White House Gate-Crashers: Austin Lee

I remember my Grandmother reading Alice in Wonderland to me as a child.  In the story there is a character called "The Queen of Hearts."  The Queen of Hearts was not properly named, because at the slightest offense she would decree, "Off with their head!"  Not really a heart warming character in literature.  One of the more interesting things that The Queen of Hearts implemented was a new type of justice where the sentence was carried out before the verdict was determined.

Last week Tareq and Michaele Salahi crashed the first state dinner of the Obama presidency.  Immediately the news media began to behave much like The Queen of Hearts in my childhood book.  On every channel there were pundits screaming for their heads on a platter as soon as possible.  This happened on every channel, I looked.  It seems like no one wants to get down to the bottom of it: Sentence before verdict.

So they crashed a party, big deal.  As far as I know its not a crime to crash a party.  Judging from the picture of Joe Biden, he didn't mind Mrs. Salahi being at the party.  The problem for me isn't that they crashed the party, its why they crashed the party.  Our country has become so enamored with stardom and fame that a state dinner at the White House has become just another way to get your 15 minutes of fame.  Whether they are punished or not is not as important to me as whether or not we can find out how to regain the prestige of the Office of the President of the United States of America.

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