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Saturday, November 28, 2009

The Dinner Crashers
Posted by jurassicpork | 11:15 AM

At this point, the only thing that amazes me is that the Secret Service didn't let Michaele and Tareq Salahi babysit the First Daughters.

There's been concern since Ronald Kessler's book about the president's safety in which he said cost-cutting measures would have to be taken in some of their details, including the elite detail that protects the Chief Executive. We'd seen shockingly lax security this past summer with armed protesters at presidential Town Halls sporting AR15's within a couple of hundred yards of Mr. Obama. The Secret Service denied any such cost-cutting measures were taken but last Tuesday night would make a cynic think the presidential detail was outsourced to a temp agency.

Because what happened at the President's first State dinner on the 24th just exceeds even the most unshakable suspension of disbelief because Michaele and Tareq Salahi, a Virginia couple, were not only allowed to slip into a state dinner honoring the Prime Minister of India, they were even allowed to shake the president's hand.

Thank goodness their intentions were strictly peaceful and that the President and First Lady were never in even the slightest danger. Magnetometers still had to screen them and all the guests but these people weren't guests. They were never on the guest list, yet the Secret Service, clipboards of the guest list in their hands, still let them slip into the White House and to make physical contact with the President.

Hopefully, the Treasury Department agents responsible for this will, at best, find themselves guarding and cleaning up after Bo, the First Pet or maybe chasing down counterfeiters in Anchorage, Alaska.

To put it simply, this kind of lax security is absolutely unforgivable.

Not only were the Salahis allowed to get within arm's reach of the President, they even posed for other pictures. Here's Michaele posing with three United States Marines in front of the White House.


Here's another one of the Salahis posing with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.



And here's yet another of the Salahis mugging with Vice President Joe Biden. Note that these are screengrabs taken off their Facebook page.



If the Salahis are guilty of falsifying their credentials or otherwise lying to get within inches of the President of the United States, then they deserve to be prosecuted and convicted.

Yet we're not hearing nearly enough about the comeuppance that's certainly due these men and women who are supposed to be guarding the First Family. You and I both know, Faithful Reader, that this simply would've been impossible, as it should have been, when George W. Bush was pretending to be president. People were thrown out of "Town Halls" hosted by Bush just for wearing pro Democratic Party or anti-Bush tee shirts (although not by the real Secret Service but pretenders like the Salahis).

Mind you, President Obama has received literally 400% more death threats than George W. Bush ever did. And part of the reason why the Secret Service is strapped for cash and has been for years is because Bush shorted them to the tune of $45,000,000 back in 2001.
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4 Comments:
Anonymous mandt said...
Quite aside from the offense given by these vulgar climbers there is the blaring consideration that the Secret Security is lax: first they let gun wielding dirt bags within Obama's speaking engagements and now let these crashers come up to him in person. These Virginians deserve some jail time and a free stay in the Big House!
11/28/09, 1:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Look, if Obama is worried about security, he can simply not send any more troops to Afghanistan.

There is more than enough military housing around Washington, DC to house 40,000 troops with their families while the "do-nothing" intelligence types can be shifted out to Ft Hood, Tx for a comprehensive examination of how that happened on their watch.

Should keep them busy for the rest of their "service."

Am I the only one that truly believes that 50 per cent of the intelligence agents are sitting in the office playing solitaire? While another 40 per cent are in it for the 24 hour a day gyms and tennis courts and serving as agent provocateurs on the liberal web sites?

Funny all the concern trolls found "spellcheck" at the same time about 4 years ago.

Then about two and a half years ago they could suddenly compose full paragraphs that held together logically.

There is one concern troll that has to have a PhD in english. He keeps turning up and revising and critiquing his fellow trolls in how to argue effectively. His personal area of assignment seems to be the "we need a second political party" supporters." He keeps forgetting his job and really trying very hard to teach. Must be frustrating as hell.

Thank the goddess, she created all of these characters for my personal appreciation.
11/28/09, 4:54 PM  
Anonymous Curmudgeon said...
Aren't there far more important things to worry about? Exposure to unarmed commoners won't give Obama riff-raff cooties, contaminate his precious bodily fluids, or sap him of his life essence.

Letting gun-toting teabaggers squat near a Democratic president is a security problem. Letting unarmed self-publicists crash a party is a tempest in a teapot that is dangerous only in that it distracts attention from real problems.
11/28/09, 8:10 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
The Secret Service got put into Homeland Security during Bush.
I want to know how they were allowed in. Some have said that there was "inside" help.
I'd like to see the Secret Service put back to Treasury. I's also like to see Homeland Security abolished.

Maude
11/29/09, 8:52 PM  
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