The State Dinner for Mexico's President Calderon……

PLEASE make sure someone is working the White House entrance from the Social Office……

PLEASE make sure the SEcret Service doesn’t let anyone just slip by with a ‘wink’….

PLEASE don’t let any uninvited Drug guys show up….

AND  PLEASE don’t let the Salahai’s slip in……

Nuff said!

The State Dinner for Mexico’s President Calderon……

PLEASE make sure someone is working the White House entrance from the Social Office……

PLEASE make sure the SEcret Service doesn’t let anyone just slip by with a ‘wink’….

PLEASE don’t let any uninvited Drug guys show up….

AND  PLEASE don’t let the Salahai’s slip in……

Nuff said!

Sometimes you you can meet the President of the United States while taking a hike…..

It’s good to see these regular people stories…

I love them…..

And the President and the Secret Service gets props for handling somethings without too much fanfair….

[ In this photo, taken by White House photographer Pete Souza and relased to the Citizen-Times, Karen Russell, a tourist from Westerville, Ohio, talks with the president and first lady during a chance encounter while hiking off the Blue Ridge Parkway on Friday. (White House/Special to the Citizen-Ttimes) ]

Howard Dusenbery was sitting downstairs in the inn he owns with his wife, Kristen, in Weaverville, the Dry Ridge Inn, when a quiet, 65-year-old guest came downstairs for breakfast Saturday morning.

The couple, who bought the inn 10 years ago, asked her what she did the previous day.

“And she says, ‘Well, I met the president,’” Howard Dusenbery said. “And I went, ‘What? Really? Where was that?’ And she said, ‘When I was hiking on the parkway.’”

On Friday, President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama hopped onto the Blue Ridge Parkway in the presidential motorcade a few hours after they landed in Asheville for a brief vacation.

After a 15-minute drive, the motorcade stopped, and the first couple stepped out for an hour-long hike. During the hike, according to a White House spokeswoman, the Obamas ran into an “elderly” hiker.

That hiker, Karen Russell, a tourist visiting from Westerville, Ohio, said she was stunned to see the first couple coming down the path, on a segment of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail.

“It was just a little nondescript trail that I was on, and I didn’t expect to find anybody there really, let alone the president,” she said.

Russell had been hiking on the trail for about an hour, when she saw the motorcade pass below on the parkway. She thought Obama was on his way to Mount Mitchell.

“And then I saw two men with little pins and ear pieces, and I thought, ‘Oh, they’re just checking out the hill to make sure no one’s going to snipe or something like that,’” she said.

More……

How President Obama got to Aftghanistan…..

[ A rarity…..The President using Air Force One’s internal exit stair’s to leave the aircraft…..]

In a process piece Reuters recounts how the normally massive planning dance for a POTUS movement went deep……

Any trip by a U.S. president requires careful planning, but sneaking him into Afghanistan — a country in the midst of an eight-year war with Islamic militants — is a special case.

Under the cover of darkness, President Barack Obama made his first visit to Kabul on Sunday since taking office nearly 15 months ago, finally putting his foot in a nation that, at least in the foreign policy arena, has the potential to define his presidency.

For security reasons, the trip was cloaked in secrecy. He arrived at night and left while it was still dark.

Reporters were barred from telling anyone where they were going on Saturday evening as they made their way to Andrews Air Force Base, where the presidential aircraft is housed.

Upon arrival, staff and members of the media were bussed to the hangar where a gleaming Air Force One awaited.

Normally the aircraft is positioned outside for the president’s arrival. But that night it stayed under cover, taxiing out in darkness once Obama was on board to avoid alerting uninvolved military members at the base of its departure.

Obama himself snuck into Andrews.

After leaving the White House on Friday afternoon with the “cover” of spending the weekend at Camp David, the presidential retreat, he flew from there by helicopter to the base on Saturday night to make the secret trip.

The president, a Democrat, had been expected to come to Kabul for some time since his inauguration in January 2009. White House officials said weather and logistical reasons thwarted previous attempts to make the trip.

Then, just over a week ago, they found a window.

More……..

The Salahai’s come out smelling like a Rose?……

[ The ‘Salahi’s meet President Obama after getting into a Washington, D.C., state dinner in November. ]

In a seemingly confirmation that the couple gamed the system and that Social Secretary Desiree Rogers didn’t know what the hell she was doing……. and the Secret Service got screwed in the process…..

The Salahai’s are going on with their lives and making money and fame from the mess-up at the White house Satae Dinner for the Indian Prime minister…..

While the case is still under study by a federal US Attorney’s Office…the couple and their lawyer must believe no action will come at them in announcing that they will resume their attention-getting activities…..

Unbelievable!……..

The White House gatecrashers are being rewarded for their cheesy chutzpah with a gig on reality TV.

Michaele Salahi, 44, will be one of the “Real Housewives of D.C.,” the Daily Beast reported Friday.

That means we’ll also be seeing a lot of Salahi’s pudgy husband, Tareq, 41, in the upcoming Bravo series.

The Virginia-based social climbers got the instant fame they’d been craving when they bluffed their way into President Obama‘s first State Dinner last November.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2010/03/26/2010-03-26_white_house_party_crasher_michaele_salahi_cast_on_reality_tv_series_real_housewi.html#ixzz0jPibkJa6

The Salahai's come out smelling like a Rose?……

[ The ‘Salahi’s meet President Obama after getting into a Washington, D.C., state dinner in November. ]

In a seemingly confirmation that the couple gamed the system and that Social Secretary Desiree Rogers didn’t know what the hell she was doing……. and the Secret Service got screwed in the process…..

The Salahai’s are going on with their lives and making money and fame from the mess-up at the White house Satae Dinner for the Indian Prime minister…..

While the case is still under study by a federal US Attorney’s Office…the couple and their lawyer must believe no action will come at them in announcing that they will resume their attention-getting activities…..

Unbelievable!……..

The White House gatecrashers are being rewarded for their cheesy chutzpah with a gig on reality TV.

Michaele Salahi, 44, will be one of the “Real Housewives of D.C.,” the Daily Beast reported Friday.

That means we’ll also be seeing a lot of Salahi’s pudgy husband, Tareq, 41, in the upcoming Bravo series.

The Virginia-based social climbers got the instant fame they’d been craving when they bluffed their way into President Obama‘s first State Dinner last November.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2010/03/26/2010-03-26_white_house_party_crasher_michaele_salahi_cast_on_reality_tv_series_real_housewi.html#ixzz0jPibkJa6

The Salahis plead the Fifth before Congress…….

While they got dumped on by Congressmen from the House Committee on Homeland Security….the couple kept their mouths shut, under advice from their lawyers, who are sitting tight, while a Federal Grand Jury consisders weather to indite them for laying to Secret Service Uniform  Police Officers, who spoke to them on the night of the Indian State Dinner, and asked if they were invited to the event…..

This from the piece……

They also declined a chance to talk to the committee in a behind-closed-doors executive session. Which the committee’s ranking minority member, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) said was just as well: “They’re not going to have state secrets.” King has agitated for White House officials like Social Secretary Desiree Rogersto testify about the security lapses; the White House has declined. Without them, the committee was just “going through the motions,” King complained.

“Did you have a good time in Las Vegas?” asked Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev), citing their celebrity “hosting” appearance at Pure nightclubSaturday. “Did you notice people had to stand in line and pay a fee — and they don’t allow party crashers?”

On the way out of the Cannon House Office Building, attorney Best held a brief press conference. He called the hearing a “charade” and “public flogging.” He said Congress would find the real answers by subpoenaing Rogers and Michele S. Jones, a Pentagon official whom the Salahis had e-mailed before the state dinner in their quest for an invitation.

“The Salahis are innocent and have committed no criminal act,” he said. “They believed in their hearts they were invited to the White House. This was not a stunt.”

Nor was it a joke either…….

We’ll see what the outcome will be……

Another person got into the Indian State Dinner with an invitation?

So it wasn’t just the Salahi’s that where gatecrashers that night at the White House, huh?

We learn of a third person……..Carlos Allen…with a State Department connection…..

Why am I not surprised?……..

As a matter of fact….. after reading about the Secret Service’s cut back woe’s, the Social Office mis-direction woe’s, and knowing the common sense abilities to administer a perfectly secure event , anywhere…..I am not surprised…..

The only real news in this piece is that the Secret Service is referring inquires to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District…..

Obama effigy found in Plains Georgia…….

This from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution…….

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service says the agency is investigating an effigy of President Barack Obama found hanging from a building in the hometown of former President Jimmy Carter.

Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan told The Associated Press that the large black doll was found Saturday morning along Main Street in the small town of Plains.

According to footage from WALB-TV, the doll was hanging by a noose in front of a red, white and blue sign that says “Plains, Georgia. Home of Jimmy Carter, our 39th President.” A witness told the television station that the doll wore a sign with Obama’s name on it.

Donovan said the doll was removed Saturday. He declined further comment.

Sumter County Sheriff’s Department officials declined comment, referring all calls to the Secret Service.

And so it begins……..

The White House Gatecrasher story….with facts filled in….a month later….it's who you know…not what you do……

I was going to write a lot about this excellent review piece in the Washington Post, by Jason Horowitz, Spencer Hsu and Roxanne Roberts….but I’m not…it isn’t necessary once you read the piece……

It all boils down to this…..The Salahi’s are opportunists…plain and simple…they took advantage of several faults in the system to try to get themselves a spot on a reality show….

The White House is run by human beings that are in awe of the power atmosphere they  live in…..

The grunts go to work everyday and endure the infighting, back biting and pressure that comes with working with ‘masters of the universe’…

And in the end…..

The Salahai’s are going to probably skate because of all the above…….

And who ones friends are…..

Note: The Secret Service in-spite of all the hype….has serious problems within itself……