The Lady Who Wasn't There: Secret Service Takes Bullet For White House Social Secretary
*period*
Friday, December 4th 2009
Let it never be said the top man at the Secret Service will not do his
utmost to protect the President and the President's aides down to the
presidential good friend and social secretary whose laxity helped
those reality show wanna-bes crash the White House.
Director Mark Sullivan dutifully appeared before the House Homeland
Security Committee yesterday with word that three of his uniformed
personnel have been placed on administrative leave for allowing Tareq
and Michaele Salahi into a state dinner for the Indian prime minister.
Sullivan reported that the trio discovered the crashers were not on
the official guest list yet passed them through without contacting a
Secret Service supervisor or someone from the social secretary's
office as to whether there might have been a screwup on the list.
Moving on from Sullivan's admission, the congresspeople, including
Long Island Rep. Pete King, questioned him regarding the fact that the
social secretary had not assigned anyone to stand at the gate to deal
with snafus on the approved list.
How had that happened, Sullivan was asked.
There was a meeting, he responded, at which it was decided that Social
Secretary Desiree Rogers' staff would have a "roving" list checker.
But who made that call?
It happened at the meeting.
Perhaps Rogers would be the right person to ask. Oops. The White
House, citing high-falutin' mumbo-jumbo about separation of powers,
declined to permit Rogers to testify.
It wouldn't do to have this dear friend of Barack and Michele Obama,
who had hostessed a table at the fab dinner, subjected to impolite
questions. Like: You pushed aside the woman who used to stand at the
gate with a clipboard - please explain.
The pleasure of Rogers' company having been denied, Sullivan pointed
out that procedures have been tightened. Henceforth, someone from the
White House staff will join the Secret Service in screening guests.
Good man, that Sullivan. As Republican Rep. Charlie Dent of
Pennsylvania put it: "We always expect the Secret Service to take a
bullet for the President; we don't expect the Secret Service to take a
bullet for the President's staff."
*period*
<joeco...@live.com> wrote:
>On Dec 4, 6:42�am, *period* wrote:
>> The New York Daily News Editorial
>> Friday, December 4th 2009
>>
>> Let it never be said the top man at the Secret Service will not do his
>> utmost to protect the President and the President's aides down to the
>> presidential good friend and social secretary whose laxity helped
>> those reality show wanna-bes crash the White House.
>>
>> Director Mark Sullivan dutifully appeared before the House Homeland
>> Security Committee yesterday with word that three of his uniformed
>> personnel have been placed on administrative leave for allowing Tareq
>> and Michaele Salahi into a state dinner for the Indian prime minister.
>>
>> Sullivan reported that the trio discovered the crashers were not on
>> the official guest list yet passed them through without contacting a
>> Secret Service supervisor or someone from the social secretary's
>> office as to whether there might have been a screwup on the list.
>>
>> Moving on from Sullivan's admission, the congresspeople, including
>> Long Island Rep. Pete King, questioned him regarding the fact that the
>> social secretary had not assigned anyone to stand at the gate to deal
>> with snafus on the approved list.
>>
>> How had that happened, Sullivan was asked.
>>
>> There was a meeting, he responded, at which it was decided that Social
>> Secretary Desiree Rogers' staff would have a "roving" list checker.
>>
>> But who made that call?
>
>dropped the ball and did not call on this roving list checker when
>they should have.
Will the Obamas Dump Desiree Rogers?
Did the Secret Service blow it when they let uninvited Tareq and
Michaele Salahi into a state dinner or did the White House's social
secretary, Desiree Rogers, leave them undermanned? At a hearing by the
House Homeland Security Committee on Thursday, lawmakers grilled
Secret Service director Mark Sullivan, who told them he believed the
breach was an isolated incident "due just to poor judgement" by the
agents in question. After Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D- D.C.)
suggested the Secret Service might have been understaffed given
reports of increased threats against President Obama, Sullivan said
that the president was in fact receiving a similar number of threats
as former presidents Clinton and Bush. The White House declined to
make Rogers available for the hearing despite criticism that she may
have contributed to the breach by failing to post staffers with the
Secret Service to go over guest lists while people entered. Committee
chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) said he would seek subpoenas for the
Salahis, who were invited to the hearing and did not show, but not for
Rogers, who he said was "not a central figure in this security
matter." Rogers, a longtime close friend of the Obamas, previously
worked as head of the Illinois Lottery and Peoples Gas, a utility
company, before joining the White House.
ArmyOfDorkness
"*period*" wrote in message
news:j8shh5d15r43ig8cv...@4ax.com...
> The New York Daily News Editorial
> Friday, December 4th 2009
>
> Let it never be said the top man at the Secret Service will not do his
> utmost to protect the President and the President's aides down to the
> presidential good friend and social secretary whose laxity helped
> those reality show wanna-bes crash the White House.
>
> Director Mark Sullivan dutifully appeared before the House Homeland
> Security Committee yesterday with word that three of his uniformed
> personnel have been placed on administrative leave for allowing Tareq
> and Michaele Salahi into a state dinner for the Indian prime minister.
They needed her to tell them that the couple wasn't on the list? Bullshit