A Washington couple who gate-crashed a state dinner at the White House in November will be featured in a new series of the Bravo cable channel's popular reality TV franchise "Real Housewives," The Daily Beast news website reported on Friday.
Michaele and Tareq Salahi caused an embarrassing security flap at the White House when they finessed their way into a state dinner for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh without a formal invitation and were photographed shaking hands with President Barack Obama.
The Virginia couple were auditioning for a part in "The Real Housewives of D.C." and had been followed by a camera crew earlier in the day.
The Daily Beast, citing sources close to the TV series, said Bravo has now decided to go ahead with the show premiering in July. Bravo could not immediately be reached for comment.
"The Real Housewives of D.C" would be the latest in the hit reality franchise which has profiled the lives of wealthy society women in New York, Atlanta, Orange County and New Jersey, turning many of them into minor celebrities.
Mayor Daley on Saturday stood up for resigning White House social secretary Desiree Rogers, who is stepping down next month.
Daley called Rogers a “great friend of mine,” who did a “tremendous job” in a position she didn’t have to take.
And he asserted she bore no blame for the Nov. 24 White House security breach that had many calling for her resignation since.
“There’s only one group responsible for the security for the White House and the Presidency... the Secret Service,” Daley said, speaking at the opening of a new health center on the West Side.
“Let’s stop blaming her for anybody walking in there because no one can stop anyone with the exception of the Secret Service.”
Rogers, a friend of President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama, became a focus of controversy after the Obamas’ first state dinner was crashed by a publicity-seeking couple, Tareq and Michaele Salahi. Though the Secret Service claimed blame in the incident, Rogers was criticized for not posting staffers at the East Wing entry.
On another topic, Daley said he supports the state legislature’s efforts to limit free public transit rides to low-income seniors, as opposed to all seniors. Though it overwhelmingly passed the state house, Gov. Pat Quinn said he doesn’t think it will pass the senate, and Quinn hasn’t said whether he would sign it if it did.
The program started in 2008 by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich is “nice,” but expensive, said Daley.
“It’s nice to do but how do people pay for it?” Daley asked. “In the long run, you just can’t do things like that. It’s really irresponsible.”
The RTA has said limiting free rides to low-income seniors, while having other seniors pay half fare, would bring an additional $37 million a year to CTA, Metra and Pace.
Daley and other officials were celebrating opening of the new Austin Family Health Center, a $5.4 million facility providing primary health care and dental services.
Developed by Oak Park-based PCC Community Wellness Center, land for the clinic was provided by the city for $1, and the building was partially funded by a federal capital grant. PCC has nine centers citywide offering services to anyone in a community regardless of ability to pay.
Embattled White House social secretary Desiree Rogers finally stepped down yesterday. Sandra McElwaine on why she was always the wrong person for the job—and how she might bounce back.
Don’t cry for Desiree even though she’s gotten the hook.
Let’s face it, she was never right for the job. Traditional White House social secretaries are behind the scenes, detail-oriented worker bees who toil from dawn to dusk polishing guest lists, overseeing menus, and delicately smoothing over last-minute catastrophes. The highly visible and glamorous former corporate executive could never play that role. With her trendy designer clothes and penchant for publicity she was determined to be star, and simply too high-profile and too in your face.
It didn’t take the gate-crashing episode at the Obamas first state dinner in November to predict the end this front-page career. She began the process herself by blitzing the media last April. In a revealing Wall Street Journal interview she crowed about a “strategic plan" to launch "the best brand on earth: the Obama brand."
"Our possibilities are endless," she enthused as she spoke of marketing the “crown jewel,” the White House. She then went on to discuss her job, which she described as a business. "Otherwise you never get there. You get caught in linen hell and flower hell, list hell.”
Wait a minute it — isn’t that what the job is supposed to be? Many former social secretaries were taken aback and grumbled discreetly among themselves. It didn’t take long for a number Washington insiders to realize she would soon be toast.
”A social secretary’s job is to help the first family put their own social mark on the White House, and it’s not about them, it’s about the family, about the first lady and the president. If it becomes about them, then there’s a problem," observes Nancy Reagan's former press secretary Sheila Tate. "There’s a difference between staff and principles. Sometimes people who have been important in their private career can’t make that adjustment."
"I don’t understand why she took the job, and I think she was quickly bored with it,” says a long-time acquaintance of Rogers'. “Arranging flowers and picking out tablecloths is definitely not her bag."
The same person also dismisses Rogers' claim that her goal was to turn the executive mansion into “the people's house.”
“Chic people are what she cares about,” she says. "They don’t have to be rich—just chic!”
After the security breach, for which the Secret Service took the rap, Desiree tried to play down her glitzy image, but a number of political players saw an opportunity, stepped in, and supervised every decision she made. Some say in December she was told to start pulling up stakes and planned to head back to Chicago, where her ex-husband, John Rogers, with whom she remains close, is an immensely wealthy and powerful hedge fund manager. (He had been trying for months to orchestrate his wife’s resurrection by talking to a variety media mavens around town.)
Before coming to Washington, Desiree was a high-powered executive and major player who raised funds for her close friends Michelle and Barack Obama and introduced them to the philanthropic and social scene. With theses illustrious connections she seemed invulnerable.
When the news of her resignation broke on Friday, many speculated that a cat fight between Desiree, presidential advisor Valerie Jarrett (who was still furious over the Indian State Dinner debacle) and Michelle Obama's chief of staff Susan Sher expedited her departure. The three women were friends and lived in the same Georgetown apartment building. Apparently they battled over East Wing turf. “I think this is a good time for me to explore opportunities in the corporate world," Rogers told the Chicago Sun-Times yesterday.
Jarrett’s response: “I completely respect her decision to return the private sector.”
According to Desiree she made her decision to move on in January but did not intend to announce it for some time. When it leaked, the Obamas issued a short statement thanking their long time friend for her service and wishing her “all the best in her future endeavors.
It’s hard to tell whose hand wielded the dagger in this particular caper. As a White House reporter reflected, "I think the real reason is that she wasn’t a good fit, not used to being an underling. In Chicago, Desiree was the queen bee – a CEO and social powerhouse – and the Obamas were just that nice young couple from the South Side.”
White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers told me Friday she will step down next month, after presiding over 330 events in the White House in 14 months.
Rogers is departing after achieving a major goal of President Obama and First Lady Michelle -- opening up the White House to make it the "peoples house."
"As we turn the corner on the first year," Rogers told me, "this is a good time for me to explore opportunities in the corporate world."
Rogers told me it has been "an honor and a privilege to serve this president and First Lady, in what has certainly been a historic presidency."
Rogers, a friend of the First Couple for years, was one of the first Obama administration appointees.
"When I took on this assignment, we talked about the importance of creating the people's house. My work was really to create this framework," she told me.
"I think I completed that work. Our office has been able to lay the foundation for what will be known as the 'people's house' and it has already taken shape."
Rogers tenure was marked by high points--she was a moving force behind a White House music series--and a low point, when the Obama's first state dinner was crashed by a publicity seeking couple, Tareq and Michaele Salahi. Though the Secret Service immediately said it was their fault--agents did not follow security protocols--Rogers got some of the blame.
I asked Rogers if the Salahi episode was a factor in her resignation. "The incident at the State Dinner was not a deciding factor," she told me. "But it did show me a side of the job and of Washington that I had not seen before."
After I spoke to Rogers, President Obama and First Lady Michelle said in a statement, "We are enormously grateful to Desiree Rogers for the terrific job she's done as the White House Social Secretary.
When she took this position, we asked Desiree to help make sure that the White House truly is the People's House, and she did that by welcoming scores of everyday Americans through its doors, from wounded warriors to local schoolchildren to NASCAR drivers. She organized hundreds of fun and creative events during her time here, and we will miss her. We thank her again for her service and wish her all the best in her future endeavors."
I've been told by several sources that Rogers will be replaced by Julianna Smoot, the chief of staff to the U.S. Trade Representative who was the Obama presidential campaign chief fund-raiser.
In what one member of Congress called "a charade," a couple that showed up at President Obama's first state dinner -- uninvited, the White House claims -- declined to answer questions surrounding the event before a House committee Wednesday.
Under questioning from House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Mississippi, and others, Tareq Salahi repeated over and over again, "On the advice of counsel, I respectfully assert my right to remain silent and decline to answer your question."
The Salahis' attorney notified the committee in December that because of a pending investigation by federal prosecutors, they would not answer questions about how they gained entry to the White House on November 24, despite not being on the guest list to attend that night's state dinner for the prime minister of India.
In a brief statement that opened the often-contentious hearing, Salahi chastised the committee for requiring the couple to appear despite having been told the two would invoke their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination if subpoenaed. That, he alleged, is against the ethical rules of the Washington bar.
He incensed some committee members by reiterating the couple's respect for U.S. troops, the Secret Service and the president.
"You have shown effrontery here," said Daniel Lungren, R-California. He called it "an abomination" that the Salahis would invoke the name of those in uniform "and suggest that somehow what you do provides support to them."
"The Constitution protects fools," Lungren said. "The Constitution protects stupidity. The Constitution protects errant thought. Thank God it does."
"This was not a hearing looking for information," the couple's attorney, Stephen Best, told reporters after the hearing. "This was an opportunity for a public flogging."
"I think today's procedure is a charade," Rep. Mark Souder, R-Indiana, said in the hearing, referring to the Salahis' refusal to answer questions.
Other committee members also lambasted the couple, alleging they put their own desire for celebrity before the security of the president and are wasting the committee's time and taxpayers' money.
"I don't respect your right to take the Fifth Amendment. Not at all," Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-New Jersey, told the couple.
"Were you there?" he asked Salahi, referring to the dinner.
When Salahi began, "On the advice ..." Pascrell interrupted him, asking, "Are you here right now? You gonna get an answer from your attorney on that?"
Pascrell noted the committee had offered to allow the couple to speak behind closed doors. After conferring with his attorney, Salahi said, "Yes, but you didn't offer us any legal protection."
Salahi's wife, Michaele, also invoked her Fifth Amendment right under questioning by committee members, but replied, "yes," when asked if she would return to testify after the investigation has concluded.
Asked by Thompson whether the state dinner appearance was part of a "reality TV stunt," Tareq Salahi said the couple was under a non-disclosure agreement and "should not discuss matters related to the television matter."
The Salahis contend they were told they could attend the program to honor India's prime minister, but the White House says they were not invited and were not on the guest list for the exclusive affair.
Best said after the hearing the couple received "representations that they relied upon" that they were invited guests. Two Secret Service investigators were privy to this information from a person who knows the Salahis, he said. "This was not a stunt, and they committed no criminal act."
There was no connection to any reality TV show, he said, and the Salahis were not seeking publicity. The couple has turned down multiple offers from the media to be "rewarded handsomely," he added.
"Whatever the real story is, it's on the other side of the gates of the White House, not with the Salahis," Best said. "They thought they were invited. ... If it was a misunderstanding, it was a misunderstanding caused by representatives of the government."
Tareq Salahi also noted in his opening statement that the couple's attorneys have offered to provide information to the committee, but that offer was declined by Thompson's staff.
"Those offers are not satisfactory," Thompson said. "These lawyers were not at the state dinner and have no firsthand knowledge of the facts."
Tareq Salahi also said the couple has provided phone records, e-mails and other documentary evidence to the committee.
There also was criticism of the White House in Wednesday's hearing.
Rep. Peter King, R-New York, said the White House "continues to stonewall" and will not allow social secretary Desiree Rogers to testify on the security breach.
Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs has said that allowing a White House staff member to testify before a congressional committee would violate the Constitution's separation of powers.
"I don't know what the White House is trying to hide," King said. "Obviously, something went wrong, and it originated with the White House, not the Secret Service."
Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan, in previous testimony before the committee, took responsibility for the security breach, acknowledging that "appropriate procedures were not followed."
Rep. Charles Dent, R-Pennsylvania, said Wednesday he thought it was "unfortunate" that Sullivan "had to take all that grief from us."
"I hold you responsible for it," he told the Salahis.
"Your actions ... made a mockery of this country, a mockery of our security," Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas, told the couple. "I'm saddened, and I'm disappointed, and I'm outraged."
Best reiterated afterward the Salahis do not want the events surrounding the dinner to detract from the "extraordinary institution" of the Secret Service.
"They are Americans," he said. "They are proud Americans."
APRIL RYAN: Was there a concern in this White House that she came out being, some might have called her the ‘belle of the ball,’ overshadowing the first lady at the…
ROBERT GIBBS: I don’t who some are. I’ve never heard that. Again…
RYAN: Well, it’s been bantered around Washington, and it’s been in Democratic circles as well as Republican circles, high-ranking people…
GIBBS: April, I, I, that’s not a station I live in in life.
RYAN: Just answer the question, please.
GIBBS: Are you done speaking so I can?
RYAN: Oh yes, I’m done.
GIBBS: I’ve not heard any of that criticism. I’ve not read any of that criticism. The president, the first lady, and the entire White House staff are grateful for the job that she does. And thinks she has done a terrific and wonderful job pulling off a lot of big and important events here at the White House.
RYAN: Did she invite herself to the state dinner or was she a guest? Did the president invite her or did she put her… No, that’s a real question. Do not fan it off. I’m serious.
GIBBS: I, I, Jonathan-
RYAN: No, no, no. Did she invite herself or did the president ask her? Her name was on that list, and social secretaries are the ones who put the names on the list…
GIBBS: Right. Was she at the dinner? April, April, calm down. Just take a deep breath for one second. Now see? This happens with my son. He does the same thing.
(Here there is an Audible reaction from other reporters as, Ryan mouths, “I’m older than your son.”)
RYAN: Don’t play with me. I’m being serious. Do not blow it off.
GIBBS: I’m not… And I’m giving you a serious answer. Was she at the dinner? Yes. She’s the social secretary.
RYAN: Social secretaries are not guests of the dinner.
GIBBS: She had the primary responsibility for running the dinner. I’m going to get back to weightier topics like 98,000 men and women in Afghanistan.
April Ryan, White House Correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks (AURN), is a 23-year journalism veteran who has worked in that capacity since January 1997. During her tenure as White House Correspondent, Ryan has conducted one-on-one interviews with President George W. Bush, First Lady Laura Bush, President Bill Clinton, Senator Hillary Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, Senator John Kerry, Senator Barack Obama and a host of other dignitaries. Ryan has been credited by a White House historian as having the most radio interviews with President Bill Clinton during his White House years.
In February of 2008, Ryan conducted an exclusive interview on Africa with President Bush in the White House Oval Office. Ryan also conducted a one-on-one with South African President Thabo Mbeki. She has traveled to Africa on numerous Presidential missions with President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and President George W. Bush. Ryan’s exclusive coverage of Presidential visits to Africa and first-hand viewpoints were utilized in a 10-part AURN series that centered on Clinton's historic six nations African tour and was broadcast in June 1998. An exclusive interview with then First Lady Hillary Clinton followed and excerpts from the interview were not only broadcast in the news on AURN's SBN and AUN networks, but was also featured on the CBS evening news, among other national television and radio broadcasts.
Ryan traveled aboard Air Force One and interviewed President and Mrs. Bush while flying to the Gulf Coast for the Hurricane Katrina one year anniversary. In 2006, Ryan traveled with the First Lady to Mississippi where Mrs. Bush met with New Orleans Hurricane Katrina survivors. In September 2005, Ryan flew to Haiti with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and reported on America’s support for democratic elections and while there – due to the volatile political climate – was under the protection of the United Nations Blue Helmet Security forces. .
In addition to her White House coverage, Ryan also hosts “The White House Report,” a daily feature broadcast over hundreds of AURN affiliated stations nationwide. The Baltimore native has also utilized her journalistic prowess beyond the steps of Capitol Hill and has traveled to China and Switzerland for newsworthy events. In September 2005, Ryan’s breaking news coverage with First Lady Laura Bush was also highlighted on NBC’s Today show. Additionally, many of Ryan’s breaking news stories and interviews have also been spotlighted on ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and FOX as well as in some of the nation’s top newspapers.
Ryan is an esteemed member of the National Press Club and serves on the newsmakers committee. She has also garnered numerous professional accolades to include receiving an American Swiss Foundation Young Leader Award in 2004 and being named one of the Outstanding Young Women in America in 1997.
Ryan began her radio career in Baltimore, MD where she worked for several radio stations including WXYV-FM where she served as news director. She is a graduate of Morgan State University and resides in Maryland with her husband and two daughters.
In what one member of Congress called "a charade," a couple that showed up at President Obama's first state dinner -- uninvited, the White House claims -- declined to answer questions surrounding the event before a House committee Wednesday.
Under questioning from House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Mississippi, and others, Tareq Salahi repeated over and over again, "On the advice of counsel, I respectfully assert my right to remain silent and decline to answer your question."
The Salahis' attorney notified the committee in December that because of a pending investigation by federal prosecutors, they would not answer questions about how they gained entry to the White House on November 24, despite not being on the guest list to attend that night's state dinner for the prime minister of India.
In a brief statement that opened the often-contentious hearing, Salahi chastised the committee for requiring the couple to appear despite having been told the two would invoke their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination if subpoenaed. That, he alleged, is against the ethical rules of the Washington bar.
He incensed some committee members by reiterating the couple's respect for U.S. troops, the Secret Service and the president.
"You have shown effrontery here," said Daniel Lungren, R-California. He called it "an abomination" that the Salahis would invoke the name of those in uniform "and suggest that somehow what you do provides support to them."
"The Constitution protects fools," Lungren said. "The Constitution protects stupidity. The Constitution protects errant thought. Thank God it does."
"This was not a hearing looking for information," the couple's attorney, Stephen Best, told reporters after the hearing. "This was an opportunity for a public flogging."
"I think today's procedure is a charade," Rep. Mark Souder, R-Indiana, said in the hearing, referring to the Salahis' refusal to answer questions.
Other committee members also lambasted the couple, alleging they put their own desire for celebrity before the security of the president and are wasting the committee's time and taxpayers' money.
"I don't respect your right to take the Fifth Amendment. Not at all," Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-New Jersey, told the couple.
"Were you there?" he asked Salahi, referring to the dinner.
When Salahi began, "On the advice ..." Pascrell interrupted him, asking, "Are you here right now? You gonna get an answer from your attorney on that?"
Pascrell noted the committee had offered to allow the couple to speak behind closed doors. After conferring with his attorney, Salahi said, "Yes, but you didn't offer us any legal protection."
Salahi's wife, Michaele, also invoked her Fifth Amendment right under questioning by committee members, but replied, "yes," when asked if she would return to testify after the investigation has concluded.
Asked by Thompson whether the state dinner appearance was part of a "reality TV stunt," Tareq Salahi said the couple was under a non-disclosure agreement and "should not discuss matters related to the television matter."
The Salahis contend they were told they could attend the program to honor India's prime minister, but the White House says they were not invited and were not on the guest list for the exclusive affair.
Best said after the hearing the couple received "representations that they relied upon" that they were invited guests. Two Secret Service investigators were privy to this information from a person who knows the Salahis, he said. "This was not a stunt, and they committed no criminal act."
There was no connection to any reality TV show, he said, and the Salahis were not seeking publicity. The couple has turned down multiple offers from the media to be "rewarded handsomely," he added.
"Whatever the real story is, it's on the other side of the gates of the White House, not with the Salahis," Best said. "They thought they were invited. ... If it was a misunderstanding, it was a misunderstanding caused by representatives of the government."
Tareq Salahi also noted in his opening statement that the couple's attorneys have offered to provide information to the committee, but that offer was declined by Thompson's staff.
"Those offers are not satisfactory," Thompson said. "These lawyers were not at the state dinner and have no firsthand knowledge of the facts."
Tareq Salahi also said the couple has provided phone records, e-mails and other documentary evidence to the committee.
There also was criticism of the White House in Wednesday's hearing.
Rep. Peter King, R-New York, said the White House "continues to stonewall" and will not allow social secretary Desiree Rogers to testify on the security breach.
Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs has said that allowing a White House staff member to testify before a congressional committee would violate the Constitution's separation of powers.
"I don't know what the White House is trying to hide," King said. "Obviously, something went wrong, and it originated with the White House, not the Secret Service."
Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan, in previous testimony before the committee, took responsibility for the security breach, acknowledging that "appropriate procedures were not followed."
Rep. Charles Dent, R-Pennsylvania, said Wednesday he thought it was "unfortunate" that Sullivan "had to take all that grief from us."
"I hold you responsible for it," he told the Salahis.
"Your actions ... made a mockery of this country, a mockery of our security," Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas, told the couple. "I'm saddened, and I'm disappointed, and I'm outraged."
Best reiterated afterward the Salahis do not want the events surrounding the dinner to detract from the "extraordinary institution" of the Secret Service.
"They are Americans," he said. "They are proud Americans."
A grand jury is investigating whether the alleged state dinner crashers lied to a government official, and a celebrity stylist has been asked to appear.
A source close to Erwin Gomez said the celebrity stylist has been subpoenaed. Peggy Ioakim, the hair artist who did Michaele Salahi's hair at Gomez's salon before the state dinner at the White House, also has been subpoenaed.
It all started on Nov. 24 when Michaele Salahi and her husband, Tareq, a couple of wannabe "Real Housewives of D.C." cast members from northern Virginia went to President Barack Obama's state dinner with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India. Despite not being on the guest list, the couple got in.
After they posted pics from the event on their Facebook page, concerns about homeland security were raised and investigations were launched and the Salahis have been stars of actual TV rather than reality TV ever since.
In the aftermath, three Secret Service officers have been placed on administrative leave, the Salahis invoked the Fifth Amendment in refusing to testify before the House Homeland Security Committee, Obama has insisted such a "screw-up" won't happen again and the White House closed the case by requesting the Homeland Security Committee cease and desist investigating.
First, White House aides downplay the notion that something may have gone wrong on their part. While staying out of the spotlight, the president conveys his efforts to address the situation and his feelings about it through administration officials. After a few days, the White House concedes on the issue, and perhaps Obama even steps out to address it.
That same scenario unfolded over the summer when Obama said Sgt. James Crowley, a white Cambridge, Mass., police officer, “acted stupidly” when he arrested Henry Louis Gates Jr., a black Harvard professor, in his own home. It happened in March when the public was outraged over AIG dishing out hefty bonuses. More recently the public witnessed the dynamic after a security breach at President Barack Obama’s first state dinner.
But the fact that the issue now is a terrorist incident - albeit an unsuccessful one - makes the stakes much higher, and the White House’s usual approach more questionable. That this test of his leadership comes while he’s on vacation in tropical Hawaii further complicates things.
After delivering his first public remarks Monday about a Nigerian man’s attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines jetliner over Detroit, the president motorcaded over to the golf course at a nearby country club. Optics aside, it had taken Obama three days to issue a statement on the incident, and the administration was left struggling to get control of the message.
By the time Obama addressed the public with a brief televised statement, his critics had made such headway that the White House was left with this lede in the New York Times: “President Obama emerged from Hawaiian seclusion on Monday to try to quell gathering criticism of his administration’s handling of the thwarted Christmas Day bombing of an American airliner as a branch of Al Qaeda claimed responsibility.”
It’s the kind of story the White House might have avoided if Obama hadn’t waited so long to forcefully react to the incident.
Critics on the right have predictably seized on his response as a sign of weak leadership. After Obama spoke Monday, Benjamin Friedman, a research fellow for defense and homeland security at the Cato Institute, said his remarks did not do a great job of calming the public.
“He didn’t try that hard,” Friedman said. “He just made that comment that we ought to be confident, but he didn’t really go into much detail about why we ought to be confident.”
But Obama’s aides say that a measured approach is Obama’s style. The president has said as much himself. When asked at a news conference in March why it took him days to respond to the AIG bonuses, Obama snapped: “It took us a couple of days because I like to know what I’m talking about before I speak – alright?”
Over the past few days that reticence created a vacuum his critics were only to happy to fill. As Obama let thing play out, Republicans slammed him for not addressing Americans about the situation and Congress called for hearings on the matter.
The White House released updates on how he was monitoring the situation, as well as background guidance to reporters to help shape the narrative. Obama’s chief spokesman, Robert Gibbs, was already scheduled to be on Sunday news shows, and National Security Council chief of staff Denis McDonough said it was Obama’s idea to also dispatch his Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to explain what was going on.
But Napolitano and Gibbs seemed to both be carrying a message that the White House quickly backed off of Monday morning - that “the system worked.”
Gibbs said on CBS’s Face the Nation that “in many ways, this system has worked.” Napolitano also said “the system worked.” But by Monday morning she was on NBC’s Today show explaining that her words had been taken out of context and that she was referring to what happened after the incident occurred. “Our system did not work in this instance,” she explained clearly.
The comments of Gibbs and Napolitano – whether planned or unplanned – did not come off as being slips of the tongue, such as when Vice President Joe Biden advised Americans against traveling on airlines after the swine flu outbreak, and Gibbs later cleaned up the message by explaining what Biden meant to say.
The decision for Obama to leave the talking to his aides in the aftermath of the attempted terrorist attack was not “standard operating procedure,” McDonough said after Obama’s statement Monday.
“We thought it made sense for him to handle it in that way and then we thought today was a good opportunity for the president to go out there,” McDonough said. “We don’t really have a standard operating procedure for when is best to go out.”
The White House pushed back against criticism that the president was not properly engaged.
McDonough told reporters that Obama is getting at least half a dozen briefings a day – a morning briefing with administration officials about the Northwest Airlines incident and five paper briefings, two from the National Counter Terrorism Center and three from the Situation Room.
“The President has been very engaged on this, has been leading our response effort, asking agencies to take a variety of steps including all the steps he outlined today,” McDonough said. “He recognizes that it’s very important that we communicate to the American people what we know and the steps that we’re taking.”
Without naming names, the White House also put blame at the feet of the departed Bush administration even as Obama’s speech-to-golf-course moment Monday conjured up memories of President George W. Bush on a golf course angrily decrying recent suicide bombings in Israel, and capping off his remarks with, "Thank you. Now watch this drive."
“Obviously the procedures and the protocols employed in this instance are ones that we’ve inherited that had been built over the course of several years since 2003,” McDonough said. His comments echoed Obama, who pointed out that the review he ordered of the government’s terrorist watch-list procedures is of a system that “our government has had in place for many years.”
“In general, I think that the president’s inclinations as a leader work fairly well for this issue — no-drama Obama,” Friedman said. “In some ways Al Qaeda is trying to be relevant and trying to be politically relevant, and in some sense they achieved that. He’s denying them that relevance by acting like it’s not the number-one thing on his agenda. We credit them with more power and credibility than they have.”
Obama heading to the golf course, Friedman said, “signals that it’s not a crisis, and he’s the president and he has a lot of things to do and this is just one of them.”
There are times when the Obama White House has responded swiftly. When Somali Pirates captured and American captain, the president appeared engaged from the start. After the Air Force One flyover that brought back memories of 9/11 throughout Manhattan, the White House quickly apologized and Obama’s aides informed reporters that he was furious when he learned about it.
But other times the administration seems to have a tin ear.
The White House refused to accept any responsibility for the security breach at last month's state dinner – allowing the Secret Service to accept complete fault – even after it became clear that Obama’s social secretary Desiree Rogers had nixed a practice to have an East Wing staffer with Secret Service verifying names off of a guest list. Only after mounting pressure did the White House quietly order an internal review and reinstate that procedure.
And for days, as controversy over Obama’s “acted stupidly” remark about the Cambridge police officer continued to swirl, the White House downplayed its significance. Indeed on the Friday after he uttered it, Gibbs still defended Obama’s remark and told reporters in his office that they had heard the last from the president on the issue. But a few hours later, Obama interrupted Gibbs during his daily briefing and stepped to his podium to apologize for his remarks and offer up the now famous “beer summit.”
Obama will continue to monitor the aftermath of the Northwest incident with close advisers and top aides. But Americans probably won’t see more of Obama at a podium speaking about the issue again this week as he continues to balance his family vacation with his duties as commander-in-chief.
McDonough left reportrers with the impression that if the public sees Obama again in Hawaii he’ll likely be heading to the golf course or the beach. “We haven’t really talked through when he’ll go out, but you guys – I’m sure you’ll see him,” McDonough said half-jokingly.
As 50,000 people attend 28 White House Christmas parties, glamorous social secretary Desiree Rogers is on the sidelines. Sandra McElwaine on the new security policies—and how her ex-husband is trying to help.
Desiree Rogers will no longer be swanning about at White House parties. Au contraire. Ever since the glamorous social secretary was hobnobbing with celebrities, oblivious to two reality-TV wannabes who were crashing the Obamas’ first State Dinner in November she has been given a timeout.
Even though her Louboutin stilettos still click down the historic hallways of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, there have been no more appearances in designer gowns or pronouncements about pushing the unique Obama brand. Instead, the sophisticated Harvard MBA seems to be adapting to a more formal protocol and attempting to play a more traditional behind-the-scenes role as she oversees the care and feeding of more than 50,000 guests at 28 different holiday receptions.
Being on the sidelines is not a familiar place for the 50-year-old Rogers. The descendant of a Louisiana voodoo priestess, she has always been a star with a penchant for publicity.
Once married to a powerful hedge-fund manager, John Rogers—they remain close friends (“John is very shy, Desiree is always out front,” says a friend)—Desiree Rogers was a leading member of Chicago's business and philanthropic world. It was Rogers who introduced the Obamas to the social elite, not the other way around. (She also helped raise $200,000 for his Presidential campaign.)
“She’s a big deal in politics and the community and so well connected Obama can’t fire her,” says a well-placed Chicagoan. “I’m surprised she took this job. I didn’t know she wanted to work this hard.”
Until Desiree Rogers, White House social secretaries were considered worker bees who stayed in the shadows compiling lists, organizing events and seating charts, and averting last-minute disasters, but the high-flying business executive had no intention of playing an inconspicuous or subservient role.
From the moment she arrived, she quickly broke the mold by flaunting her upscale lifestyle and interests, sometimes outshining her boss, posing for Vogue and other glossies, and announcing a totally new agenda for the social office. “You have to think about [The Social Secretary Job], in my mind, almost like a business,” she told The Wall Street Journal in April. “Otherwise, you never get there. You get caught in linen hell and flower hell, list hell.”
Her outspokenness did not endear Rogers to the elite clique of former social secretaries. Many inside the Beltway felt she was too wedded to the Obamas’ inner circle, known as the Chicago Mafia, and much like others in new administrations, she seemed reluctant to leave her cocoon in order to learn the ways of the capital.
“They realized she never had a clue how to plan a State Dinner,” says one Washington socialite. “This is such a different environment from Chicago. You simply can’t do what you did there.”
According to one recent party goer, a visibly chastened Rogers has now had to tone down her glitzy image: “She’s out there looking like a working stiff, a fashionable one, but not dolled up like before.”
Since the Salahis incident at the State Dinner—when the Secret Service assumed responsibility for the security breach while Rogers stayed silent—there are new regulations and protocols in place at the White House.
All guests must now run a lengthy official gauntlet before entering the Presidential mansion. For starters, there are two checkpoints manned by a representative of the administration and a Secret Service officer. Next, attendees will now be asked to provide a photo ID at two other checkpoints, while aides swirl around to deter any unexpected visitors.
Finally, at the East Colonnade, guests are now greeted by Rogers, sporting a chic black suit, a standard White House identification badge around her neck, a clipboard in hand. ”Welcome to the White House on behalf of the Obamas,” she says with a dazzling smile.
Despite the new policies, there was already a kerfuffle over invitations to two of the White House press parties last week. Apparently, the invitations went out late and the White House did not issue them by name.
Rather, they sent a batch to the manager of each bureau, who doled them out to whomever they wanted. As such, a number of reporters who cover the White House for leading newspapers and other news organizations were never included. This latest misstep was blamed on press secretary Robert Gibbs, but many in Washington blame Rogers.
Another recent flap involved the White House receiving line. The Obamas decided not to shake hands and pose for pictures with every guest at every party, as their predecessors had done. Being denied a prized photo op has created considerable angst among a number of invitees—including Dee Dee Myers, President Clinton’s former press secretary, who observed: “I totally understand that doing a receiving line is exhausting, yet people have come to expect it. It means a lot to them.”
Rumors abound about plans to resurrect Rogers' reputation. Will she stay on for a grace period and then be reassigned as ambassador to some neutral country like Switzerland or Luxembourg? "Once you put yourself out there the way she has, it’s hard to come back in,” observes a friend.
Even her ex-husband has been talking to an eclectic mix of journalists about the best way to revive her fortunes. One concept under consideration: orchestrating a humorous mea culpa as Nancy Reagan did at one of the annual Gridiron Dinners.
Known for her extravagant taste and fancy outfits, the former first lady donned oversize rubber boots and a seriously frumpy dress and waltzed out on the stage singing “Second Hand Clothes” to the tune of “Second Hand Rose.” Her performance brought down the house and all was forgiven.
Might this ploy this work for the troubled social secretary? After all, Washington is a city of redemption.
Speech writer and humorist Landon Parvin, who wrote those lyrics for Nancy Reagan, doubts that frivolity will solve her problem. “She can’t get out of it with a one-liner," he says. “What she needs to redeem herself is not humor but the truth. She should admit her mistake and tell us exactly what happened. The sooner the better.”
President Obama was seriously irked about the celebrity-hound couple who crashed the White House last month, and promises the "screwup" won't happen again.
"What I know is what everybody knows," Obama said in a "60 Minutes" interview aired Sunday night. "These people should not have gotten through the gate."
Tareq and Michaele Salahi breached security and strolled into a Nov. 24 state dinner for the Indian prime minister.
The Secret Service took the rap and the White House circled the wagons around social secretary Desiree Rogers, a longtime member of the Obamas' Chicago circle of friends.
Traditionally, a member of the social office is stationed at all security checkpoints to assist the Secret Service, but that didn't happen at the first state dinner of the Obama administration.
"I was unhappy with everybody who was involved in the process," Obama said. "It was a screwup."
Asked if he was angry when he found out about the security gaffe, Obama said, "Yes. That's why it won't happen again."
Tareq And Michaele Salahi are still refusing to testify about their gate-crashing exploits -- so House Homeland Security Committee is preparing to issue subpoenas on Wednesday to compel their appearance, according to Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.).
The committee's ranking member, New York Republican Pete King, is also planning to push for a subpoena of Obama social secretary Desiree Rogers -- despite the opposition of the White House and most Dems on the committee.
"Clearly, hearing from the Secret Service is only half the story," King says, "We need to hear from the White House too."
A call to the Salahi's attorney, Leslie Maria, wasn't immediately returned.
Long before a pair of gate-crashers penetrated a White House state dinner, the Secret Service had detailed for its internal use a lengthy list of security breaches dating to the Carter administration -- including significant failures in the agency's protection of the president.
A summary of a secret 2003 report obtained by The Washington Post, along with descriptions of more recent incidents by federal homeland security officials, places Tareq and Michaele Salahi squarely in a rogues' gallery of autograph hounds, publicity seekers, unstable personalities and others identified by the Secret Service as defeating its checkpoints at least 91 times since 1980.
The document, the most complete accounting of recent Secret Service security breakdowns, includes officers mistakenly admitting to the White House grounds a family in a minivan, a man believed to be a delivery driver, and a woman previously known to agents after she had falsely claimed a "special relationship" with Bill Clinton.
The only assailant to injure a president in the past three decades was John W. Hinckley Jr., who shot and wounded Ronald Reagan in 1981 from outside the security perimeter established by the Secret Service.
Nevertheless, the list of security breaches exposes significant gaps that could be exploited by would-be assassins, the document states, and erode "one of the best tools for deterring future attempts" -- the aura of invulnerability around the White House.
A Secret Service official confirmed the authenticity of the unclassified document, which was a 39-slide presentation, and said it had been used to train agents and officers in an effort to improve agency operations. "This document reflects a proactive attempt to evaluate our security and obviously raises the awareness of uniformed division officers and agents about their jobs," spokesman Edwin Donovan said. "We have to be concerned about the threats to our protectees at all times, whether at the White House or away from the White House."
Donovan noted that in 2008 alone, the agency successfully protected 34 top U.S. leaders and 222 U.N. General Assembly dignitaries, as well as some of the officials' spouses and relatives, at thousands of locations in the United States and abroad.
The agency is entering what it calls a sustained period of elevated "international, domestic and individual" threats, protecting Barack Obama, the country's first African American president, and its two most recent wartime leaders, former president George W. Bush and former vice president Richard B. Cheney.
After the appearance at last month's state dinner by the Salahis, the Secret Service has launched a criminal investigation into the couple and a sweeping internal review of security procedures. Offering a rare public apology for the incident, the agency's director, Mark Sullivan, characterized it as a "pure and simple . . . case of human error" in which three uniformed officers let the well-dressed Salahis pass through gates on a rainy night without confirming their names on a guest list.
A disturbing picture
The historical list of perimeter breaches indicates that intruders have reached the president or another person under Secret Service protection eight times since 1980, including the Salihis. Four of the incidents involved the same man.
The summary paints a disturbing picture of how difficult it is to stop determined intruders -- often mentally ill -- even as it notes that violent or commando-style raids have not occurred, and that terrorists or organized adversaries are unlikely to risk a head-on attack.
Then-Director Brian Stafford commissioned the review in 2001 after the service was humiliated for a third time by the most notorious presidential gate-crasher, Richard C. Weaver, who evaded inauguration security to shake George W. Bush's hand. Weaver, a California minister, had previously infiltrated a 1991 prayer breakfast attended by then-President George H.W. Bush, and Clinton's 1997 inaugural luncheon. He approached the younger Bush again at a prayer breakfast in 2003 before being arrested.
"I believe God makes me invisible to the security, undetectable," Weaver told reporters. The Secret Service concluded that Weaver succeeded by manipulating others to obtain tickets, telling guards he was lost or looking for a restroom, and generally "appearing as [if] you are supposed to be there," as the Salahis apparently did.
Tightened White House security measures -- after the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building bombing, and the Sept. 11, 2001 , terrorist attacks -- have reduced the number of intruders able to break through Secret Service protective lines, an agency official said.
But recent presidents have continued to face dangers, particularly overseas. In May 2005, a man outside the presidential security zone threw a live grenade within 100 feet of George W. Bush in Tbilisi, Georgia, but it failed to detonate because it was wrapped too tightly in a handkerchief. In July 2003, a stowaway traveled with the White House press corps without credentials for two days from South Africa to Uganda, causing Air Force One to be searched when the subject claimed on arrest that he had brought weapons.
In 1994, a pilot was killed when he crashed a small plane on the White House grounds, and another man was subdued as he fired 29 rounds from a semiautomatic rifle toward the executive mansion from outside the Pennsylvania Avenue fence.
Less-serious threats
The Salahi case underscores that less-serious, lesser-known violations also persist. In an October 1982 case dubbed "The Family Outing," James Douglas Imes, 38, his wife and two sons drove to the White House in a minivan, honked their horn and were let on to the grounds. Officers were confused because another gate was broken, then assumed the family was authorized until they neared the Oval Office entrance.
Christian K. Hughes, 37 -- nicknamed "The Paper Boy" -- drove through an open White House gate in January 1987 because an officer assumed he was a deliveryman. At the North Porch, Hughes gave a second unsuspecting officer a pair of handcuffs, asked to see the chief of staff, then drove past additional posts before he was stopped.
In November 1994, celebrity-chaser Stephan O. Winick, 29, joined actor Harrison Ford's entourage in an elevator as the group was escorted through metal detectors to meet Clinton at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles.
The report notes that one-third of the intruders had cased their targets beforehand, more than four in 10 were previously known to federal agencies, eight had announced their intent, and three were subjects of Secret Service lookouts.
A notorious example of the latter was Mary D'Aiuto, 27, who was known to agents as someone who believed she had a relationship with Clinton and repeatedly had tried to contact him. Nevertheless, she was able to get on the White House lawn during the 1998 Easter Egg Roll and was photographed repeatedly.
The report also mentions a success by the agency in preventing an intrusion. In 2002, the Secret Service repeatedly interviewed and put under 24-hour surveillance Dion Rich, self-avowed "world's greatest gate-crasher," after he said he had sneaked into the first post-9/11 Super Bowl and bragged he would attend the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, where the Secret Service was in charge of security.
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