GA Couple Found Its Way, Uninvited, into a White House Breakfast **With an EDIT**

I’m sure you all remember the news that broke a while back when a couple of would-be reality star party crashers (the Salahis) managed to schmooze their way into a White House dinner. The fact that a couple of people could do such a thing at the hosue of the most powerful man in the world was shocking to say the least. The Secret Service had a black mark on its record for such a breach. Then the news broke that the Salahis were only one of many such breaches. The black marks these revelations leave on the Secret Service’s reputation must be huge. This is the house of the most powerful man in the world, after all.

Well, I checked out the website of my local newspaper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (I have other names for it, especially where Cynthia Tucker is involved), today to find that among the uninvited guests were a Georgia couple. Quoth the AJC:

It wasn’t a state dinner, and they didn’t crash it on purpose.

Still, a Georgia couple who showed up at the White House a day early for a tour somehow wound up at an invitation-only breakfast with President Barack Obama and the first lady. It left the White House once again explaining how people who were not on an event guest list wound up being ushered into the presidential mansion anyway.

The improbable adventure of Harvey and Paula Darden, Obama supporters from Hogansville, Ga., took place on Veterans Day, two weeks before Virginia socialites Tareq and Michaele Salahi infamously crashed the Obamas’ state dinner for the prime minister of India.

The Dardens mistakenly showed up a day early for a tour scheduled through their congressman.

To the White House’s credit, the AJC points out:

The White House and Secret Service both said the Dardens went through the appropriate security screenings and were allowed into the breakfast as a courtesy because there were no public tours the day they arrived.

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EDIT: I should have mentioned this when I originally posted this, but apparently the White House’s story doesn’t mesh with what the Dardens were told while they were there. As the article points out:

That explanation was news to Harvey Darden, 67, a retired pharmacist, who said he and his wife thought they were starting their tour and weren’t told about the change — until they were ushered into the East Room, offered a buffet spread and told they’d be meeting the president.

“The further we got into the White House, the more surprised we were,” Darden told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “My wife looked at me and I looked at her, and I said, ‘You know, I don’t know if we’re in the right place.'”

They approached a White House aide with their concern that they had veered off course but were told to “just go with the flow,” Darden said.

Sounds like the White House is trying to do a bit of CYA to me.

End of EDIT

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Now, this may make for a nice story for the Dardens to tell their children, grandchildren, and friends, but it’s still part of a disturbing trend of uninvited party crashers at the White House. How’d they even get in if it was a day early for their tours and there weren’t any public tours of the WH scheduled that day anyways? What if they’d been more than just tourists. I shouldn’t have to be asking these questions.

Vladimir of RedState, put it as well as I ever could:

Let me be direct. My plans for November 2012 include voting against Barack Obama for the Office of the Presidency. Your #1 job is keeping the man safe until then. Safe, as in not-letting-harm-come-to-a-single-hair-on-his-head safe.

Amen, Obama needs to get over his obsession with being liked and followed by his cult of fans and know when security matters.

Acta est fabula.