Couple got past Secret Service and crashed Obama's State Dinner

[HopeOverFear]

http://us.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/11/25/state.dinner.crashers/index.html

Washington (CNN) -- Two people without invitations crashed President Obama's first White House state dinner, the U.S. Secret Service said Wednesday.

The Secret Service confirmed a Washington Post report that the couple who crashed Tuesday night's dinner were Tareq and Michaele Salahi. The Post described the couple as polo-playing socialites from northern Virginia.

A Secret Service checkpoint "did not follow proper procedures" to determine if the two were on the guest list for the dinner, said Edwin M. Donovan, a Secret Service special agent, in a statement.

Playing down any security threat, Donovan's statement said: "It is important to note that these individuals went through magnetometers and other levels of security, as did all guests attending the dinner."

The incident represents a security breach for the White House at the Obama administration's biggest social event to date. More than 300 guests, including Cabinet members, diplomats and Hollywood celebrities, attended the dinner in honor of visiting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

"The Secret Service has tasked our Office of Professional Responsibility with conducting a comprehensive review of the incident," Donovan's statement said.

Video footage of the dinner showed the couple walking past journalists into the event. On Wednesday, Michaele Salahi's Facebook page included photos of the couple at the dinner, including two pictures with Vice President Joe Biden and another with Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, who was identified on the page as "Ron" Emanuel.

The couple's names did not appear on the guest list distributed Tuesday by the White House.

[DontTreadOnMe]

1. Seems like not the first thing to get past this Administration

*cough*

[Cha]

2. right..blame that on Obama too.

[HopeOverFear]

5. can you believe that stupid shit????

[zbdent]

11. Didn't you know? The FIRST thing he did 1/20/2009 was

fire all the Secret Service and hire people from ACORN!

:sarcasm:

gee ... they screwed up ... the security breach was supposed to be the day that (shock) all those people wearing the "Psalm 109:8" t-shirts get their prayers answered ...

[HopeOverFear]

4. Got a complaint? All you have to do is crash an Obama party.

Don't worry about Secret Service. They won't stop you. Just pray that there won't be any crazy teabaggers with a gun who get the same idea.

[rwheeler31]

6. We thnk otherwise.

[bluestateguy]

3. It may be cute and funny when it's a couple of self-promoters

Not so funny if it was some angry teabagger, Freeper, Birther or other anti-American troublemaker.

[Cha]

7. On another thread I said

I hope it's an easy lesson and not an invitation to other interlopers with bad intentions.

[HopeOverFear]

8. Exactly. It was just on the news. I hope some teabagger's not watching it

and getting a big idea.

[mn9driver]

9. This was a Secret Service mistake.

The current director of the Secret Service is Mark J. Sullivan, who got the job during the Bush regime. The wingnuts are already jabbering about how this "reflects" on the Obama administration.

Idiots.

[Cha]

10. Oh, I'm sure they are..they sink their rotten

teeth into anything if it's good or not..it doesn't matter. They'll twist it around to turn it ugly.

The problem for them is they've been whining and crying wolf for so long that they've rendered themselves impotent.