Michael Smerconish: Why did they crash & run?
IF TAREQ and Michaele Salahi show up today to testify before the House Committee on Homeland Security, they could end the mystery of Through-the-Gate by answering just one question.
IF TAREQ and Michaele Salahi show up today to testify before the House Committee on Homeland Security, they could end the mystery of Through-the-Gate by answering just one question.
Why did you leave before dinner?
That's what I want the presumed White House interlopers to be asked.
During their Tuesday morning appearance on the "Today" show, the couple told Matt Lauer they were actually invited to the state dinner with the Indian prime minister.
"This has been the most devastating thing that's ever happened to us," Tareq Salahi said. "We're greatly saddened by all the circumstances that have been involved in portraying my wife and I as party crashers. I can tell you we did not party-crash the White House."
"We were invited, not crashers," Michaele said.
But that just doesn't pass the smell test.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said so on the very same show.
"They were not on a list here at the White House," he told Meredith Vieira. "They'd been told on a number of occasions that they did not have tickets for that dinner."
Told, presumably by Michele Jones, a special assistant to the secretary of defense. We now know the Salahis exchanged e-mails with Jones in the days leading up to the state dinner and that Jones was trying to find the couple a pair of tickets. Unnamed sources told the Washington Post that the Salahis thought Jones had gained their admittance to the cocktail hour.
FOR THE record, Jones denies she promised them anything. ("I did not state at any time, or imply that I had tickets for ANY portion of the evening's events," she said in a written statement.)
There's no indication that the event featured tiered attendance options, and I've never heard of a state dinner structured in that manner. Political fundraisers, yes. But not state dinners.
Which leaves the Salahis with this bizarre reality: They claim they were invited to the first state dinner hosted by the Obama administration, but didn't stay for the actual dinner.
That we're talking about a couple trying desperately to get on "The Real Housewives of D.C." doesn't help their case. Neither do allegations that they crashed a Congressional Black Caucus dinner in September. Or reports that the couple's nonprofit (the Journey for the Cure Foundation) and its signature event (the Land Rover America's Polo Cup) have bewildered customers and business sponsors in recent years.
And yet they want us to believe that after wrangling a spot on literally the most exclusive guest list in the world, they exited the White House early to go home and update their Facebook page?
No way.
I say that, if they were really invited, they would have stayed, taken more photos, pocketed their place cards and soaked in every single second of being one of the chosen few at what was the social event of the season in Washington.
I've never been to a state dinner. But I have been to a few White House Christmas parties. Nobody leaves early, not even the seasoned veterans. They are the sorts of affairs that you cherish until the end. No matter who you are, you don't get many experiences like this in life, and you don't know if you are ever going back.
Unlike the Christmas parties I've attended, which are large cocktail parties with many anonymous folks clutching drinks and eating hors d'oeuvres, state dinners are seated affairs in which every table is dotted with star power and every seat is rigorously assigned.
Among the 400 attendees of this most recent state dinner - aside, of course, from the Obamas, the Bidens, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former secretary Colin Powell - were Katie Couric, Brian Williams, Fareed Zakaria, Steven Spielberg, M. Night Shyamalan, Denzel Washington, Alfre Woodard, Blair Underwood, David Geffen and Gayle King.
Who wouldn't stay to be seated next to one of them? Assuming you had a seat. Which I doubt the Salahis did, despite whatever they're saying.
"We ended up going to the gate to check in at 6:30 p.m. to just check, in case it got approved, since we didn't know, and our name was indeed on the list!" the Salahis wrote in an e-mail to Jones hours after the dinner. "We are very grateful, and God bless you. We just got home, and we had a very wonderful evening as you can imagine."
Really? Then why'd you leave early?
Listen to Michael Smerconish weekdays 5-9 a.m. on the Big Talker, 1210/AM. Read him Sundays in the
Inquirer. Contact him via the Web at www.smerconish.com.