Uninvited couple met Obama, White House says

[Louisiana1976]

WASHINGTON — The celebrity-seeking couple who sneaked into a state dinner this week came face-to-face with President Obama and his wife, Michelle, the White House said Friday in a disclosure that underscored the seriousness of the security breach and prompted an abject apology from the Secret Service.

A White House spokesman said the couple, Michaele and Tareq Salahi of Virginia, met the president and first lady in a receiving line at their first state dinner, honoring Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India. That disclosure coincided with a statement in which the director of the Secret Service, Mark Sullivan, said his agency was “deeply concerned and embarrassed” by the events at the dinner Tuesday night.

“The preliminary findings of our internal investigation have determined established protocols were not followed at an initial checkpoint, verifying that two individuals were on the guest list,” Mr. Sullivan said.

snip

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/us/politics/28crasher.html?ref=us

[hijinx87]

1. holy crap

heads must roll. this can't be allowed to happen.

[DJ13]

2. Kinda hard to miss

[cherokeeprogressive]

3. I heard a Secret Service spokeshole today claiming that the couple should know

they ruined the employment and career opportunities of good Secret Service personnel (I'm paraphrasing).

Well fuck me runnin'... If they had been doing their jobs in the first place, nothing would have been ruined other than an attempt by two wannabes to get into a state dinner.

I'm kind of amused though; I posted about this when it first broke and the post was largely given the ho-hum nothing to see here move right along treatment.

Personally, I'd like to see some Secret Service heads roll over this.

[hijinx87]

4. I initially thought this episode was relatively harmless

until I saw that they gained direct access to President Obama. in my mind, that changed everything.

[Cha]

5. On the silver lining side..

It's a less hard lesson than it could be.

Sorry about the Secret Service careers.

[Thrill]

6. Thats shocking that they can just walk up to the President like that

Unreal

[Bobbieo]

7. The couple may have inadvertently done the President and Mrs. Obama a huge favor.

[hijinx87]

8. I don't get it

the secret service is already on a heightened alert due to the number of threats against the President. how they let these two in is beyond me.

[anneboleyn]

9. Of course the morons on Faux think this was harmless and funny. You know if Bush had met this couple

then everyone on Faux would have been screaming about how the president was in danger, terrorism, etc. I think that nobody in his/her right mind could think this was harmless. First, these two morons seem like seriously fucked up attention whores to me. Then the fact that they met Obama -- after slipping past the secret service -- is just disturbing. What if they had been freaks with bottles of anthrax or something, trying to get attention for some weirdo cause? I know they went through metal detectors, but how well were they searched? (I am not this type normally, but I don't like ANY security violations when it comes to Obama and this really bothered me).

[Raster]

10. It isn't just the morans on Faux. We have a (thankfully) small contingent that believes the

two attention whores "did nothing wrong."

[aquart]

11. How did they get in with a CAMERA CREW?

Didn't every member of that crew (even if it was one person) require press credentials?