Party Crashing Can Be a Serious Business

As I wrote in a reported story yesterday, as absurd as the White House state dinner crashing incident seems, with its reality-television implications, there are serious personnel and coordination issues at stake. For the Secret Service, the incident raises questions about staffing levels and the organization of the Uniformed Services division. And while it might seem like Republicans asking Desiree Rogers to testify about the incident at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Thursday are just aiming for an Obama administration scalp, there's a legitimate organizational issue there too if Rogers' office eliminated a role in clearing invitees as they went through security. It's an odd issue, intersection with the supremely goofy and the dead serious. But it's worth treating like the legitimate security issue that it is. The Salahis may not have been able to hurt the President because of other protective countermeasures in place. But they shouldn't have been able to get in proximity to him at all.