Iris, I am hopeful that you will never read this. Because everyone is scared of you and so I probably should be too.
But against my better judgment, I would like to disagree with you about the Salahis, and the media that allowed them to dominate of the 24-hour news cycle during the week after Thanksgiving.
First of all, yes, the Secret Service failed epically the night of the State Dinner. But, to be completely honest, the Salahis do not pose a threat to national security. You have to be devious or at least intelligent to do so, and I don’t believe that the Salahis necessarily measure up to the “threatening” level. They are probably closer to the “attention getting” level, which is not really an amber alert.
It’s not like anyone is really concerned about the safety of our president at a state dinner, anyway. Everyone is (or should be) on the guest list and has been through enough security to rival 5 or 6 international flights.
The argument of the media is that if the Salahis were smart/stupid enough to get in, someone intending to cause harm could sneak past security undetected. Perhaps we should be giving thanks that the Secret Service had their crisis on a pair of idiots, rather than on someone who was actually dangerous.
Also, this apparently wasn’t the first time that the Salahis had met Obama. They may have met at a 2005 Polo Cup Event. They probably just wanted to catch up and decided that the state dinner would be a great place to do so; it’s formal, yet casual. Plus, they are big fans of India and famous people.
I would like to agree with you that they are getting more attention than they deserve, are undermining the purpose of the State Dinner (which was to honor the Prime Minister of India) and I agree with Aubrey, I’m tired of hearing about them.
I don’t think I would agree with you on this post. I think despite the intelligence levels of the Salahis, the fact of the matter is they still got into the party with out an inivitation. You thought they didn’t pose a threat to national security but I have to suggest, what if they did. What if the Salahis really did want to try and kill the President. You believe they’re probably just acting like “attention whores” but I think it still is important to recognize the reality that people who were not supposed to be at that party were, and whether they had good intentions or not they breached security and I think that’s the most important aspect of all of this. I don’t care what their intentions were or how intelligent they were, I simply believe that they got into the party with out an inivitation and something needs to be done to prevent any more situations like this from occurring.
Matt, thanks for your post!
Just a clarification, I don’t think the Salahis are stupid. I think that the way in which they are acting is embarrassing, for themselves and the nation as a whole. Maybe my sarcasm got in the way of my point, sorry! But I do think that it was a good thing that they got into the State Dinner because this gives the Secret Service the opportunity to improve what they do, so that it does not happen again.