That a Virginia couple, Michaele and Tareq Salahi, aspiring reality television stars, were able to sneak into the White House and attend the state dinner for the Prime Minister of India Tuesday night might be clever, audacious, or at least amusing under different circumstances. But in the real, real world, not the one of reality television but the one in which Barack Obama received Secret Service protection in May 2007, earlier than any other presidential candidate in history, the same world in which he receives more death threats than any other president, there’s nothing funny about the total failure of security Tuesday night. The winners in this debacle are the Salahi’s, who along with the ongoing 15 minutes of fame had their picture taken with Vice President Joe Biden, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, assorted Marine guards, and others, and have likely quadrupled their chances of being selected to participant on Bravo’s upcoming “Real Housewives” franchise that includes Orange County, Atlanta, New York and New Jersey.
My favorite explanation for the failure to figure out these crashers weren’t invited guests? That they “looked like” they belonged there. Yeah, well so did John Wilkes Booth, Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City in April, 1995, the 19 who hijacked four planes on September 11, Major Nidal Hasan, on and on and on. Golly gosh, there’s that ability to disguise and blend in that makes those who would do us harm so pesky! Most of us learned that in Infiltration 101, and we’re not being paid fat salaries to protect the President.
You gotta wonder who’s minding the door, and what exactly the millions – I mean billions – spent on protecting the President, the First Family, and our country in general are being spent on? It’s not just a couple bogarting their way into a State dinner. Two pilots fly off course for 150 miles and no one does anything? Slipping prohibited, dangerous items past airport security has become a sure way to increase ratings during sweeps. Now the Secret Service is investigating itself, not exactly reassuring news. Does anyone feel safer now than they did September 10, 2001?
Jill Nelson 11/27/09 - The blog with the musical notes!
Shaking my head… =[
I don’t understand why there isn’t an uproar. It was not safe and no one should be able to get in the white house without security clearance(in depth background checks) Also I’m not sure why the social committee takes pride in saying no one was at the door.: Hello! Why werent’ they at the door to validate the guest list???
I also feel the prime minister and his wife may be feeling bad since the emphasis in the media is only on the president and his wife; what about the Prime Minister. This has not happened before; and it is embarrassing, and leaves me wondering if our security is guaranteed. If you can’t keep a couple out of the white house it really makes you wonder what else awaits us? what a publicity stunt for this couple and the Reality TV show. I for one will not be patronizing this show!
As always, I love your post Ms. Nelson and I agree with Sandy- this should be an uproar. I don’t understand why they haven’t been arrested for trespassing? Seriously?!? It’s the freaking White House. They could have done anything. Supposed they were aiming not at harming the President, but harming his guests? There would have been catastrophic international issues caused by this.
The crazy thing is that my family and I did the White House tour on Nov. 19th and beforehand you have to give your personal info, of course, but when we got there, the checkpoint stuff was not that detailed. I even said it then…once they saw our group, they hardly looked at everyone’s ID, then the metal detector part was easy too. I went through it and set it off with my jewelry, so I put my arms out like at the airport. They wanded me, but told me to put my arms down…I was like”eh?”…i’ve had to take my socks off and get my bare feet wanded at some airports…i expected it to be at least that crazy at the White House, but it wasn’t….but I hope it will be after this foolishness. I still can’t believe it was that easy for them.