WASHINGTON — Sidney Blumenthal, the Clinton Administration’s
famed servitor, saw it all coming. He predicted the Obama
Administration’s Carousel of Incompetence, as I like to call it.
He was not thinking about the serious botches, the healthcare
monstrosity, the spending spree, the criminal trial of Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed planned for New York, the cap and trade
extravagance. He probably agrees with these policy lurches.
What he probably had in mind were the lesser bungles, the
Administration’s bizarre appointees (Van Jones, Anita Dunn),
their embarrassing departures, and now the two imposters, who
gate-crashed a state dinner for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of
India. Things like this happened during the Clinton
Administration, though not the last colossal bungle, the
gate-crashing of a state dinner. Blumenthal had witnessed the
greenhorns that came in with the Clintons from Arkansas. He has
now seen the greenhorns that have been coming in with the Obamas.
Inadvertently, he confided to an American
Spectator reporter some months ago his judgment
that the Chicagoans are even greener. The arrival of the
uninvited Michaele and Tareq Salahi at the southeast gate of the
White House and their untroubled entry into the Obamas’ first
state dinner confirms his judgment. This sort of thing was
heretofore unthinkable, and the security around the President was
supposed to be unprecedented.
Now, of course, the Secret Service has been put under
pressure to take the heat. Its director Mark Sullivan has made a
rare public apology, and appeared before Congress to explain. The
Secret Service is one of the finest organizations in our
government. Its members have proved their competence and even
heroism for generations. Why are they taking the heat rather than
the White House social office? It is the social office under
social secretary Desirée Rogers, a Chicagoan close to the Obamas,
and particularly close to White House senior advisor, Valerie
Jarrett (a Chicagoan too), that is supposed to have a
representative standing near the security checkpoint into the
White House to welcome and verify every guest. Sometimes the
social office representative precedes the Secret Service,
sometimes the representative is just behind the Secret Service.
Always one is there.
No one from the social office was anywhere in sight, we are
told. Well, I for one cannot believe the Secret Service would
wave an uninvited guest into the White House. But assuming that
happened the other night, how did the Salahis then roam through
the White House and out into the dinner tent unbothered? At every
White House state dinner I have attended and at every other White
House social function, for that matter, social office
representatives were everywhere, greeting us, verifying the
authenticity of our credentials. Moreover, how did the Salahis
know where to go in this vast mansion? Anytime I
have been at such a high-toned White House function I have been a
bit bewildered. I would have no way of knowing which hall to walk
down, which grand staircase to ascend.
It is not as though the Salahis are geniuses. I have
actually met them, and they are obvious lightweights. I met them
at a horse-country outing in northern Virginia, and with my
friends we identified them immediately as rastaquoueres. “Born
with a philanthropist’s heart, and raised on ponies and wine,” is
how Tareq wrote himself up in one of the event’s programs. We all
had a good laugh at that, even as we quailed at the prospect of
sipping the dreadful wine he was offering. How did they mingle so
freely with the guests that night?
They are rather loosely described as “socialites” in the
news accounts. We are told that the American guest list at the
Indian state dinner was heavily freighted with the Chicagoans
from the President’s staff. My guess is that the Salahis
identified themselves to the other glamorous attendees not as
socialites but as socialists. That would have ensured a warm
welcome. If they had not been exposed as frauds so publicly, it
is entirely possible both would even now be tapped for a high
position in the government. After all, someone has to replace
Jones and Dunn.
