PHOTO GALLERY:  White House State Dinner

So, a couple of folks not invited to the White House state dinner just stroll into the joint, big and bad as you please, right by security?

That story has been in the media all week. But how those characters got into the state dinner is the least of President Obama’s worries. Were I on his staff, I’d urge him to read Ronald Kessler’s book immediately. Yesterday couldn’t be soon enough.

Kessler is a former Washington Post and Wall Street Journal reporter who has won numerous awards. His book is called “In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect.” The nonfiction work gives a history of the trials and tribulations Secret Service agents had to go through over the years in not only protecting the nation’s chief executives, but also the problems posed by some of the more – let’s see, how should I put this? – quirky ones.

Some of the lowlights: President Lyndon Johnson would often walk around nude in the White House, as if Secret Service agents needed that particular visual. He was also often drunk, according to some agents, and, one observed “would (have sex) with anything that would crawl, basically.”

Obama may be the most normal president to occupy the Oval Office in quite a while, despite what his detractors say. And, as comedian Wanda Sykes has pointed out, Obama – unlike his predecessors Johnson and President Kennedy – actually has sex with his own wife in the White House.

But Kessler interviewed some current and former agents who feel that Obama’s life is in imminent danger because of lower standards and lax security practiced by the Secret Service. Those bozos crashing the state dinner is just the tip of the iceberg.

PHOTO GALLERY:  White House Party Crashers

All presidents face assassination threats from nuts of all types. Obama has to contend with those loonies AND white supremacist wack jobs who’ve made it clear they’re gunning for the man.

Kessler gave examples of a few in his book:

“Just before the election, two skinheads in Tennessee were charged with plotting to behead blacks across the country and assassinate Obama while wearing top hats and tuxedos … The day after the election, one of the most popular white supremacist Web sites got more than 2,000 new members. One posting on the site said, ‘I want the SOB laid out in a box to see how messiahs come to rest. God has abandoned us; this country is doomed.’

“Five days before Obama’s inauguration, Secret Service agents arrested Steven J. Christopher in Brookhaven, Miss., for allegedly saying on the Internet that he intended to kill Obama. His entries on a Web site devoted to government conspiracies and unexplained phenomena included racial and anti-Semitic remarks.”

Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, while not making a direct threat, made remarks that will no doubt encourage those inclined to carry them out. Here are his remarks, as Kessler reports in his book:

“Barack Obama has a long history of antagonizing white people. We as European Americans have to rally for our survival.”

What are the areas where the Secret Service has fallen down in protecting the president? Kessler interviewed current and former Secret Service agents who pointed to four:

1.  The Secret Service, according to agents Kessler interviewed, has abandoned the practice of screening crowds with magnetometer machines. These are the devices that detect firearms and other weapons, like, for example, the hand grenade a potential assassin hurled at former President George W. Bush when he visited the Russian province of Georgia .....

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If this couple were Black or Hispanic, they would be answering questions from jail.

by   
CAmira
December 3, 2009, 11:01 am
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This break-in is just as malicious and dangerous as the Watergate break-in. At the very least this couple’s conduct constitutes criminal trespass. They should be in jail giving interviews behind glass rather than through a TV screen. It appears someone from NBC or Bravo got them in on a press pass or an invitation that was meant for one of their executives. The investigation should center on who was invited from those networks whose invitation was presented but did not attend. It is obvious that NBC or Bravo knew that they planned to attend, filmed her preparation and helped them get in.

by   
Drwill911
December 3, 2009, 8:50 am
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This article seems to focus on the secret service and their issues more than the couple who boldly disrespected our President by coming to a party they were not invited to. I know that if my husband and I would have done this we would be in jail with no chance of getting out. These people need to be held accountable for their actions. That's the bottom line here and secondly if we have secret service issues related to money I blame those in charge of protecting our President. Haven't they heard of the phrase by any means necessary!

by   
Demitres
December 3, 2009, 8:26 am
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