. I don‘t know what time they went through the receiving line, but if they had any ill intention toward the president...
ROBERTS: I talked to two members of the first lady‘s staff. (at 7:35pm)
MATTHEWS: And who were they?
ROBERTS: Courtney O‘Donnell and Katie McCormick
Talk about throwing the Secret Service under the bus. Gibbs was placing all blame on the SS until of all people Chris Matthews exposed that journalist Roberts notified the Olsen twins - Courtney and Katie.
ROXANNE ROBERTS, “WASHINGTON POST”: Yes. I was in the press pool, and the press are sequestered behind ropes, and guests are announced by Maureen (ph), and they come sailing through. Sometimes they talk to us, sometimes they don‘t, and then they go into the dinner.
This couple walks through, and my head sort of shot up because I heard the name, and I looked at them and I thought to myself, Could it be? They looked exactly like this reality show couple, kind of sketchy, from Virginia, and it didn‘t make any sense to me. I looked down at my guest list, because we get official guest lists, and their names weren‘t on it.
They walked through, and I immediately grabbed a White House staffer and said, Could you please verify the names of the people that just came through? And why aren‘t they on the list?
MATTHEWS: What time was this?
ROBERTS: I time-checked our photo that our photographer took at 7:35.
MATTHEWS: So at 7:35, you were “The Washington Post,” and you‘re a well-known reporter and a respected reporter, you told a White House staffer that these people were not on list. And what did they say?
ROBERTS: They didn‘t know why. She said they didn‘t know why.
MATTHEWS: But they did know they weren‘t on the list.
ROBERTS: I said to them, They‘re not on the list. And I said, Why? And she said, I don‘t know. And so then, probably about 15 minutes later, I said to a member of the first lady‘s staff as they were escorting the press back to the press room, I said, This couple that came through—I gave the names again. And they‘d only been announced as Mr. and Mrs. Salahi, so I gave what I thought were their full names. I wanted to make sure—it‘s possible I had...
MATTHEWS: Yes.
ROBERTS: ... misidentified them, but I didn‘t think so. And I said, Can you tell me why they‘re not on the list? And she said, I don‘t know, but I‘ll try to find out. And I didn‘t hear anything for the rest of the evening.
And the reason I think that‘s important is that even after they got inside the White House, the staff had two opportunities to go upstairs to the reception, discreetly pull this couple aside and verify that they were supposed to be there. I don‘t know what time they went through the receiving line, but if they had any ill intention toward the president...
Is this couple connected to Palestinians or the Pali cause in any way?
Seems to me that maybe they “got a pass” because they gave money to Obama or support his anti-Israel position.
Someone let them slide and allowed the Obama, Biden and Emmanuel get some nice pics in. Seems like it was set up and known throughout the O administration.
Also:
Rogers made her entrance to the dinner in an attention-grabbing Comme des Garcons pale peach gown and did not stay in the background during the elegant event that she had organized, relates Washington Post reporter Robin Givhan. “Just because she has this job, it’s not going to make her a worker bee,” explained an unidentified friend, according to Givhan. “She’s glamorous.”
Givhan continued:
Although the state dinner was Rogers’s responsibility, with its myriad moving parts, she was on the official guest list, along with other Obama intimates from Chicago, such as her ex-husband John Rogers, Marty Nesbitt and his wife, Anita Blanchard. Instead of remaining behind the scenes, like a discreet stage director, Desirée Rogers had a seat at the most exclusive dinner in town. She was not the first social secretary to be seated at a state dinner, although others typically pulled up a chair only after they’d mastered the role. SOURCE: Washington Post
Salahis are not testifying either.
We’ll never know. They won’t let her testify. She was too busy partying.
s Michael Isikoff wrote in Newsweek, Rogers sidelined Cathy Hargraves, the East Wing staffer whose job it was to go to the East Gate portico and check off the names of each guest from a printout.
Rogers told Hargraves that the Obama team felt no need for those services because, given the recession, there wouldn’t be many lavish dinners. But even if it’s just two state dinners a year, as the first lady plans, one big mistake is too many. SOURCE: New York Times
Yes, the Washington wags might swipe at Rogers, but for now, the White House is standing behind her. Today White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs cited separation of powers and a history of White House staff not testifying before Congress as the reasons she will not go before the congressional committee.
According to her profile she is a Republican who voted for Obama [IOW, not a Republican].
“…I strongly doubt that the Secret Service is incompetent…”
You can take that to the bank.
Purported email transcripts exchanged with Michele Jones, Special Assistant (watcher) to Secretary Gates, specify their names were on the guest list:
“We ended up going to the gate to check in at 6:30 p.m. to just check, in case it got approved, since we didn’t know, and our name was indeed on the list!
Wednesday, Nov. 25, 1:38 p.m. From Michele Jones to Tareq Salahi
Tareq:
“You are most welcome! I here the smile in your e-mail and am delighted that you and Michaele had a wonderful time. :-)”
She’s a life long friend of the Obama’s. Not a Republican, more like a Chicago thug political hack with a Harvard MBA. She’s BFF’s with Michelle. She wanted to report to Michelle directly which is why they got rid of the other Michelle staff lady earlier this year. Desiree only wanted to report directly to Michelle.
Desiree Rogers at Fashion Week beween Vogue editor Anna Wintour and her fashion editor Virginia Smith(on a Monday morning)at (DK)Donna Karan show then on to Carolina Herrera..
.....on the taxpayer dollar?
Desirée Rogers, who has also been asked to testify Thursday, has been cruising for a bruising since telling The Wall Street Journal in April: “We have the best brand on Earth: the Obama brand. Our possibilities are endless.” She wanted to pose for The Journal in an Oscar de la Renta gown in the first lady’s garden, but the press secretary, Robert Gibbs, vetoed that.
The statuesque social secretary brandishing a Harvard M.B.A. and animal-print designer shoes is not any mere party planner. The old friend of the first couple from Chicago has the exalted and uncommon title of social secretary and special assistant to the president.
Instead of standing outside with a clipboard, eyeballing guests as Anne Hathaway did in “The Devil Wears Prada,” Desirée was a guest at the dinner, the center of her own table of guests, just like the president and first lady.
As Michael Isikoff wrote in Newsweek, Rogers sidelined Cathy Hargraves, the East Wing staffer whose job it was to go to the East Gate portico and check off the names of each guest from a printout.
Rogers told Hargraves that the Obama team felt no need for those services because, given the recession, there wouldn’t be many lavish dinners. But even if it’s just two state dinners a year, as the first lady plans, one big mistake is too many.
Also, the rejection of the Bush appointee has unseemly echoes of Hillary Clinton sacking the White House travel office staff, unnecessarily politicizing an office that required old pros.
Rogers also conjured up a White House closing ranks on itself, allowing far too many West Wing staffers, mid-level political aides, press flacks and speechwriters to attend the prestigious premiere state dinner, rather than people more relevant to the Indian guests of honor. The Obama team always talks of making the White House “the People’s House,” so why let it look like the White House Mess?
Even before the Salahis swept in preening, the Obama staffers were there preening, standing around celebrating themselves. And of course, savoring the wonder of the Obama brand.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/opinion/02dowd.html?_r=1
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