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?
How does a couple of dead broke, frauds get to be called socialites. ????
Those seem to be lots of facts there, but why bother with facts when you can dump it on the military with the blessings form the hill press core?
my first thought was that there’s another purpose to which those shocks could be put ;-)
But they’d probably like it...
They are A-list socialites in Washington these days.
I get the feeling this was orchestrated. It’s the only way it could happen.
This was a shot across the bow by the CIA or the dark shadowy group that runs our government.
LOL. Are we ready with the epithets?
Not a chance. Rogers is a Friend of Michelle.
She ain’t getting fired. The Underlings are getting Fired. Not Desiree.
Best,
Chris
Gee. How quaint!
Matter of fact, it seems that her mother, or grandmother, was the "Voodoo Queen" of New Orleans.
HAHAHAHA, just more of the CIC in action (clown in chief). He hasn’t done ONE THING CORRECTLY. He can’t even read his frigging teleprompter without mistakes. Let’s buzz the statue of liberty with AF1. Just for example. What a HUGE colossal mistake our country made. Carter looks like a scholar compared to obama.
They are frauds. So what is you definition of a dead beat???
I got my MBA from UW-Milwaukee, and I was in the executive program! LOL. I got more out of it than a Haarrvaarrdddd education.
It’s very stupid of whoever was in charge of security. This is the POTUS for Christ’s sake! Just seeing that couple getting that close to the President without checks makes me think: What if it was someone out to harm our President? like a terrorists? heads are gonna roll regarless of who what when
What a crappy looking dress Desiree is wearing: terribly unflattereing.
It makes her look as though rolls of flab are all over her belly!
Despite the implicit revulsion I feel about anyone connected to the kenyan’s administration, as far as I can tell, the secret service is completely at fault here. So no, no buses for the social director.
Throwing someone “under the bus” is a term usually used when someone says or does something negative to someone else to deflect deserved criticism from themselves. It’s a cheap, self-serving stunt. That’s different than firing someone who does something wrong. In other words, it’s never “cool” to “throw someone under the bus”, but it IS “cool” to fire someone who makes a major screw up. Unless this was done at Obama’s direction, he should fire her, but it wouldn’t qualify as throwing her “under the bus”, again, unless she was simply following his orders.
No, Obama will not get rid of this person.
Thanks for the post but now I have to go get something kind for my stomach. What a nauseating writeup. Voodoo priestess is in her heritage, and this is highlighted as a good thing? In all eight years of President Bush’s time in office, I don’t recall EVER reading anything remotely resembling such a bunch of flattering crapola about anyone in the Bush administration.
Yet the Bush White House carried out event after event after event with precision, with grace, with beauty, and without any security breaches or any protocol lapses (that I can recall). Yet never one mention in the LSM of “praise” for their professionalism and truly Presidential events.
Frankly, I’m surprised the Party crashers were even acknowledged by the White House at all....so am sure they will never hold their vodoo priestess (descendant) friend accountable.
(oh, and kudos for good reporting. Yours is the only one I’ve read in all the media that revealed this info related to the party crash).
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