Desirée Rogers… has been cruising for a bruising since telling The Wall Street Journal in April: “We have the best brand on Earth: the Obama brand. Our possibilities are endless.” She wanted to pose for The Journal in an Oscar de la Renta gown in the first lady’s garden, but the press secretary, Robert Gibbs, vetoed that.
The statuesque social secretary brandishing a Harvard M.B.A. and animal-print designer shoes is not any mere party planner. The old friend of the first couple from Chicago has the exalted and uncommon title of social secretary and special assistant to the president.
Instead of standing outside with a clipboard, eyeballing guests as Anne Hathaway did in “The Devil Wears Prada,” Desirée was a guest at the dinner, the center of her own table of guests, just like the president and first lady…
Desiree Rogers obviously didn’t know her place. Sop slabbed her yesterday in Speaking of Allstate, Anyone else remember Desirée Rogers? and Maureen Dowd’s Op-Ed for the NYT Who’s Sari Now? definitely put her in it – and well it should. ( h/t observant reader)
…the breached White House wall serves as a prism to examine our society, our president and our values.
We live in an age obsessed with “reality” and overrun by fakers. The mock has run amok.
This decade will be remembered for the collapse of the Twin Towers, the economy and any standard of accomplishment for societal prestige.
TPM joined the conversation adding comment from the President:
President Obama spoke today about the state dinner security breach, admitting that “the system didn’t work the way it was supposed to.”
But Obama also told USA Today and the Detroit Free Press that he has full confidence in the Secret Service and feels safe in the White House. I could not have more confidence in the Secret Service,” he said. “I trust them 100%, not just with me but with my wife and my childre
He should. The Secret Service is trustworthy. Rogers is not. Dowd made that point when she wrote, “if Congress investigates social climbing and party crashing in Washington, it won’t have time for anything else.”
What Ms. Rogers has done by not knowing her place is create a distraction from the attention Congress needs to be giving to the President’s agenda at a time when no distraction was needed. Simply stated, she’s not competent to serve in the President’s kitchen cabinet – or the White House kitchen. Ms. Rogers owes the nation an apology.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuqrd_Hau4c]
Nowdy is certainly experiencing the magic of having one of her old post wear very well with time. 🙂
So many folks have been mentioned here through time time in our 2200 plus posts (and over 7700 comments) I know I don’t remember all the players. Desiree was one I remembered.
Isn’t it funny how some of these folks keep turning up in different spots like bad pennies?
sop
For our readers that are so inclined Sup did ask the question over on Yahoo ALL and he got what I think are 2 authoritative replies though we’ve yet to hear from “Peggy”. 🙂 (Annreport is one of my personal favorite yahoo characters of all times)
The link to that discussion on Ms Rogers value to Allstate is here.
Yes we can! (The more things change the more they stay the same.)
sop
Best line yet comes from story up today: W.H. to Rogers critics Back off
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20091203/pl_politico/30193
Desiree Rogers is just another member of a minority group who has been elevated to the position she now holds (but not for long) by virtue of her “connections” and/or skin color. She already has demonstrated her incompetency, and why she still has a job at the White House is anybody’s guess (but then no one has been “sacked” over the Fort Hood fratricide, and no one has been “sacked” over the Christmas bombing attempt near Detroit, so allowing uninvited guests into State Dinner is apparently “no big deal”). But you know what, it IS a big deal, because The Washington Post ran an article recently, announcing that a Grand Jury had been convened in D.C. to investigate whether “false statements” were made to the Federal Government in connection with the investigation of how the gate-crashers got access to a State Dinner. (Former Judge “Bobby” DeLaughter can tell all of us how dangerous it is to lie to the Federal Government, huh?). Watch out, Desiree, and polish up those resume’s for when you get out of the Federal penitentiary.
and this Rogers’ lady’s claim to fame is an MBA from Harvard and being friends w/the first couple? Always comes down to who you know, what you know and connections. It’s the American way.
SHIRLEY HEFLIN
P.S. Now you’ve guys have got me curious and i have to “investigate” what her ties are w/Allstate…tx for making the “investigation” so easy! 🙂
It was Ms Rogers ties to Allstate that lead to the first post after the election in 2008. Obama, via the Chicago machine politics Sup mentioned has ties to former FEMA directror James Lee Witt who runs Protectingamerica.org, which is a nonprofit front for Allstate in regulatory issues like the NFIP authorization. This in turn is what attracted us to Jamie Perdigao who alleged former Louisiana Insurance Commish Robert Wooley had illict ties to the same group in his racketeering complaint against Allstate’s NOLA based firm Adams and Reese which we have revisted of late due to the breaking political corruption scandal in Jefferson Parish. That should just about catch you up. 😉
This is kind of like that old TLC series Connections eh?
sop
Revisiting that post, Sop, reminded me of misgivings I had at the time – wondering if I’d been too quick to judge but as it turned out…we not only didn’t get invitation to the ball, “the slabbed” have definitely not been recognized at all by the Obama administration – as if Katrina really didn’t happen.
Hey, Nowdy, you haven’t “figured it out” yet? For you to “matter” to Obama and Michelle (and to Harry and Nancy), you have to be (1) Negro; (2) Colored (ie. Mulatto); (3) Haitian; (4) Haitian with AIDS; (4) Any race with AIDS; (5) Homosexual; (6) Hispanic; (7) Muslim (whether a Muslim “terrorist” or not, doesn’t matter, just so long as one is a subscriber to “that Religion of Peace”); (8) Liberal, whether Jewish, Caucasian, Eastern European, Communist, or Socialist – it really doesn’t matter; (9) Inmate in a Penal Institution, ie. a “political prisoner” or a felon (preferably with more than one conviction or plea of “Guilty”) out of jail, with all rights restored; (10) People who don’t pay income taxes or property taxes (for “whatever” reason); (11) Illegal Alien (whether an “enemy combatant” or not); and (12) Citizens and/or legal or illegal aliens who drive automobiles with NO liability insurance or functioning emission control systems. And you know what, with only @ 35% to 40% of registered voters actually voting, and the elimination of those casting ballots being required to produce I.D. on election day, the above-identified “minorities” are more than sufficient to “CARRY” the election and to retain “Obummer” in office! Get with the program, Nowdy. (I can tell you how to contract AIDS).
I didn’t realize she was still on the payroll.
Incompetence obviously pays in DC. Sop, the Prez has protection of his Chicago cronies in his mind, not the good folks of the MS Gulf Coast. His world is crumbling and it started in of all places MA.
She is, Sup.
The usual way people deal with situations when they’re committed to a certain direction is to surround themselves with people who won’t challenge them and dismiss those who are willing to hang in and offer a different perspective – isolating themselves from any suggestion there may be different and better ways to end up where they want to go.
As Sop said,” it’s the way things work” – and to that I add not just in the White House or politics but even in our own offices and homes. Unfortunately, it is with the clarity of hindsight that we most often see how those we dismissed were the very ones needed to achieve the desired outcome – but they’ve been put in their place and, most often, are long gone.
Yep Nowdy just Clinton’s people did Brooksley Born. I think Team Obama won’t be ignoring the bitch slap they just got across their jug heads.
sop