This self-serving article from Politico is interesting in the way it tries to portray the position of the WH on this issue and on the way it supports its chosen. I notice that last week that Jones guy is back in the good graces again and is working as a consultant to the same group he was running. Now we are told to back off in this case. Strange how things that would be unthinkable for Bush are hunky dory with Obama.
*W.H. to Rogers critics: Back off* By: Alexander Burns December 3, 2009 05:44 PM EST If White House social secretary Desiree Rogers <http://topics.politico.com/index.cfm/topic/DesireeRogers> survives this week's withering attacks over her role in last week's state dinner security breach <http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30135.html>, she'll have gotten by with a lot of help from her friends in the West Wing. As a House committee opened hearings Thursday <http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30177.html> on how two uninvited partygoers were able to enter the White House grounds and shake hands with President Barack Obama <http://topics.politico.com/index.cfm/topic/BarackObama>, top presidential aides delivered a clear message to critics of this favored staffer: Back off. In a White House <http://topics.politico.com/index.cfm/topic/WhiteHouse> not known for its tolerance of staffing errors, Rogers has been the beneficiary of an unprecedented show of support from senior administration officials. A former corporate executive from Chicago, Rogers has known the Obamas for more than a decade and seems blessed with a status that may shield her from the fate of departing White House counsel Greg Craig <http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29508.html> or Louis Caldera, the Military Office head who was canned for a botched Air Force One photo op. Rogers's office started taking heat last week after it was reported that the White House did not station staff members at the security checkpoint to help the Secret Service screen guests at the state dinner <http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29900.html> for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, as has been customary in previous administrations. When the House Homeland Security Committee invited Rogers to testify about how Tareq and Michaele Salahi managed to reach Obama unimpeded, the White House declined to make Rogers available and said its internal report on the incident would suffice. "We think we've answered the questions fully," senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, a close friend of Rogers from Chicago, said on ABC News on Thursday. "We think it's important to have a balance and have the White House staff able to have confidential conversations with the president and his team without appearing before Congress." For the second day in a row, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters that the administration had no intention of making Rogers available for lawmakers' questions, brushing off the charge by Rep Peter King <http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/1209/king_charges_coverup_9566ff83-c311-4070-ad7b-a39c3504b166.html> (R-N.Y.), the Homeland Security committee's ranking member, that the administration was "stonewalling" the congressional probe. "There's, I think, a pretty long history of ensuring that White House staff can provide advice to the president and do so confidentially," Gibbs said. Acknowledging that White House staff members have testified at congressional hearings before, Gibbs said the current probe should not require a level of cooperation reminiscent of investigations into the Watergate and Whitewater scandals or the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "I don't think even Peter King would have the audacity to, in some way, put the Salahis in the trifecta of Watergate, 9/11 or some of the financial dealings," Gibbs said. "If that's the case, then maybe I have been here and just haven't quite seen it all." Though an internal White House report unveiled by deputy chief of staff Jim Messina on Wednesday concluded staffers "did not do everything we could have done to assist the United States Secret Service" at the state dinner, Gibbs also offered a strong endorsement of Rogers in his Wednesday briefing. "The first family is quite pleased with her performance," Gibbs said. The unequivocal statement of support contrasted sharply with the White House's treatment of other staffers who have stumbled on the job. While Rogers isn't the first White House aide to take hits from the Hill, she may be the first to do so with such ferocious support from her superiors. When Caldera, a former Army secretary, created a media firestorm last spring by authorizing an Air Force One flyover of lower Manhattan, there was no similar sympathy. "Mr. Caldera took responsibility for this. I think it's been characterized that the president was furious upon learning of this decision," Gibbs said on April 28, dooming Caldera for an incident analogous to last week's security breach in its freakishness and its unsettling resonance in the post-Sept. 11 era. This fall, when speculation grew that Craig might be on his way out as White House counsel, Gibbs offered only carefully parsed support for the embattled lawyer, telling a reporter who asked if Obama had confidence in his counsel: "Greg Craig is in the president's office every day as part of a small group of senior advisers that meet with him daily." Even if it's breaking internal precedent, the administration's pushback against Rogers's critics hasn't convinced all members of Congress that the social secretary was clear of blame in last week's security lapse, however. The vice chairwoman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.), told POLITICO on Thursday she was troubled by the apparent oversight by White House staff. "It's always been my experience that the White House --- either social division or legislative division, in the case of when Congress people are coming --- are always at the front gate," Sanchez said, adding that she had not yet reviewed the White House's internal report. "I mean, come on, even Wal-Mart has a greeter." And while the White House expressed doubt that King would keep up his assault on Rogers's performance, the outspoken New Yorker showed no sign of rhetorical retreat in the House hearing. Calling Rogers's absence "an affront to our committee," King declared: "For our committee to work with the White House, there had to be an element of trust. They have breached that trust." King and other conservatives also continued raising questions about the legitimacy of the White House's argument that Rogers's attendance at a hearing would violate the separation of powers. The social secretary's job, they said, does not involve the kind of confidential and sensitive relationship with the president that previous administrations have cited to block staff testimony. "It's essentially saying that anybody who works at the White House is immune from being compelled to testify in front of Congress, which is much further than we ever went," said Bill Burck, a former deputy White House counsel under President George W. Bush. "It doesn't make a lot of sense to me as a principled decision." But despite some members' frustration with the White House reticence, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) announced Thursday he would not approve a subpoena to compel testimony from Rogers, whom Thompson said he viewed as a secondary player in the incident. If the White House's citation of separation of powers rankled some, the move is not without defenders. Jack Quinn, who served as White House counsel during the Clinton administration, said the White House was justified in preventing Rogers's testimony, arguing: "The separation of powers issue is real, and it is important." "As for Ms. Rogers," he added, "I do not know her, but I do know that it is not her job to ensure the security of the White House and the president. What went amiss at the state dinner should not be laid at her doorstep or that of her staff." Š 2009 Capitol News Company, LLC <http://www.irides.com> -- Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. 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