Crashergate, Desiree Rogers, and the Chicago Way: Land of no consequences; Update: House panel to hold hearing
White House social secretary Desiree Rogers makes her grand entrance at last week’s White House State Dinner…
…while grifter couple Michaele and Tareq Salahi snuck in the back and circumvented security to gain access to President Obama…
Readers of this blog and of Culture of Corruption are already quite familiar with Desiree Rogers.
She’s the intimate Chicago fund-raising crony of Michelle Obama and Valerie Jarrett who was once married to fellow Obama crony and frequent White House visitor John Rogers, chief executive of multi-billion-dollar Ariel Capital Management. They both bundled hundreds of thousands in donations for Team Obama before Desiree was appointed to head the White House social secretary’s office — an office smack dab in the middle of the Crasher-gate scandal that is smellier than week-old Thanksgiving turkey. More on that in a moment.
First, let me bring you up to speed on Desiree Rogers’s tastes, White House qualifications, and desires.
Tastes: Desiree likes to party. White House qualifications: She’s rolling in dough. Desires: She loves getting her picture taken in high-fashion magazines. Frequently with senior White House advisor and Chicago gal pal Valerie Jarrett or a favorite designer by her side:
Which all helps explain why the camera hog was striking a pose at the front door of the State Dinner last week instead of doing her job and overseeing the event behind the scenes. Via Newsweek:
The White House staff member whose job was to supervise the guest list for state dinners and clear invitees into the events says she was stripped of most of her responsibilities earlier this year, prompting her to resign last June.
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.
Hargraves tells Declassified in an exclusive interview that, while she had originally been hired as a White House political appointee in 2001, she landed a new position on the White House residence staff in 2006 and was specifically detailed to the social office to work on state dinners.
Her job duties included overseeing the invitations for guests at state dinners and keeping track of RSVPs, she says. On the evening of state dinners, she says, she physically stood at the East Gate portico entrance and greeted each of the guests as they arrived, checking their names off a computerized printout of those who had been invited.
But when she met with Rogers last February and went over her job responsibilities, she says, the new social secretary told her, “We don’t feel we have a need for that anymore.” Rogers’s explanation, according to Hargraves: “In these economic times, I don’t think we’re going to have very many lavish expensive dinners. It wouldn’t look very good.”
Pure, unadulterated B.S.
Diva Rogers clearly wanted to get rid of the Bush-era carry-over — and she obnoxiously invoked fiscal restraint to rationalize cutting corners on security.
Guess what, babe? This doesn’t look very good:
During President George W. Bush’s administration, it was standard procedure to have someone from the White House social office at the gate for state dinners and other events with large groups of visitors, according to a former senior Bush aide who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to be seen as criticizing the Obama White House.
The social office is most knowledgeable about the guest list and could have been called in case of any uncertainty, this official said…White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers, asked by The Associated Press on Thursday whether personnel from her office were at the checkpoint said, “We were not.”
As I noted in Chapter 2 of Culture of Corruption, Rogers sees herself not merely as a party planner, but as the overseer of the White House “strategy for events.” While she pays lip service to exercising restraint in Washington (“As we go through our struggle, there is a need to be prudent”), Rogers defended the lavish “Camelot” scene that quickly became an Obama hallmark in the economically-stressed first 100 days. The celebrity-filled cocktail nights and conga lines are a means to end, she explained to National Public Radio:
“My belief is that we don’t always get everything accomplished over a meeting table,”” Rogers says. “Many times it’s over cocktails, it’s over dinner and so the other piece to our work will be what kind of events can we create?”
Fittingly, Ms. Rogers’ personal motto is laissez les bon temps rouler: Let the good times roll. With her savvy fundraising skills, she helped keep Team Obama rolling in dough during the 2008 presidential campaign. According to left-wing watchdog Public Citizen, Rogers bundled more than $200,000 for Obama and contributed $28,500 to committees supporting her good friend. A Harvard MBA and former Allstate Financial executive, Rogers spent 2004 to -2008 as head of Peoples Gas and North Shore Gas, a $1.1 billion natural gas utility in Chicago. During her tenure, the utility’s parent company was sued for artificially inflating gas prices; a settlement with Illinois regulators required the firm to refund $100 million to consumers. Separate actions resulted in fines of $500,000 for a backlog of overdue meter safety inspections and $1 million for failing to properly inspect distribution pipes. In April 2009, financial disclosure forms revealed that Rogers “collected more than $1 million for her work as president of two gas companies for part of 2008. Later, she earned a $350,000 salary from Allstate Financial as president of its social-networking division, and $150,000 in board fees from Equity Residential, a real-estate investment trust in which she also holds at least $250,000 in stock.”
Rogers has known Mr. and Mrs. O for more than a decade. How did they meet? Ivy League connections – —the same connections that Michelle Obama griped would keep her “on the periphery.” Rogers’ ex-husband, John W. Rogers, Jr., played basketball with Michelle O’s brother, Craig Robinson, at Princeton. As I’ve mentioned previously, Mr. Rogers also served as a campaign finance bundler for Team Obama. The Rogerses were among 79 top fundraisers who, according to the Washington Post, tapped their personal networks to raise at least $200,000 each. The bundlers recruited a total of more than 27,000 donors to write maximum-limit checks for $2,300 each.
True to their faux populist form, Mrs. Obama has heaped praise on her dear friend Desiree’s “phenomenal job” of creating a “People’s House.” Rogers told Vogue (the magazine of everyday people like Rogers, Jarrett, and Mrs. Obama): “[My purpose] is helping people visualize what the Obama presidency is about, the feelings Americans voted for—inclusion, transparency, embracing people you might never otherwise learn about—and also translating the splendor, that sweetness, that comfort of the White House to everyone.”
“Embracing people you might never otherwise learn about.” Well, that’s certainly one way to describe the Crashergate fiasco!
While members of Congress focus their ire on the crashers and the Secret Service becomes a scapegoat, the sunlight needs to be directed once again at Barack Obama himself and the Chicago team embedded in the East Wing and West Wing that puts garish self-service above competent public service.
Valerie Jarrett suffered no consequences after her Van Jones and Obama-lympics fiascos. Neither, alas, will the White House socialite who allowed the undocumented visitors and their intruding reality TV camera crew to party hardy in the “People’s House” uninvited. The negligence of the president’s closest personnel is a reflection of, not a departure from, the White House governing stylebook.
Besides, as you well know: Barack Obama could no more disown his Windy City moneybag pals Desiree and John Rogers than he could disown his own teleprompter.
Michelle Obama and Valerie Jarrett won’t let him.
***
Cover girl Desiree Rogers bragging to the WSJ magazine: “We have the best brand on earth — the Obama brand…Our possibilities are endless.”
***
Update: The House homeland security panel says it will hold a hearing on Crashgate. More from The Hill.
Question Desiree Rogers.
See what others have said
Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.
Trackbacks
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Categories: Michelle Obama, Valerie Jarrett
Legal Insurrection
» Palin Causes Left and Right To Lose Reading Ability
Conservatives4Palin
» Hey Crooks and Liars, It Appears that Josef Jarod Lied to YouBetsys Page
» Windy promises from the stimulus were just thatGates of Vienna
» How London Became a Terrorist HotbedCommentary
» Flotsam and JetsamDoug Ross @ Journal
» Democrats shocked -- SHOCKED -- that Republicans won't eat the juicy, tender crap sandwich they cooked up all on their ownGreen Room
» Miss Me Yet? Bush Billboard Mystery SolvedMudville Gazette
» New Standards in Journalism
“We have the best brand on earth — the Obama brand…Our possibilities are endless.”
Maybe it’s time for a nationwide recall!
After seeing that first picture all I can think is they’d better check the furniture. There’s a couch somewhere missing a slip cover.
That’s it, braggarts are attracted to this Chicago Thug’s administration like moths to a candle.
With the left, it’s all about the voters’ “feelings”, as long as the money keeps flowing in!
This all sounds eerily like Aldridge’s book “Inside the Clinton White House”.
That was cruel Ralph Gizzip and made me laugh. Thanks!
The Crasher-gate scandal is being viewed wrongly-those two vulgarians should be given jobs in Blue Lip w/ears Land-they would fit right in. They have no sense of integrity, will lie about anything and love to hog the camera. Get the vulgarian Valerie Jarrett on the phone.
glad I hadn’t eaten yet this morning or I’d have thrown up…People’s House my butt…thugville, egoville, marxist land, it’s certainly not the People’s House anymore….
Double bagger for sure.
You’ve seen what you get when all you Hope for is Change. This time let’s demand Results.
Can they do collagen injections on legs?
… Land of no consequences.
I hate to say it, but increasingly I think also the “land of no consequence,” meaning dwindling influence in the world?
From White House to crack house! “Hide the decline”
I am sorry but, this still makes me ROLFMAO.
Don’t mind me, I am sick that way…
Splendor, sweetness, and comfort—the change we so desperately need right now. All that’s missing is a Robin Leach voiceover.
Branding, propaganda; tomato, tomahto. “Barack’s Baked Beans” is kinda catchy, though.
You call that a dress?! I’ve seen potato sacks with more flair! I’ve seen homeless with more fashion sense! I wouldn’t even use that as a drop cloth to change my engine oil!
(posting while wearing just a bathrobe and a bag of fritos. Oh the irony!)
Well, I don’t understand what all the fuss is about. I thought we liked our undocumented visitors in this country. I mean, our chief executive isn’t working to keep undocumented guests out of our schools and neighborhoods, so why should his staff presume do so at the White House? Letting undocumented types into the People’s House is just Ms. Rogers way of “keeping it real” ‘cuz that fence around the White House is just a man-made construction — like our national borders.
In fact, in honor of the amnesty the Dems want to pass, I say we petition Congress to pass a bill granting amnesty to the Salahis.
Sorry folks, I can’t agree with the snarky fashion comments. She is a very pretty woman- unfortunately for the WH staff, that seems to be the extent of her talents. The theme of this administration seems consistent though, appearance over substance, starting at the top.
This is the building that is supposed to have some of the top security in the nation. I think they should put scan bars on the invitations. How 20th century to just go off a guest list!
Okay, the last one (WSJ) she looks like she smells something foul. Sort of a stupid cover, IMHO.
Call me crazy, but isn’t the House of Representatives supposed to be the People’s House?
As a catty aside, is there a malady called being “style-deaf” (a la being tone deaf)? Because if so, Valerie Jarrett and the First Lady both must be style deaf. Them’s some UGLY duds Ms. Jarrett is posing in!
I’m tempted to think that if barry hussien’s security is lax, he’ll get what’s coming to him, but then I realize the folks showing up uninvited are just moochers on barry’s ride and may end up swiping the white house silver, which was paid for with MY tax dollars! Also barry doesn’t deserve the martyr status a sneak assasin would give him. He needs to be perp walked to a squad car and tried in a military tribunal to get what that criminal deserves.
Shouldn’t that be Cheetos?
Honestly, name for me just ONE mature adult in this administration! Same goes for the masses who letch on to them for a free ride.
Usually, but I’m on a diet. Trying to keep the Holiday poundage to a minimum.
(and failing miserably)
Mature Adult is a term mutually exclusive to this administration.
Hey, Valerie! The Colonel called: he wants his legs back.
All the same crap we saw from the Clintons. Now Hillary looks like the mature one!
Is that a snarky fashion comment too? Yes I know we SHOULDN’T be snarky but it is Monday. But to be unsnarky I won’t say anything about lip stick on a pig.
Sorry SpeakEasy- if my father wasn’t wearing steel toed shoes I would have been an abused child so it is not my fault.
Perhaps the undocumented visitors to the state dinner are representative of the millions of undocumented aliens who illegally cross our borders and mooch off our tables?
the problem with our whole society, it’s no longer how you perform on your job, it’s how you look, who you know, and do you fit the assigned color, sex, and age demographic. and when you suck at your job, oh well, you are the token (fill in the blank, woman, latino, black, asian, homosexual).
I could imagine a case where someone with a name like Tareq Salahi getting next to the president could bring a hardened plastic letter opener or a ceramic blade in his jacket and cause grievous physical harm to Obama.
No, I certainly don’t want Obama assassinated by a white person. Not at all. It would be the Rodney King riots in every city. Thousands would die, and Pelosi’s puppet Biden would pass whatever Marxist crap she wanted, and they’d have the power of JFK style martyrdom on their side.
Nope, sure don’t want Obama assasinated. Especially by someone who isn’t Black or have an Islamic name.
Maybe the next time this country elects a President, it won’t be because of the color of the skin or their gender. Those methods have produced abject failures so far. Maybe the content of their character should take priority.
Janet Reno – first woman to be Attorney General – failure.
Madeline Albright – first woman to be Secretary of State – failure.
Nancy Pelosi – first woman to be Speaker of the House – failure.
Barack Obama – first black to be President of the United States – failure (and discovered quickly too).
This administration has proven to be the most arrogant, corrupt, inept and dangerous this country has ever put into office.
Well she makes 113K of our money
Total Personal Staff members for other first ladies paid by taxpayers:
Mamie Eisenhower : 1 paid for personally out of President’s salary
Jackie Kennedy: 1
Roseline Carter: 1
Barbara Bush: 1
Hilary Clinton: 3
Laura Bush: 1
Michele Obama: 22
How things have changed! If you’re one of the tens of
millions of Americans facing certain destitution, earning
less than subsistence wages stocking the shelves at Wal-Mart
or serving up McDonald cheeseburgers, prepare to scream and
then come to realize that the benefit package for these
servants of Ms Michelle are the same as members of the
national security and defense departments and the bill for
these assorted lackeys is paid by YOU, John Q. Public:
Michele Obama’s personal staff:
1.. $172,200 – Sher, Susan (Chief Of Staff)
2. $140,000 – Frye, Jocelyn C. (Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Policy And Projects For The First Lady)
3. $113,000 – Rogers, Desiree G. (Special Assistant to the President and White House Social Secretary for Mrs. Obama)
4. $102,000 – Johnston, Camille Y. (Special Assistant to the President and Director of Communications for the First Lady)
5. $100,000 – Winter, Melissa E. (Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)
6. $90,000 – Medina , David S. (DeputyChief Of Staff to the First Lady)
7. $84,000 – Lel yveld, Catherine M. (Director and Press Secretary to the First Lady)
8. $75,000 – Starkey, Frances M. (Director of Scheduling and Advance for the First Lady)
9. $70,000 – Sanders, Trooper (Deputy Director of Policy and Projects for the First Lady)
10. $65,000 – Burnough, Erinn J. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary)
11. $64,000 – Reinstein, Joseph B. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary)
12. $62,000 – Goodman, Jennifer R. (Deputy Director of Scheduling and EventsCoordinator For The First Lady)
13. $60,000 – Fitts, Alan O. (Deputy Director of Advance and Trip Director for the First Lady)
14. $57,500 – Lewis, Dana M. (Special Assistant and Personal Aide to the First Lady)
15. $52,500 – Mustaphi, Semonti M. (Associate Director and Deputy Press Secretary To The First Lady)
16.. $50,000 – Jarvis, Kristen E. (Special Assistant for Scheduling and Traveling Aide To The First Lady)
17. $45,000 – Lechtenberg, Tyler A. (Associate Director of Correspondence For The First Lady)
18. $43,000 – Tubman, Samanth a (Deputy Associate Director, Social Office)
19. $40,000 – Boswell, Joseph J. (Executive Assistant to the Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)
20. $36,000 – Armbruster, Sally M. (Staff Assistant to the Social Secretary)
21. $35,000 – Bookey, Natalie (Staff Assistant)
22. $35,000 – Jackson, Deilia A. (Deputy Associate Director of Correspondence for the First Lady)
(total = $1,591,200 in annual
salaries)
There has NEVER been anyone in the White House at any time
who has created such an army of staffers whose sole duties
are the facilitation of the First Lady’s social life.
One wonders why she needs so much help, at taxpayer expense.
Note: This does not include makeup artist Ingrid
Grimes-Miles, 49, and “First Hairstylist” Johnny
Wright, 31, both of whom traveled aboard Air Force One to
Europe .
All Democrats.
And that’s just the short list.
Her got to have lots of servants.
Jefferson’s syndrome.
Just doing her part to save or create jobs.
You’re wearing a bag of Fritos?!
Rough night?
Don’t know why anyone is surprised they got in.
If obuma can get in the White House,
ANYONE CAN!!!!!!!
Take a good look at Joe Biden with Michale Salahi. Biden’s arm is draped tightly around her upper waist, far above where Joe’s arm is draped in the photos of him with other women at White House functions. You can tell that Biden is totally infatuated with Madame Salahi and his mind is not on his own wife. Biden has a lustful look in his eyes and you can tell his mind is not dwelling on US India relations in the subcontinent. Joe’s arm is wrapped so tightly around Michale Salahi’s upper waist that he must be making it hard for her to breathe. Check out the photo if you have not seen it.
At least it is an improvement over Chris Matthews who said he gets a thrill up his legs when he sees Barack Obama!
Thanks to his affected Chicago cronies like the Rogers, the Obama brand is vastly proving to be the most over-hyped, under-performing administration of all time.
This part of the story is being completely ignored by just about everyone. Is this an example of the same kind of Political Correctness that gave us Maj. Hasan? Who else got in that we don’t know about?
Hey NBC news!
If you ever decide to try earning back some of the credibility you once had, but that was tossed aside by your so-called on-air talent – such as the likes of Maddow, Mitchell, Olberman, O’Donnell, Schultz and others, you might wanna pickup on this news nugget from MM and launch into some objective investigative-reporting.
Maybe then you could lure back viewers like me.
No more than usual. Just over my head. I do not believe in letting any Frito crumbs go to waste.
***
Party down dudes and dudettes–it’s still 2009. Enjoy now–Tsunamis coming in 2010 and 2012.
***
John Bibb
***
Politicians can best be evaluated by the kind of people they have around them by choice. Mugs, Thugs and Shysters, In Obama’s case.
The Chicago thug mindset is always accompanied with the “rules never apply to me” attitude. Remember, this is the POTUS who decided that HE needed HIS blackberry. Nothing surprises me about this POTUS and his cronies. They did indeed bring the party with them. Too bad that running the country didn’t factor into their daily plans.
There’s a lot of weird stuff going on with this story.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eH62GbxSZg
Here’s an interview she did with CNN.
Right off the bat she’s saying “all those extra forks and knives and glassware put people on guard. We want to be more casual, less stiff like the staff who has been there forever.”
Translated: lowered standards like Obama is lowering our status in the world. The point of being in the White House is not to lower it to your level, its to raise yourself to its level.
Greenfairie – what weird stuff? Do you mean more weird than usual?
Check out what Brian Williams said on the NewsBusters site. Something about being so honored, so thrilled to be in the company of better than average people! Gag-gag-gag. He is so in the tank for Obeyme—objective news reporting died 2009.
ArizonaNeanderthal, enjoy your comments, make me laugh at times, thanks.
Makes me sick. These people can not leave too soon.
The White House requires a ceremony — in all seriousness and respect — after the Obama crew depart the place to clear the White House of all this badness, this vanity, this corruption and wrong ideals.
The White House has been used in a despicably cheap and offensive fashion by the Obama Administration and this post of yours points that out (and what we the public don’t know about what’s taken place there, I assume is likely even more offensive, to the place, to the nation, to our national personna).
This post of yours clearly points out the disrespect to the Office, to the structure, to the nation: they’ve used the White House for vanity purposes and Desiree Rogers is purely disgusting in that regard. Not to mention Michelle Obama’s ongoing awfulness…
I am just speechless at this point. This bunch of people have obviously made it a mission of theirs to implant a cheap presence in the White House. It’s utterly offensive, just utterly offensive.
Rogers is all about “the Obama brand” which is most telling of all as to the sick air that is in her head…no, Desiree, it’s all about the United States of America. Perhaps Rogers, Jarrett, Michelle and Barack, et al., need to go to this land they call “the Obama brand” and stay there.
I think Rogers and Jarrett really like each other. In a Biblical way…