Republican members of the House Homeland Security committee have invited White House social secretary Desirée Rogers to testify Thursday, a committee aide said Monday night, about how a couple from Northern Virginia slipped into the White House last week for a state dinner, despite not being on the guest list.Washington Post 12/01/2009
Rogers acknowledged to the Associated Press last week that no one from her office was at a security checkpoint Nov. 24 to assist Secret Service agents in determining whether partygoers should be admitted to the mansion. Tareq and Michaele Salahi were waved through the checkpoint and later came face-to-face with President Obama in a receiving line.
Unnumber'd Suppliants croud Preferment's Gate,
Athirst for Wealth, and burning to be great;
Delusive Fortune hears th' incessant Call,
They mount, they shine, evaporate, and fall.
On ev'ry Stage the Foes of Peace attend,
Hate dogs their Flight, and Insult mocks their End.
Samuel Johnson - The Vanity of Human Wishes
Desiree Rogers will go the way of Van Jones and Rev. Wright. They were very public and very mediocre persons. In their immediate tanks or ponds they were big fish; in the scope of history -snail darters.
Like Gerry Faust, who was the single face on the Mount Rushmore of high school football, in scheme of things they are inconsequential people at best and at worst - impediments.
Desiree Rogers is the White House Social Secretary -for the moment. Ms. Rogers has been appointed on the 'recommendation' of powerful people in need of the direct support of Ms. Rogers' ex-husband -Mr. John Rogers, a wealthy and powerful man. John Rogers is huge in Chicago and Chicago Progressive Politics.
Now, due to pooch-screwing that put the lives of President Obama and the Prime Minister of India in hazard at the first Obama White House State Dinner, for which Ms. Rogers played the diva up to and including the arrival of the Salahis, that run of good luck is about to end. Chicagoans know that Ms. Rogers is a privileged hack given her work at Peoples Gas. She is an appointment for boards desirous of John Rogers' good will. Nationally, she has been protected by the Obama Propaganda Machine - CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, NEWSWEEK, NEW YORK TIMES & etc. Americans are getting to know Ms. Rogers as Chicagoans know the woman - Nice House; No One's Home.
Once the Obama White House launches Desiree Rogers she will land on her rump in a very comfy chair, once again padded with six figures. One chap calling himself/herself Hargrove protested my feature of Ms. Rogers. Hargrove cataloged the talking points of a losing argument - Race/Sexism & Racial Sexism.
Thus:
Hargrove said... “Butting” Desiree Rogers, and using a rear photo of her, to make that sexist point; accompanied by a haughty dismissal of her hard won achievements, is sad. I'll bet if she was a white woman, you would be holding her up as a model for what women can achieve!She has Hargrove; She will. Ms. Rogers has butted her way into sinecures that could fund villages around our happy planet.
It seems like your goal is to devalue Ms. Rogers enough for the reader to assent to implicating her in an error, that occurred at President Obama’s first state dinner, which she was not responsible for.
Only in matters of race is one judged by an error, they didn’t commit, without mentioning the task, which they did perform, and which the error is associated with. Perhaps because the task, The Obama First State Dinner, was an eye-popping, gasp worthy success, with ratings ranging from A to A+! But why acknowledge a glowing success, when you can waste your ink belittling an excellent person.
Do not be deceived, Hargrave (sic) is not the only person who can check a guest list! Members of the Secret Service were designated that responsibility, and they made a mistake. If Hargrave was there, she could have made a mistake too! Even she acknowledged that errors in the list were common when she worked for the Bush Administration.
Stop trying to rewrite the book of blame in this, the Secret Service has already acknowledged that IT WAS THEIR MISTAKE!
Desiree Rogers did herself and the Obama Administration proud, by her outstanding work, and creative vision, on behalf of the Obama State Dinner, and she should be given credit for that.
3:54 PM
One can not diminish Ms. Rogers without, of course so diminishing the very folks who saw fit to place and appoint her to positions on fringes of government. Ms. Rogers is in the very spotlight she so long has pursued.
As dear Fat Dr. Johnson warned, but then again Ms. Rogers no doubt never read or heard-
With distant Voice neglected Virtue calls,
Less heard, and less the faint Remonstrance falls;
Tir'd with Contempt, she quits the slipp'ry Reign,
And Pride and Prudence take her Seat in vain.
In croud at once, where none the Pass defend,
The harmless Freedom, and the private Friend.
The Guardians yield, by Force superior ply'd;
By Int'rest, Prudence; and by Flatt'ry, Pride.
Here Beauty falls betray'd, despis'd, distress'd,
And hissing Infamy proclaims the rest.
Vanity of Human Wishes
Go the way of Van Jones? You mean to work for the Whitehouse by advising from Boulder! CO2mmunists will always be in this administration.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=117548
I have been a friend of John Rogers - before he was married - for many years, and have known Desiree only slightly, though I'm aware of her reputation (escellent). I have never had economic relationships with either.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, I was rather amazed that the former Mrs. Rogers would accept a position such as Social Secretary given the fact that she had been a CEO at several major Chicago companies.
Obviously she did it because of her close personal friendship with Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to the President.
While I have no doubt that her ex husband has been helpful and supportive of her -- what good husband or ex husband wouldn't or shouldn't be --- she does have many abilities of her own including a self effacing modesty that contrasts directly with her own beauty and glamour and more importantly, intelligence. She is an unusual combination of substance and symbolism.
The unfortunate incident about the gatecrashers at the White House should not be allowed to detract from the fact that it was a very successful evening.
I do not believe that despite the importance of this breach of security,it should turn into either a 'witchhunt or a whitewash' (my phrase). A few people in the Secret Service will need reprimands or suspensions. But this is is not Imperial Japan where Director Mark Sullivan would have committed hiri kiri (not Harry Carey).
But the crashers need to be punished appropriately -not excessively. I have suggested that they be charged with simple trespass or something to that effect. They knew they had not been invited, and even though a personal friend who was a special assistant to the Secretary of Defense had been trying to assist them (this may be the scariest part of the story), she never told them she could get them 'tickets' for the dinner or the reception. (There are no tickets for State Dinners, there are invitations.)
My suggestion is that if convicted of a misdemeanor (reserve felony indictments for terorists) the couple should receive a sentence of up to thirty days in jail.
Specifically, they should be required to report to a DC jail, where they could share a private cell, arriving the day of every White House State Dinner and being released the day after. This would go on for the first fifteen State Dinners assuring this would not happen again.
In the future, I'm sure that staff from Desiree Rogers' office will be at the checkpoints. But I can see it was hard for the Secret Service to reject appropriately dressed people, who looked the part, who had the temerity to show up (showing up is 90%) and probably insisting there 'was a mistake'.
Thank goodness this wasn't a tragedy - but it could have been. Rest assured, it won't happen again; but it would be unfair to 'punish' Desiree Rogers or the Secret Service to the extent that they become victims of a supid, silly hoax by two poseurs. If their lives (the Salahis) have been 'ruined' it was self inflicted.
In fairness, I should disclose that I am a facebrook friend of Tareq or possibly his imposter (I have my own silly quirks - I became a 'friend' within hours of the pictures being posted).
I often agree with Mr. Hickey. Not in this instance.
Desiree Rogers is there, I believe, because Valerie Jarrett wanted her, to which the First Lady must have approved, not because of John Rogers.
She should continue in her position and will be the most effective Social Secretary since Tish Baldridge (JFK's).
Phil,
ReplyDeleteNice defense of a Pal ( Mr. Rogers).
Ms. Rogers will not be punished - have no worry on that score.
The Obama White House has the Secret Service absorbing lead for Desiree.