Are we upset with Desirée Rogers' failure – or her success?
OPINION - As images of White House party crashers Tareq and Michaele Salahi begin to fade, those of White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers have become larger than life...
Until two weeks ago, ‘pretty, posh, and powerful’ were apt descriptions for White House social secretary Desirée Rogers. But since the Obama’s first state dinner, an event tarnished by publicity-seeking party crashers, Rogers has been relegated to a term some believers find more befitting for women like her: she has been ‘put in her place.’
That’s my takeaway from the incessant coverage given Rogers since would-be Virginia socialites Michael and Tareq Salahi finagled their way into the VIP dinner honoring India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Never mind that it was the Secret Service’s job to approve all 300-plus guests who entered the affair. And never mind that the unit charged with protecting the president at all times has accepted full responsibility for its security breach.
No. What matters most to some columnists, pundits and readers are Rogers’ clothes, hair, shoes and, for heaven’s sake, her academic degrees. I’m sorry, but when did being well groomed and educated become synonymous with incompetent, inattentive and, as suggested by one online commenter, lazy?
Last week, April Ryan, White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks, engaged in a bout of verbal sparring with Robert Gibbs, White House press secretary, over this very matter. Not only did Ryan press a resistant Gibbs to answer whether or not Rogers herself was even invited to the event – a strange question considering that Rogers organized the thing – she also referred to Rogers as being ‘the belle of the ball’ who may have ‘overshadowed the First Lady.’
Several references were also made to Rogers’ attendance at fashion shows and social events. The tense and heated confrontation between Ryan – who is herself African-American – and Gibbs, which resulted in Gibbs comparing Ryan to his child, highlighted that there are deeper issues behind the questioning over Desirée Rogers’ role at the state dinner. Some have even suggested that Ryan is upset that another black woman has managed to land such a prestigious role.
Yes, Rogers or someone from her staff should have been at the gates with the Secret Service to ensure that only persons on the guest list gained entry to the dinner. However, it’s ridiculous to demand that Rogers appear before a congressional hearing.
I’m curious about what the hearings would produce – their costs and the line of questioning.
“Ms. Rogers, do you know your place?”
“Is it true that you were powdering your nose while the Salahis were sneaking into the White House?”
“Were you posing with celebrities while the Salahis were posing with Joe Biden?”
Or, perhaps we’ll be surprised with a softer, gentler line of questioning.
“Did you, as some news media reported, fail to sit for more than five minutes during the three-hour event because you were doing your job?”
I asked some friends whether I alone find it odd that so much focus has been on the 50-year-old Rogers’ designer clothes, stunning looks and Harvard M.B.A. My longtime friend, Harriet, a white woman from South Carolina, put it this way:
“Here’s the deal. People are saying, ‘Hey, this administration changed a policy that was in place for 20 years – that of having a social staffer at every security checkpoint – and look what happened.’ So now they are going back to that policy, but that’s not why it happened. It was a fluke; the secret service deserves full responsibility, and Desiree Rogers is getting a lot of flak, in my opinion, because she’s not old, frumpy and invisible like former social secretaries.”
My friend Susan is a political fanatic with an uncanny ability to recite poll numbers. She says that although Rogers erred by not having staffers at key checkpoints with the Secret Service detail, “comments about her wardrobe, style, and anything unrelated to her duties are off base. I think they are making it an issue because anything dealing with this White House is nitpicked. There are more pressing issues they could be writing about.”
Finally, another friend who hails from Chicago and has written extensively about issues of gender and race, says she can’t help but hear echoes of the “uppity negro,” terms that also were used to describe Barack Obama during his race for president. “I think this has really got to be hard for (mainstream white) culture for a black woman to win at the white women’s beauty, fashion and power game,” she says. “This isn’t Maya Angelou or Marian Wright Edelman or Toni Morrison, women who sort of staked out their own world and excelled. This is [Rogers] outdoing them at their game – on every level.”
As White House correspondent April Ryan’s questioning suggests, however, it may not only be white people who are upset at Rogers’ success. As images of White House party crashers Tareq and Michaele Salahi schmoozing with world leaders at the White House began to fade, those of White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers have become larger than life. Rogers not doing her job properly is an issue. So far it hasn’t been found that that’s the case. Other criticisms of her style and personality seem like nothing but ways to undermine a black woman in a powerful position.
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