Salaam to the Salahis

by Becky Akers by Becky Akers Recently by Becky Akers: Optional Obedience

Years of enduring New York City's rats, roaches and rulers have frazzled my nerves and blunted my courage, so if I were going to crash a party, it wouldn't be one at which the Thief-in-Chief and 338 of his closest enablers are yukking it up. Heck, I'd have to count not only my pocket-change but my fingers and toes after doing time with such crooks. Michaele and Tareq Salahi thus deserve the Medal of Honor for fearlessly invading hostile territory last Tuesday.

Instead, "Secret Service officials said the agency … had not ruled out criminal charges." Of course not. It will be difficult, even impossible, to find any criminality whatsoever in a couple's attending sans invitation a party whose bills they're footing, but Our Masters will doubtless prove themselves equal to the challenge. And here you wondered why government disdains the Constitution and even the commonest of sense, you picky patriot, you! Meanwhile, regardless of whatever bogus charge the bozos invent, we all know the Salahis' real "crime": they made a fool of Leviathan. Ergo, the beast will pummel and pillory them.

It will also make an even bigger fool of itself as all concerned hyperventilate over a couple of silly publicity hounds grabbing an unauthorized handshake from His Highness. The Secret Service apparently competes with the Transportation Security Administration in the Presume-All-Citizens-Guilty Department: just as buying an airline ticket turns you into a terrorist liable to strip-searching and groping at airports, so approaching politicians makes us assassins. And the Service's servile apology for allowing the Salahis "to actually touch the president and First Lady Michelle on the receiving line" implies that these boors threaten anything other than good taste: "Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan expressed shame in a written statement, saying the agency … is u2018deeply concerned and embarrassed'…,” while spokesguy Ed Donovan advised, “It’s important to note that they went through all the security screenings – the magnetometer screening – just like all the other guests did.” Wow, what a relief: if nail-files and belt-buckles can sabotage an airplane, imagine what they would do to El Presidente's receiving line.

But the New York Post wins the prize for irony when it breathlessly points out that the Salahis "could have been extremely dangerous and even carrying biological weapons when they came u2018in physical contact with Obama.'" Hmmm. The Salahis sound stunningly gauche and obnoxious, but so far as I can determine, they haven't connived with the Pentagon to slaughter anyone. Yet ninnies worry about protecting a mass-murderer from them rather than the other way around.

For said killer to cavort at state dinners while hungry taxpayers face foreclosure … well, some might call it callous. But then, parasites always live high while their hosts suffer,  la Marie Antoinette in her "Rustic Faux Village" at Versailles: "It seemed a perverse extravagance, for the Queen to create a village for her own amusement while in many parts of France real peasants in real villages were in dire want." Indeed.

And so, with the gargantuan White House and its State Dining Room at their disposal, the Bushbamas nevertheless erected a "huge white" marquee on the South Lawn. But "it wasn’t your everyday tent," the Associated Press assures us. "This one had chandeliers suspended from the ceiling and beige carpet on the floor." Inside stood "tables draped in green apple-colored cloths and napkins, offset by the sparkle of gold-colored flatware and china." The amount squandered on flowers alone – centerpieces of "deep purple" supposed to evoke "the state bird of India, the Indian Peacock"; "arrangements of magnolia braches[, sic]…locally grown ivy, and nandina foliage" sprucing up the tent's walls – would likely have paid the mortgages on hundreds of homes, had Our Masters allowed those who earned the fortune thus wasted to keep their money. Ah, but fret not at the unconscionable extravagance: "The First Lady’s office says that all bouquets from the dinner re-used [sic] through the White House, as a means to recycle the flowers."

With the formerly employed lining up at food banks, Bushbama and accomplices such as Deepak Chopra, Hillary Clinton, Katie Couric, Joe Biden, and David Geffen feasted on "White House Arugula with Onion Seed Vinaigrette," "Roasted Potato Dumplings with Tomato Chutney," and "Green Curry Prawns with caramelized salsify with smoked Collard Greens and coconut aged basmati [rice]." They washed it down with the usual assortment of wines, then munched on "Petits fours … Cashew Brittle, Pecan Pralines, Passion fruit,… vanilla Gelees[, and]Chocolate dipped fruit." Recall that Marie eventually climbed into the tumbrel for another free ride, courtesy of the peasants off whom she had leeched all her life.

As if we care, this is the new Administration's first state dinner and "biggest social event" to date, with the prime minister of India and his wife as guests of honor. You might hope that even a PM would lack the gall to accept further robbery of Americans for this pomp and circumstance, given how much Our Rulers have already stolen from us on India's behalf: $116,576,000 in FY 2007, a paltry $86,821,000 the next (after a bureaucrat "slashed" aid – yeah, right), and a "request" of $77,382,000 for 2009. That comes to a whopping $280,779,000 the last three years alone. Wanna bet the PM hit Bushbama up for even more when "the two leaders…spen[t] the morning behind closed doors in a series of one-on-one and extended meetings with their broader delegations"? Wanna bet Barry the Bandit didn't even bother demurring before pledging our last few cents?

Out in the real world, Diane Doherty is an executive director at the Illinois Hunger Coalition who reports, “We’re hearing from more and more middle class who have never in their life gone to a food pantry. … They’re very, very frustrated and angry.”

Hey, folks: it's chow time at the White House. Come and get it.