Michaele Salahi / Facebook
President Obama's first official state dinner for Indian Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh took an unexpected turn when Michaele and Tareq Salahi
showed up. The Salahis snapped photos with Vice President Joe Biden, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and others, which they later
posted to Facebook.
The only problem: The Salahis weren't invited. Subsequent revelations
about the suddenly-high-profile party crashers include: White House
security should not have let them pass; they are
established DC
socialites; and they are leading candidates for Bravo's forthcoming "Real Housewives of Washington DC," for which they were
filmed that day. What does this mean for the Salahis and for the Secret Service tasked with protecting the President?
- Dangerous Precedent Representative Peter King, a New York Republican and ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, plans for a Congressional investigation.
"Obviously, somebody dropped the ball. I
mean, you’re talking about the president of the United States and the
vice president and a powerful world leader, the prime minister of
India," he told the New York Times. "The fact they went through the
magnometer is incidental. They could have had anthrax on them. They
could have grabbed a knife
from the dining room table."
- 'Awesome and Sad' Gawker's Adrian Chen tells the Salahis,
"You inspire and sadden us in almost equal measure." Chen writes, "It
is pretty ridiculous (and scary) that on this night—Obama's special
night!—these two fameballs showed up and successfully used an important
geopolitical event as a launching pad for their now inevitable reality
show/string of late-night television interviews. But also kind of
awesome. Go (to Hell) Salahis!"
- Weak White House 'Security' Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds writes, "This isn’t a huge shock to me, though. I visited the White House back
in the '90s and they took my Tennessee driver's license as ID. Back
then, when it expired, you got a renewal sticker that went on the back.
The security guy looked at the front of my license, which showed an
expiration date a year in the past, but never looked at the back. Not
long after I noticed that when I bought beer at a Weigel’s convenience
store, the guy immediately looked at the back...One hopes the White House security will get an upgrade."
-
Where Was Secret Service? The New York Times's Helene Cooper struggles to contain her exasperation. "While the question of how well the president is protected is never a
casual one, it has taken on special resonance with Mr. Obama, the
nation’s first black president. Even when he was a candidate, his
security rivaled that of a sitting president, because of both the size
of the crowds he attracted and the number of threats. Secret Service
agents began guarding him 18 months before the November 2008 election,
the earliest a candidate has ever been provided protection. It was not
clear how close the couple got to the Obamas."
- Invite Them Back! The U.K. Independent marvels at how well-behaved they were. "But we say: the Obamas got off lightly. After all, the Salahis didn't
drink all the booze; they didn't gorge themselves; they left well
before the end of the party. And unless the reports are missing
something, they didn't urinate on the White House lawn, waking up the
neighbours in the process. If only all gatecrashers trod so lightly. In
fact, one might even argue that the Salahis deserve an invitation next
time."
