In Defense of the Salahis

Now, I really didn't want to write on this rather petty topic, and though I tend to sympathize with average people faced with powerful machinery, I understand the need to discourage any invasion of President Obama's security. But for rice's sake folks, I've never heard so much about a news story with so little attention to the facts. The Salahis very explicitly said they'd received e-mail messages from a specific Obama administration official extending some sort of possible invitation, and this official(though she angrily pointed out she'd cancelled it in a later message) didn't explicitly deny sending an ambiguous e-mail.

So these fairly average citizens showed up and walked into the party: very likely there was no real fraud, and no real disruption or threat to Obama's security. A devil's advocate would say we should be deeply grateful to the Salahis... for exposing serious shortcomings in the Secret Service(three secret service agents not doing their job at a critical function indicates an organizational challenge to be overcome.)

Worse, this case indicates how much of our media is operating: they're on message, they're unambiguous, they are incapable of seeing more than one side to a story.

In conclusion, my respect for the Obama administration would increase if they stepped in and showed a little forgiveness: maybe trade cooperation with all investigations in exchange for complete immunity.