That's Desiree Rogers and her Resume!
The account of Cathy Hargraves, who formerly served as White House "assistant for arrangements," raises new questions about whether changes that she says were made by President Obama's social secretary, Desiree Rogers, may have contributed to the security lapses that permitted Virginia socialites Michele and Tareq Salahi to crash the state dinner for India's prime minister last week and get themselves photographed with the president.
Desiree Rogers has flitted from one well-paying job to more handsomely remunerated positions of power to the White House itself by cashing in her own personal Lotto Ticket - that 'really something' that make Desiree Rogers indispensable to folks in and on the fringes of tax-payer paid for government. From Lotto to People Gas to All State Insurance and the White House, Desiree Rogers has bounced her butt into more lucrative chairs and luxurious laps than Madame Du Barry! She is the ex-wife of Ariel Capital mogul John Rogers a Progressive Political ATM Machine.
With the Crashing Salahis taking Obama's Afghan/Paki; Health Care, Stimulus Package, Roaring Unemployment, Bowing at 45 Degree Angles and World Travel troubles off the dial for the moment, folks are lining Secret Service agents up for the toss under the bus. Butt! Chicagoans know and love the antics of Desiree Rogers - blowing up Mount Greenwood for Peoples Gas while wearing stylish yellow rubber boots and slickers to going all Messalina on people occupying positions that get in her way.
Now, D.C. Insiders are learning about Lotto Lolita!
Hargraves, however, says the lack of a social office employee on the scene at the gate might have made a difference. During her tenure, she says, it was not uncommon for guests at state dinners to arrive only to discover that their names hadn't been placed on the official guest list. In such situations, she says, she always refused the person entry until she could verify that they had actually been invited.
If she had been on the job at the White House last Tuesday night, the Salahis "would not have made it past the East Gate portico," she says. Once she had ascertained that they had not been invited, she says she would have called in the Secret Service officer who let them through in the first place and "they would have been escorted out."
After her tense meeting with Rogers last February, in which Hargraves says the social secretary made clear she did not want her to continue in the same role she had before, Hargraves says her job was essentially downgraded to what she calls a "data entry clerk": Her new job was simply to enter the names of White House guests into the Secret Services computers for clearance, not to broadly supervise state dinners and manage the invitations and arrival of guests. Dissatisfied with her new role, she says she quit on June 5 and moved with her husband, a State Department employee, to Houston. (Her staff slot was initially filled by a volunteer, who was later promoted to a full-time position but without her broad responsibilities for overseeing the guests at state dinners, she says.)
In some ways, Hargraves's account is reminiscent of culture clashes that have arisen in the past between outgoing and incoming White House staff members. Moreover, Hargraves acknowledges that the new Obama staff may have distrusted her because she had originally served as a political appointee in the Office of the cabinet secretary under President Bush. But Hargraves, who is a registered nurse by profession, says she has never worked on a political campaign and, as far as she is concerned, her loyalty was to the White House as an institution, not to the Bush administration.
How can someone so elegant be so Blond?
