The gatecrasher episode story comes hard on the heels of the “balloon boy” farce, in which another pair of irresponsible reality show would-be’s led law-enforcement officers on a wild goose chase after falsely claiming that their young son was on board a home-made balloon that “escaped” from their yard. In fact they had hidden him in an attic. The lie became apparent only when they shamelessly paraded the unfortunate child before the TV cameras and he blurted out the truth.
At a superficial level, these stories are a depressing reflection of the popular obsession with the TV reality show, a mindless phenomenon in which ostensibly “normal” people are willing to stoop to almost any level to gain their 15 minutes of fame - and millions of others take pleasure in watching them do it. This form of programming appeals to the TV companies. It is significantly cheaper to produce than conventional drama or comedy, and there is a seemingly endless supply of willing participants. Most of these shows do not, of course, reflect “reality” – but the engineered emotions and contrived outcomes don’t seem to deter those who tune in each week.
On a more serious level, the gate-crasher couple’s ability to gain unauthorized access to what is supposedly the most secure facility in the United States, and get (literally) within touching distance of the President, Vice President and other senior political figures, raises troubling questions about the quality of protection the President receives. As the Secret Service were quick to point out, the interlopers had to pass through a magnetometer in order to get into the function. Big deal. Once inside, they had access to plenty of potential deadly weapons. Unlike airline meals, White House fare comes with real knives. This couple should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law – they deserve to spend some time in jail, not on a TV screen.
More interesting to me, though, was the White House response to all of this. It has emerged that the blame for this egregious breach of security may lie in part at the door of the White House Social Secretary and Obama confidante Desiree Rogers. Ms. Rogers reportedly failed to arrange for Social Office staffers to be on duty at the door to help the Secret Service vet arriving guests. Ms Rogers herself apparently was not at her post on the night of the state dinner (it is customary for the Social Secretary to greet guests as they arrive) – because she was preening in front of the cameras in a designer gown, hob-nobbing with the dignitaries and generally playing the role of invited guest. The Congressional Homeland Security Committee, which is investigating the breach of security, has a legitimate interest in questioning Ms. Rogers about what went wrong and what steps she is taking to ensure there are no repetitions. It should be simple enough. But astonishingly, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs rushed to announce that Ms. Rogers would not testify before Congress. "I think you know", Mr. Gibbs told a bemused press corps, "that, based on separation of powers, staff here don't go to testify in front of Congress."
What Mr. Gibbs appeared to be doing, without actually using the words, was invoking the doctrine of executive privilege. This is a absurd assertion in the circumstances, but one that has enormous potential political and constitutional implications for the future. As Mr. Gibbs ought to know, the doctrine of the separation of powers does not establish a broad or unqualified protection for members of the executive branch who would prefer not to have to testify before Congress – such testimony happens all the time. In a series of cases arising out of the Watergate break-in, the Supreme Court made clear that executive privilege is a narrow and qualified privilege that may be asserted only as to communications the President receives in discharging the responsibilities of his office and that bear upon policy or decision making. In such cases, moreover, the interests of the President in maintaining the confidentiality of the advice he receives must be balanced against other legitimate public interests. Whatever testimony Ms. Rogers could have given to the Homeland Security Committee on the planning of the White House dinner doesn't even come close to meeting the standard for asserting executive privilege, let alone for concluding that the President's interests in protecting those communications trumps the committee's performance of its legitimate oversight function.
Perhaps Mr. Gibbs chose not to use the term “executive privilege” because it would have evoked inconvenient memories of the Bush Administration’s expansive use of executive privilege to frustrate a series of investigations into potential White House wrongdoing. Congressional Democrats were righly angered by that, and it takes little imagination to figure out how they would have reacted had the Bush White House dismisively refused to permit its Social Secretary to testify under similar circumstances. The Democrats will no doubt give Obama a free pass this time, but the incident sounds an alarming warning bell that Obama will apparently follow the lead of his Republican predecessor – as he already has on other issues – and adopt an expansive view of executive privilege.
It would perhaps have been naïve to expect otherwise; the arrogance of power is not confined to one party. But Obama was supposed to be different. Isn't that why people voted for him? He pledged to change the culture of secrecy that pervaded the halls of the Bush White House and usher in an era of unprecedented transparency and openness in government.
That apparently, was another change we should not have believed in. As the French would say, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
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