Washington Extra – Kids, cover your ears
With Washington gripped by a widening Secret Service scandal, reporters just couldn’t steer clear of the salacious story. Soon after spokeswoman Victoria Nuland saluted the handful of underage observers, the questions moved to charges that Secret Service agents and other government workers cavorted with strippers and prostitutes while on overseas assignments. Nuland lamented the topic du jour and one Department employee jokingly moved to cover his daughter’s ears.
The roughly half-dozen kids were models of decorum. There they sat, on the sidelines of the briefing room, staring down at the floor. None asked a question. But they might have been thinking “Mom, Dad, when we get home tonight, you’ll have some explaining to do.”
Here are our top stories from Washington…
US on guard for attacks ahead of bin Laden anniversary – President Obama has reviewed potential threats to the United States ahead of the anniversary next week of the killing of Osama bin Laden, but there is no concrete evidence that al Qaeda is plotting any revenge attacks, the White House said. Bin Laden’s killing last year by U.S. commandos is touted by the Obama administration as one of his top accomplishments and it may help inoculate the president from Republican election-year claims that he is weak on national security. For more of this story by Alister Bull, read here.
Biden knocks Romney for “back to the future” foreign policy – Vice President Joe Biden blasted Mitt Romney’s foreign policy vision as backward-looking and tied to George W. Bush, hammering the presumptive Republican nominee for thinking like a CEO and not like a commander in chief. The remarks were Biden’s latest attempt to define Romney as out of touch with Americans, and his foreign policy critique marked a shift from the Obama campaign’s focus on economic and domestic differences with the president’s Republican rival. For more of this story by Jeff Mason, read here.
Happy Birthday Mr. President, hope they let you eat cake
President Barack Obama turned 49 years old today, which gives him a whole year to contemplate the BIG ONE coming next.
His birthday horoscope (Leo) in The Washington Post was quite glowing and befitting a Nobel Peace Prize winner: “You have given your love to the loveless and befriended the friendless — the fantastic karma comes back to you this year.”
It’s the next bit we found puzzling – “A dream job is on the horizon. Hard work this month brings the perfect offer by the end of September.” What are the stars trying to say? Is there a message in there to be applied to the November midterm elections?
Obama’s first chance of the day at getting a public display of cake for his birthday was not to be…
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told Obama before and again after the president’s remarks at the union’s executive council meeting, that they had wanted to have a cake for him but the Secret Service wouldn’t allow it.
“I’m a little disappointed that there wasn’t a cake, though” Obama joked after his remarks. “I’m going to have to talk to Secret Service.”
“You ought to talk to those guys, ’cause they nixed the cake,” Trumka replied.
Presidential dreams are a walk in the park
What do presidents dream of when living at the White House?
For President Barack Obama it’s the simple things in life that he misses.
“Taking walks. There is a value to anonymity in terms of just being able to wander around, sit on a park bench, take your kids to get ice cream without having Secret Service and helicopters over you,” Obama said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 television.
“That part of this life I’ll never get used to,” he said.
“In fact, I remember when I first visited Jerusalem, I could wander through the Old City and haggle for some gifts to bring back to Michelle, or stand at the Wailing Wall, and people didn’t know who I was.”
“And that is a profound pleasure that is very hard to experience now,” Obama said.
(Aside from walking though, we’d like to point out that when it comes to other modes of transportation, the president does have an armored limo, planes and helicopters at his disposal).
Washington chatter: who loses job over security scares?
It’s the question ricocheting around Washington: which official gets to step down for family reasons or to pursue other opportunities after recent security scares?
There was White House crasher-gate — the Salahis who sashayed into President Barack Obama’s first formal state dinner bedecked in red sari and tuxedo but missing one key item — an invitation.
Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan fell on his sword before Congress and shouldered the blame. White House social secretary Desiree Rogers was shielded from a public appearance on Capitol Hill by the White House.
Both are still in their jobs and not seeing any smoke signals about change.
There was certainly smoke on Christmas Day when a Nigerian passenger tried to bring down a Detroit-bound airplane by igniting an explosive substance in his underwear. And now the maze of intelligence agencies is trying to explain to the president why the suspect wasn’t on the terrorism no-fly list when his own father tried to warn the U.S. Embassy of his son’s radicalism.
In a “not connecting the dots” problem it is usually difficult to lay blame at any single agency’s feet because bits and pieces of information were floating in various hands and were not joined together to provide a clearer picture.
So will there be a shake-up after the reports are in? The White House line at the moment is that the president has full confidence in the Director of National Intelligence, the CIA Director, and the Secretary of Homeland Security.
Inquisition begins over state dinner gatecrashing
Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan looked like he was having a bad day as he sat facing a firing squad of lawmakers determined to find out how the vaunted Secret Service could allow uninvited guests into the White House and even into a receiving line to shake hands with President Barack Obama.
“I’ve asked myself that question a thousand times over this past week,” Sullivan told the House Homeland Security Committee when asked how Tareq and Michaele Salahi were allowed to talk their way into the White House for last week’s state dinner although they were not on the guest list.
“Do I like to see this? Believe me, we are beating ourselves up over this,” said Sullivan, who looked like he could use a good night’s sleep and seemed to have a 5 o’clock shadow even at 10 a.m.
Sullivan said he had put three Secret Services officers on paid leave for their role in letting the Virginia couple into the state dinner held in honor of the Indian prime minister.
Sullivan’s agency has been the brunt of criticism after the Salahis talked their way into the White House and managed to pose with Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and others including the Marines guarding the White House.
Many members of the committee urged Sullivan — the sole witness at the hearing after Social Secretary Desiree Rogers and the Salahis refused to testify — to share out some of the blame. One after another, the lawmakers questioned why no one from the White House Social Office was helping to staff the checkpoints to verify guests’ identities as they arrived at last Tuesday’s state dinner.
But the Secret Service director held strong to his acceptance of responsibility. His only waver was when he grudgingly admitted “it would have helped” stop the Salahis from entering if a White House staffer had been present when the couple went through the checkpoint.
This must be the umpteenth article about party crashers at the white house. Here are some topics for Reuters contributors to investigate and report back to the public about.
Health care:100,000 pharmaceutical deaths a year, 100,000 surgical blunders a year causing death. 45,000 deaths each year because of a lack of health care insurance.
War on Terror:Guantanamo is still open. Three detainees found bound, gagged and hanged at same time and ruled a suicide. President Obama has declared Bhagram Prison in Afghanistan the new Guantanamo. No lawyers, family or red cross can visit indefinitely. Eighty percent of all terror detainees are delivered to the military by bounty hunters. Very few have been eye witness identified by any U.S. forces.
The First Draft: White House takes a lonely road to openness on Crasher-gate
President Barack Obama’s senior adviser, Valerie Jarrett, feels the White House doesn’t need Congress to help it maintain openness on the Crasher-gate scandal. That’s why it’s chosen to eschew the limelight of a Capitol Hill hearing today.
“We think we’ve really answered the questions fully,” she told ABC’s Good Morning America, while making the TV rounds to defend a White House decision not to send its social secretary to explain how a Virginia couple got into last week’s state dinner without an invitation.
“Having a full review up on the (White House) Web site, where everyone in the country — anyone who goes on our Web site — can read it, is the definition of transparency.”
By “full review,” she meant a one-page memo outlining new White House staff procedures intended to prevent any future pair of gate-crashers like Michaele Salahi and husband Tareq from getting through the security cordon.
Jarrett’s is an interesting assertion. Obama has made a point to enhance public access to the government after eight years of unprecedented official secrecy under George W. Bush and his powerful veep, Dick Cheney.
The crux of the matter seems to be that not everyone agrees Crasher-gate is so important. The House Homeland Security Committee, which is hosting today’s hearing, thinks it a big enough deal. The Salahis weren’t an al Qaeda hit squad armed with poison lipstick or .50 caliber ink pens. They might have been, however, so why shouldn’t Congress hear from everybody?
But Jarrett says having U.S. Secret Service chief Mark Sullivan testify should be enough. It is the Secret Service, after all, that’s responsible for White House security. And once the agency completes its own investigation, those findings will get posted on the Web, too.
How does the couple slipping into the Whitehouse, uninvited, compare to the war,
economy, health care, and the climate. He has already admitted it was a security blunder, and has been open about ALL of it!! The decision was not to try to jail them and why!! How much more “open” can you get for God’s sake?!!!
The First Draft: White House “gate-crashers” say they’re suffering
They passed through layers of White House security to attend a lavish state dinner, got themselves photographed with the president and vice president and posted pix on Facebook. It was supposed to be an experience to last a lifetime. But now, Michaele and Tareq Salahi, the couple at the center of one of the most embarrassing White House security breaches of all time, say their lives have been destroyed by falsehood and gossip. “Devastated. Shocked,” is how beautiful, blond, former NFL cheerleader Michaele recalls her reaction to the morning-after headlines in an interview with NBC’s Today show. And Tareq? “Very saddened,” he says. According to the White House, the Salahis were not on the invitation list. But they insist they were invited and predict that e-mails now in the hands of the Secret Service will exonerate them in the end. In the meantime, their lives are a one-syllable word for perdition. Tareq: “Our lives have really been destroyed.” Michaele: “Everything we’ve worked for — for me, 44 years — destroyed.” The U.S. media have made the Salahis out to be self-promoting social climbers who crashed the White House dinner while Michaele was auditioning for a new reality TV show called “The Real Housewives of Washington.” There have even been reports they tried to cash in on their exploits by demanding big bucks in exchange for media interviews. A camera crew from the cable-TV channel, Bravo, did follow them to the edge of the White House grounds on the night of the dinner. But the bit about paid interviews is dead wrong, says Michaele: “At no time … have we ever even talked about doing that with anyone.” Whether the Salahis are charged depends on a Secret Service probe to figure out just what happened. The Salahis tell NBC they hope to clear their name by sharing those e-mails as soon as the Secret Service says they can. When might that be? “We hope within the next several days,” Tareq says.
Photo Credits: Reuters/Ho New (the Salahis and Obama); Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (the Salahis)
She’s not a former NFL cheerleader, various media outlets have already exposed that she lied about that as well, just like they’re lying about all these other things.
Latest on crasher-gate: will they accept House invite?
It’s not quite the glamorous soiree they attended at the White House, but the party-crashing duo has been invited to a different Washington function.
Will they RSVP and accept the invitation? No one knows.
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson plans to hold a hearing on Thursday about the breach of security at the White House last week when Michaele and Tareq Salahi crashed the State Dinner for the Indian prime minister and hobnobbed with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.
“The Committee plans to invite testimony from Mr. and Mrs. Salahi, who managed to attend portions of the State Dinner without proper White House and Secret Service clearance,” a statement from Thompson said.
Michaele Salahi has flirty, flirty, photos from the White House dinner on her Facebook page — cosy with the Veep, leaning toward Rahm (Emanuel, who she mistags as “Ron” on one picture), hanging with the Marines.
And she touched the president, grasping Obama’s hand in both of hers in the receiving line.
So will the couple who is the talk of the town show up at the House hearing?
I would ask them if they know the balloon people from Colorado
The First Draft: White House “gate crashers” to tell their own story
She’s blond and beautiful. He’s debonair. Together, with irresistible charm and a voracious appetite for self-promotion, they penetrated White House security to attend this week’s state dinner for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and got close enough to kiss Vice President Joe Biden.
That’s the current media image of Michaele and Tareq Salahi, who could be the world’s most celebrated gate crashers since the British comedian who attended Prince William’s 21st birthday party at Windsor Castle in 2003 while dressed as Osama bin Laden in drag. But is there more to the story? The Salahis’ lawyer, Paul Gardner, suggests there is. “My clients were cleared, by the White House, to be there. More information is forthcoming,” he says in a statement published by the Washington Post. The now-famous couple also plans to appear Monday on CNN’s Larry King Live. Paul Wharton, a friend of the Salahis, tells ABC’s Good Morning America that the couple has had lots of contact lately with Indian officials and has spent a fair amount of time in India. Could that explain why they were at a dinner honoring the Indian PM? News accounts cast the Salahis as determined publicity seekers who posted their wedding on YouTube and boast an online photo gallery of themselves with loads of celebrities including Britain’s Prince Charles. Michaele, a former Washington Redskins cheerleader, is being considered for cable TV channel Bravo‘s upcoming reality series, The Real Housewives of Washington. In fact, the Post reports that she spent seven hours at a posh salon, TV production crew in tow, getting ready for the big night. The camera crew followed Michaele and Tareq to the White House but couldn’t get in. The Salahis did and wound up being snapped for photos with Biden and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. The Secret Service, which is charged with protecting President Barack Obama and other high-level officials, says the Salahis were not invited to the dinner. The agency is conducting a comprehensive review to get to the bottom of one of the most embarrassing security breaches in the history of White House dinners. It’s not clear what could happen to the Salahis if they really did crash the party. But another friend of the couple, Casey Margenau, doesn’t sound too worried. “Whatever they do, they’ll land on their feet,” he tells ABC. “Promotion and parties are part of their life.”
Photo credits: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Michaele and Tareq Salahi); Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Biden)
Make examples of these two bimbos; prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law.
Obama’s limo is bigger
There is no contest. President Barack Obama got a bigger limousine than former President George W. Bush. It even comes with a nickname that growls, “The Beast.”
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Thursday got a close look at the brand new Cadillac limo which first rolled out on the road on inauguration day to carry its special protected cargo — Obama and his wife — down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Parked in the Secret Service garage in front of Bush’s limo, which had been brand new for the former president’s inauguration in 2001, the new monster car clearly overpowered the older model.
But just about everything about it including weight and capabilities — like if it could fly, or swim, or turn into a tree for camouflage — were hush hush. No comment either on whether there was a bar in the back compartment.
“Oh my gosh!” Napolitano exclaimed upon seeing the limo.
Asked if she wanted to drive it, the former Arizona governor replied: “You know, I haven’t driven for almost seven years.”
Bush’s limo appeared quite delicate next to the mean-looking Obama-mobile which had a scary front grill that looked like a plate of steel fangs and huge tires that could frighten potholes.
The Beast is worth Watching Never Mind Driving it.
This was here in Airport Taxi G20 Toronto earlier this Year 2010.
