The Salahis were well known wanna-be celebrity party-hounds on the Washington social scene. Is there any way that they were able to escape the notice of the Secret Service and is there any way that they could have crashed the gala gates without inside help?
Consider the mood of the country two and a half weeks ago. Obama's health reform bill was being pummeled by a right wing populist movement that was dominating the news cycles... The Blue Dog Democrats were threatening to scuttle the reform bill. The liberals were calling it "a sellout."
Obama was not able to get his message out above the din...
His approval was crashing from 70% to 47%. "Tea parties" and insurance lobbyists were massacring the message with tens of millions of dollars in anti-reform ads. Obama's staff, among the most sophisticated in history, had to stop the populist frenzy.
What better way than to let this arriveste couple -- the blonde former model and her polo playing husband -- crash a State Dinner. Great photos and sexy videos always trump dreary policy debates.
The media would eat up Michaele Salahi and her bare midriff sari ogling the young president. There are so many natural media angles. It would remind everyone of the danger to the young handsome president, the letdown of the Secret Service. But they had to lure the Salahis to the White House gala. For this, they had the help of Michele Jones, a decorated, loyal, defense department aide, who hinted to the Salahis that they "might" get an invitation.
The Salahis emailed her their date of birth and social security numbers and they were cleared as far as the Secret Service procedures goes.
This was all the Salahis needed, and the way was subtly paved for them at the entrance. They were cleared on Secret Service list, even if they weren't on the invited list.
The plan worked beautifully. The day after, the Salahis thanked war hero Jones for getting them in, Jones emailed them back. "You are most welcome! I here [sic] the smile in your email and am delighted that you and Michaele had a wonderful time ."
For two and a half weeks, Obama's falling polls number disappeared from front pages of the newspapers and airways. The Republicans would hold press conferences on the public option and surprise, surprise, nobody would come.
The only thing the American public wanted to see was Michaele posing with Obama, Biden and Katie Couric. Michaele was the life of the party. It became the most publicized state dinner in the history of the Republic.
The anti reform forces were muzzled. The only press traction the Republicans could get was when Peter King held hearings on the party crashers and the Secret Service's failure.
But the coup de grace for the political gurus was when the techno gnomes managed to break into Tiger Wood's text messages and leak them to the National Enquirer.
Bingo. A magnificent double play which virtually assured that the public could pay no attention at all to health care reform. The politicos had no idea that so many babes would keep coming out of the woodwork.
In these so critical weeks Obama, Rahm and the legislative operatives were left free to work their political magic out of the media klieg lights.
So be happy. The odds look better this morning.
And if we do get a health care reform bill passed, the real heroes -- who we owe a debt of gratitude to -- will be Michaele Salahi and her revealing red sari and Tiger's busty babes who stole the media spotlight.
Could it be?
Write: jfleetwood@aol.com
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she was supposed to be working!!!!!!!!!!!!
Go back to September. Obama's first 9/11 as president. No mention, no coverage in the MSM, what were they focused on?
Go back to the first several months of Obama's presidency look at all his national appearances go back a couple or so weeks before them and look at what the MSM was discussing and what we were told the President would be addressing the nation about. now watch those briefings, what happened?
I know one of those briefings I watched a saw him on the verge of saying to one of the reporters "Well if you were doing your job you wouldn't have to ask me that now would you?"
You're so very close Mr. Fleetwood but you need to work on the perspective. Why are the people being distracted? What do we have to be detracted from? What information is truly being withheld? What is the perspective we are being forced into? What is being kept invisible to the American people? If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it does it make a sound? If something happens and the media never mentions it did it really happen? Who is it that gets a disproportionate amount of attention and why?
Do you think that the majority democrats are doing a great job with their majority as compared with the republicans, who still managed to get their war-appropriations funded in spite of losing the house and senate, by appealing to low political instincts ("patriotism" "support the troops" etc...)?
Are they not forcing the American people to buy health-insurance from the same companies that have been screwing them for years instead of providing a meaningful alternative?
Did they not sell out, with scarcely any debate, the people who wanted single-payer health-care?