Okay, so by now we all know about the Salahis, the couple in controversy who have been accused of crashing a White House State Dinner. Aside from this incident being grist for the media mill, one has to wonder just what the Secret Service was doing and how party planners and White House staffers coordinate security for affairs of state. Considering that this couple shared proximity with the President Barack Obama and had their pictures taken with Vice President Joe Biden, and White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, you have to wonder, after hundreds of billions spent on Homeland Security, just what the deal is here.
This is the most basic of security measures. Not only is this the kind of guest screening that should have long ago become a routine measure, the affair of state occurs in a highly controlled environment, the White House. It is not like the President of the United States was out giving a speech in a shopping mall or foreign country where the environment is much more difficult to secure. The White House. His house.
Now we all grew up with the notion of the ubiquitous powers and effectiveness of federal law enforcement. We assume without hesitation that the Secret Service is more than capable of protecting the President at his house and during a dinner. This is a dinner, after all, where the guests are hardly criminal thugs or members of terrorist organizations. These are heads of state, dignitaries, and more notably people with no intention of harming the President. Politically, maybe. But certainly not physically.
Okay, so you have the invitation list and as legend has it the Secret Service conducts extensive background checks on any of the invited guests. The guests are cleared first before they are finally permitted entry to the state affair. And then along come the Salahis and walk right in, have their picture taken with just about everyone. And don’t they look fabulous? Heavy points on their social climbing scale. Especially for a couple who reportedly contributed $1,600 to political organizations over the past nine years. That is $1,600 total, hardly the last of the big spenders when it comes to political contributions.
I won’t debated whether they were invited or not. As for what they should do with them, prosecute them, send them to bed without their suppers is a moot point. The big point is how did the Secret Service let them into the state dinner? They have a guest list. They should have the results of the background checks. At the very list they should have immediate access to the results of the background checks should some suspicious creature decided to come to the part anyway.
In the case of the Salahis, they were not on the list and no background check was conducted. It is bad enough to be not posted on the list. But then because of some oversight, even if there was a glitch on the guest list, wouldn’t the Secret Service consult their databases to be sure the couple had cleared their background checks. Guest list or no, wouldn’t it be advisable to confirm that this couple or any other couple, a stray dog, did not pose a security risk to the President of the United States, his cabinet, staff and everyone else whose loss could plunge this nation into terrible disarray?
The moral of the story, be you the Secret Service, and employer or a state or public agency, first you run the background checks. Then, most importantly, you review them to know who has passed and who has failed to meet the threshold. Otherwise, why are you even bothering to conduct them?
