Michaele and Tareq Salahi

Obama hosts the first state dinner of his administration, an extravagant event, and what's the only thing the public cares about?

The fact that the party was crashed by Michaele and Tareq Salahi.

Since Wednesday, these two have been a media obsession. They must be thrilled.


Nov. 24, 2009: President Barack Obama greets Michaele and Tareq Salahi during a receiving line in the Blue Room of the White House before the State Dinner with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India. (Photo/White House)

From the New York Times:

As White House officials fended off new questions about how a fame-seeking couple finessed their way into the president’s glittering state dinner last week, the aspiring reality-TV stars themselves began trying to sell their story for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Television industry executives said on Saturday that Michaele and Tareq Salahi had postponed plans for an interview Monday on CNN’s “Larry King Live” and were seeking top-dollar bids for their first television interview.

The Salahis, who embarrassed the Secret Service by passing through its security screens as if invisible and then posed for the cameras with President Obama and many of his bona fide guests at a party honoring India’s prime minister, remained out of sight on Saturday and their spokeswoman did not return calls. The Secret Service would not comment or say whether investigators have interviewed the pair.

For years, the Salahis have publicized their own flashy adventures in the social and sporting scenes of Washington and its outlying horse country, and left behind a record of lawsuits and unpaid bills, many from the bankruptcy of the family vineyard after extended litigation between Mr. Salahi and his parents.

As questions continued to swirl about the pair’s most remarkable appearance to date, a television network executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the network does not publicly comment on payments, said the couple’s asking price for an interview was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. “They are asking for best offers from all the networks,” the executive said. Programs quietly pay steep fees for photographs and videos to secure interviews in some cases.

Separately, a CNN spokesman confirmed that the appearance on Mr. King’s talk show was postponed on Friday.

The Salahis want more than fame. They want money.

I don't think these pathetic people should be paid for an interview. I don't think any network should give them a forum at all.

Balloon boy and his family didn't get paid for their media blitz in the hours after their stunt. Falcon Heene even provided the added entertainment of throwing up on national TV -- for free!

No way should the Salahis receive money to brag about crashing the state dinner.

Meanwhile, several invited guests who had entered the White House through the same entrance as the Salahis said the Secret Service’s normal security check-in process, familiar to many of them, had been haphazard.

They said Secret Service guards had not directed the visitors through the guardhouse with its metal detector and X-ray screeners, located just inside the east entrance. Instead, after guards glanced at ID cards in the dark, they waited in a chilly mist outside the East Wing portico. Then they were funneled to a portable metal detector but no X-ray scanner for checking other belongings.

This is really disturbing.

The lax security is inexcusable.

What were they thinking?

The Salahis were not national celebrities but they assiduously cultivated an image as well-connected Washington socialites.

Michaele Salahi has boasted about her work for high-profile charities and is being considered for a brighter spotlight, as a cast member on Bravo’s “The Real Housewives of D.C.” Mr. Salahi, born in Washington, was chief executive of Oasis Winery, a now-bankrupt winery in Virginia that his father started in the 1970s. A polo player, Mr. Salahi also founded the America’s Polo Cup, an annual international match that takes place in Washington.

Bravo cannot allow Michaele Salahi to be a cast member. That would be sending a terrible signal to every crazed publicity seeking nutjob in the country.

I would like Obama to make a public statement about this incident.

He should say that the Salahis and the Secret Service acted stupidly, the way he did when he spoke out against the Cambridge police.

But in this case, he would be right.