I’m not linking but Kaplan has a big Sally Quinn piece calling for the head of Desiree Rogers. It’s pretty fucking comical:
Obama has had some real successes this fall. He did a masterful job of bringing together incredibly disparate positions to craft a strategy for Afghanistan. He put himself on the line and will probably come up with a reasonable health-care plan. He left Copenhagen with at least promises of cooperation from other world powers regarding climate change. But he is not getting credit that he deserves because he is being ill served by those around him who will not step up as needed and take the fall for him.
The president needs to start making that happen. The first step would be to accept the resignations of Sullivan and Rogers today.
That’s right, folks — global warming, health care reform, and a couple of nuts crashing a state party dinner are all equally important issues.
But take heart, none is as important as a president getting a blow job from an intern.
I can’t do this justice, but Digby and Bob Somerby probably can.
BR
I’m still waiting for these big papers to take the two biggest issues we’re facing – climate change and natural resource depletion (peak oil, etc.) – seriously. These could define the life the next generation lives, yet we rarely hear about it except as a partisan pinata.
Kris
Sally Quinn is a racist. What else is new?
Zam
I’m really glad this weeks big story will be the third party crasher.
handy
Somerby actually had a good piece up today about the NYT’s tactic of using “concerned citizens” as proxy to repeat RW talking points vis-a-vis its Letters to the Editor section.
Gotta love our librul newspapers.
r€nato
and with that and 4 bucks you can get a cup of coffee at Starbucks.
Is there a clinical term for irritation and anger caused by reading the thoughts of people who have no fucking business being allowed to share their thoughts in an institution like the Post? You know, Sally Quinn, Liz Cheney…
Ash Can
As if anyone — especially the prez — gave Flying Fuck Number One about anything Sally Quinn says.
gnomedad
Somewhat OT, Frank Schell thinks Obama should grow a spine and call for “personal responsibility” from citizens as well as bankers:
Ooh, ooh, I know! The O-man could throw on a cardigan, go on TV and tell people to set back their theromstats. That worked well before. The Repubs would totally support him. Because they are the party of personal responsibility.
The Dangerman
@Ash Can:
Flying Fuck Number One; is that with a trapeze or a trampoline?
burnspbesq
Sorry, but I’m ignoring all of that stuff tonight.
Yea verily I say unto thee, tis a good night to be a Dookie.
College of Charleston 82, College of Chapel Hell 79.
PeakVT
Who the heck is Desiree Rogers?
hovercraft
It’s a rehash of the Clinton meme of outsiders have invade our gentile society. Carter was a hick peanut farmer, Clinton was a southern rube, and now we have this upstart from Chicago/ Hawaii/ Kenya/ Indonesia/ they are destroying the social fabric of our social hierarchy. How can they do this, Desiree must go, Robin Givahn said that Michelle is lazy and unfocused and uppity and so is Desiree .
Brachiator
The Washington social scene defines reality for some in the Village, especially people like Quinn who love to trace their ancestry back to near-Mayflower antecedents.
I’m sure that for some in the Beltway, Obama’s failure to pay sufficient attention to the importance of the White House Social Secretary is an impeachable offense.
burnspbesq
@gnomedad:
Frank Schell is an idiot. Since when is being defrauded a sign of lack of personal responsibility?
r€nato
@gnomedad:
yeah, Americans will get right on that, the moment corporate America quits spending billions of dollars a year manipulating us into believing we’re incomplete without an iPod, a BMW, a giant house, and a Visa card.
Yutsano
@burnspbesq: ‘Tis a great night to be a Bronco as well.
17-10 Boise State. But Jaysus watching that game almost gave me a myocardial infarction.
r€nato
@gnomedad:
god that shit pisses me off. Who the hell spent the last several years telling Americans that real estate never goes down, it is your key to wealth, unlock your equity, etc?
Oh wait. That was Barney Fag, Chris Dodd, Clinton, Carter, what the hell, FDR and Woodrow Wilson too while we’re at it.
They forced Countrywide to loan to the darkies and wetbacks, and the rest is history.
handy
@gnomedad:
Americans have Stockholm Syndrome. The wealthy hold us hostage and naturally we sympathize with them and come to their rescue.
hovercraft
PeakVt she is the head of the White House social office, she was the right wing target for the state dinner gate crashers.
General Winfield Stuck
@PeakVT:
She is the Party Hardy Tzar.
Ash Can
@The Dangerman: Hey, with a handle like yours, you ought to be the one who tells me.
handy
Hell, forget Desiree Rogers. I think Obama should call a presser at the Oval Office, announce he asked Joe Biden to resign as VP and instead Super Sarah will take his place. Then, in a final contrite act, he should instruct the camera to pan out for a wide shot, where he should proceed to disembowel himself, his last words being “I’m sorry America that I took your country from you. I will never understand freedom! All yours, Sarah. Take it away.”
Only then I think would conservatives and their sockpuppet media be satisfied.
Maybe.
robertdsc-PowerBook & 27 titles
I wonder if the FLOTUS can flex some of her considerable muscle and squash Quinn like a grape. That would be nice. <3 Michelle!
Sly
@burnspbesq:
Caveat Emptor has long been the mantra of anarcho-capitalists. Being defrauded is a sign of
biological inferioritymoral inferiorityintellectual inferiority. Vonnegut once remarked that being poor is a crime in American culture. He got it half right. Poverty is the punishment.Brachiator
@handy:
Apparently, the Democrats are flirting with political seppuku.
Dubya is probably the most irrelevant individual in America. Hell, he can’t even be bothered with even trying to justify his presidential decisions, leaving the heavy lifting to the real brains of the outfit, Dick Cheney, who periodically emerges from his spider hole to attack the Obama administration.
I can’t imagine many voters being impressed by Democratic Party finger pointing. Their timidity isn’t just odd, it may turn out to be tragic. Having swept the GOP out of Congress in the 2008 election, they seem to want to sweep them back into office in the next election cycle.
Comrade Luke
It’s a long post, but Phil Nugent does a pretty good job of taking down the Obama haters and “progressives”.
I didn’t realize the similarities between Obama and Clinton were that close.
Mike Kay
Who’s Sullivan?
jl
There is no link, and I cannot summon the willpower to dredge through that rag, so: who is this Sullivan?
Or is the Daily Dish part of the sinister Nobama conspiracy?
edit: huh, beat to the punch again!
phantomist
From the article,
Many in Washington wondered why the director of the Secret Service, Mark Sullivan, did not resign over the state dinner security breach.
jl
@phantomist: thank you, phantomist.
FYI, I was in DC recently and did not wonder about it, so maybe Quinn should note that down for a potential update.
Anya
Sally Quinn is just bitter because the Obamas did not invite her to any of the many WH parties and she is taking out on Rogers.
JGabriel
phantomist:
@handy:
So, life’s a breach and then you die?
.
Martin
Jesus will wave his all-loving hand of plenty and make it right. Jesus can solve these problems with ease, but he cannot stop the gheys – only ballot amendments can do that. Get your priorities right, man.
Martin
@Anya: Actually, she’s bitter because even though she wasn’t invited, she wasn’t clever enough to sneak in and needs to punish those that have made self-aware her lack of skill, knowledge, and daring.
Anne Laurie
@handy:
No, they’d just started bitching about that shiftless nee-gro takin’ the easy way out and dumping all the responsibility for HIS fvckups on pore lil Say-rah. What, you’re looking for consistency from the modern Amurkin conservatives?
Mnemosyne
Oh, sure, a guy just flew from Amsterdam to Detroit with a rocket in his pocket to try and kill himself some Americans, but who cares about boring stuff like that when we can debate the guest list at White House dinners?
NobodySpecial
Dunno if anyone noticed, but Deborah Howell of WaPo infamy died the other day. Hit by a car crossing a road in N.Z.
Fortunately, I’m at work and therefore not in joke-writing mold at the moment.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
So he was an immigrant who came over illegally by stowing away on a ship? She sure is proud of being the descendant of an illegal immigrant.
She should pay his bill to clear things up. Lets see… with interest and late penalties…
Bill E Pilgrim
I saw this article this morning and had exactly the same thought. They trashed the place– and it wasn’t their place!
Switching to slightly off topic but actually sort of related, but mainly just because it’s interesting: My morning NY Times led me to this article by a writer from the UK about American manners and misconceptions in the mid-lantic world:
He goes on at length but even after this first paragraph I was thinking that I was so happy someone had the nerve to broach this subject.
I’ve been amazed over the years at how our various societies see each other, and really more interestingly, how we portray ourselves. In American films you’re constantly being shown Americans in business, for example, barking at each other across boardroom tables, cutting each other to shreds with the most insulting put-downs, including those you’ve just met seconds ago.
In my own experience in anything that could be called a business environment– not in my case as an immigrant from Europe, but as a newcomer from another sort of world, having worked only in the arts for my 20s and early 30s– the first thing that struck me also was how polite everyone was. This was because I too had been convinced by Hollywood movie and TV portrayals that everyone in business in the US was a barking, angry, confrontational asshole.
Not so. I mean maybe they are, at base, some of them, but it’s basically impolite to show that right out front and center, particularly to a complete stranger. It happens, I know it does, but it’s really the exception and not the rule.
Living in Europe now since 1999, I can back up everything this writer says in the article. The French and British are fairly similar about these things, despite all of the other differences that they love to make a big deal of.
What’s most interesting is watching how these countries portray themselves in movies, which in a way gives the biggest clues to how they see themselves. I’ve watched, astonished, as French films portrayed Parisian men as these sort of flittering about, insecure, overly-hesitant polite creatures, to which my response was always– huhnh? I mean okay, yes, I know a few guys like that, it does exist, but my god. Where’s the arrogant, utterly self-assured, smooth-talking men who I see, work with, sit in cafes with, and befriend, and have since I arrived ten years ago? You’d be amazed how infrequently this character appears, in contrast to how many of them there are in actual life.
It’s pretty much the same with the English. I watch the Hugh Grant character bumble and apologize his way through film after film and think my god– is that actually how you see yourselves? I mean again yes, there is that side of the culture, it does exist, but it’s not the dominant character trait, not at all.
Anyway read the article if interested, I won’t go into more detail about the surprises America held in store for the author because he does a good job of that himself. This is mainly because there wasn’t any comment section at the NYT article and I thought it might make interesting reading here.
MikeJ
So she lists three successes and then says someone has to take the fall. Why? Because Obama has succeeded at something. He has to balance it out by losing a few scalps. It’s just polite.
Little Macayla's Friend
@NobodySpecial:
The name rang a bell, but I had to google to remember the bell was Iraq and the GOS.
Jane Hamsher did a number on a Howell apologia for a Hiatt editorial in 2006. See also comments 13 and 45.
I don’t know about the rest of Howell’s career, but as WaPo ombudsperson, she fell short.
Also relevant comment 101 , where Howell either rewrote and changed the meaning of his e-mail (commenter’s interpretation), or attributed a completely different e-mail to him.
Bill E Pilgrim
@MikeJ:
It’s the Broderism disease.
Republicans now represent only 20% of voters. Thus, every decision must be made half by Republicans, half by Democrats. It’s only fair.
Welcome to new math, just like the old math.
Every success by a Democrat must be followed by self-flagellation, in fact several, for having demonstrated the sin of pride toward Mount Beltway.
Rhoda
The biggest blessing Obama has is that folks are focused like a laser on the economy and their lives right now; so this bullshit won’t penetrate with voters.
It’s also the number one reason he actually should be firing someone like Summers and getting his economic house in order, frankly.
But of course, the good people at Kaplan can’t really understand something that simple.
El Cid
One important meta level of bullshit like this is, in my view, punditarian elites like Quinn attempting to see if they have the power to cull anyone’s head at all.
El Cid
By the way — initiate a policy obviously designed to help ordinary Americans, and the GOP does its job to stir up the Teatards to shout about how Obama-Hitler-Stalin-Mao is going to force all consumers to eat tofu and shop from a single Cuban government store.
Yeah! Holy shit! What are these damn soshulist Demo-craps thinkin’ with another EPA, the institution which killed all American industry and made Paganism the official religion? God! Hmpfh! And lots of other abbreviated non-arguments comprehensible in the symbolic language of fellow modern conservatives!
‘Cause if there’s any damn thing Real Americans have learned over the past 10 years is the problem of too much regulatin’ of private companies.
After all, if it was up to the liberal EPA blackshirt Wicca mobs, you might not even be able to keep innovative companies from selling you ammonia-laced pink slime made out of fatty and hairy waste animal trimmings and calling it ‘ground beef’.
So, yeah, I hope the GOP goes all in again and try and convince people one more time that if a consumer regulation agency comes into being then death
panelscoupons and Hugo Chavez stores will be right around the corner so it’s time to scream at Congress members and carry Obama = Hitler signs again.PeakVT
@General Winfield Stuck: That ought to be a cabinet-level post.
bob h
Obama and all of us also have to deal with a political system that has been shaken to its foundations and deranged by a failed terror attack in which a singed crotch was the only casualty. Al Qaeda Central (probably located in a palace in Riyadh) sees that they have effective allies in the Republican Party and Fox News in undermining an President who is a true threat to them.
Comrade javafascist
If Rogers does decide to spend more time with her family (which would be stupid beyond words), I hope Obama nominates Flavor Flav to be Party Hardy Tsar. Would be worth it for the redstate, freerepublic posts alone.
satby
@gnomedad:
Shorter Frank Schell: “How dare average people own nice things.”
dmsilev
WTF? From Ms. Quinn’s blatherings:
Rahm Emmanuel is *not* going to challenge King Richard II of the House of Daley. If anything, he would run for his old House seat and make a bid for a House leadership position. And the idea that Rogers is only keeping her job because she could potentially threaten Emmanuel’s ambitions is stupid enough to be a RedState post.
-dms
Brick Oven Bill
Only a HBD Denier, and a dumb one at that, would put a woman who calls herself ‘Desiree’ in charge of a security detail.
kay
Well, I do think Rogers should have accepted responsibility, with Sullivan. I don’t know about firing anyone. I wouldn’t fire Sullivan. He stood up and said he screwed up. She should have been right there with him.
I don’t think it’s a huge deal, and it was wildly overplayed by the media, but that doesn’t change the fact that this was partly her responsibility and she wouldn’t own up to it.
Her whole job description, sketched broadly, is to make sure events go smoothly, so the Obamas can do what they do. I don’t think there’s any doubt this didn’t go smoothly. Anyway you look at it, it goes back to her.
The fact is, someone, acknowledged or not, from the political team in that White House is going to have to check her work the next time, because she blew her first big event, and it was a huge pain in the ass for them politically. They’d be crazy not to. What’s the point of retaiing a manager if someone else had to check her work?
Ed in NJ
@Brachiator:
Amazing that the article focuses on 11 Democratic retirements when the Republican count has reached 14.
And as for the 2010 elections, you are feeding right into the Republican talking point that it is politically dangerous to focus on GWB. The republicans have been campaigning against Obama since day one while their operatives are trying to whitewash the damage he did to this country. It is imperative that Democrats bring the electorate back to the reality of the previous 8 years lest they hand the keys back to that inept nightmare of a party.
Bill E Pilgrim
@kay:
Someone’s talking about firing Andrew Sullivan?
Ooh. Will John stop quoting and obsessing and linking to him all the time?
Oh.
Never mind.
Took that too lite
rallay.Napoleon
@kay:
Actually no it isn’t and you could not be more wrong. There are exactly ZERO facts supporting your assertion. Letting people in who are on the guest list is only the SS responsibility, not DRs. She and her department had nothing to do with the mistake.
Nothing.
4tehlulz
The one thing people like Sally Quinn fear more than an uppity black man:
An uppity black woman.
kay
@Bill E Pilgrim:
I thought it was Andrew Sullivan too.
Sally Quinn is a mean-spirited idiot, and she covers her mean spirit with vapid musings on religion. I’m familiar with the type.
Rodgers is a poor party planner. I don’t know what she’s good at, I’m sure lots of things, but not party planning. People aren’t supposed to be standing in the rain. If they are, someone screwed up, and it isn’t the Secret Service.
Napoleon
@kay:
So fucking what? Its the secret service who is responsible for making sure that people coming through the line are on the guest list, regardless of the weather. The problem was 100% the secret services.
jwb
@Rhoda: No, they still think Obama went too far left on the economics, whereas I think it’s fairly clear that he didn’t go far enough particularly with the stimulus; and whatever losses the Dems suffer in the fall will have far more to do with the economy than anything else. In retrospect from a purely short-term political standpoint he probably should have also gone after the bankers first and pushed through the banking reform and waited on health care (though that may well have meant no HCR). A lot of the teabagging anger (at least as much as can be attributed to tacit racism) derives from the sense that Obama is bailing out Wall Street and shitting on mainstream.
Violet
Ugh. I can’t stand Sally Quinn. I don’t know her personally of course, in but every interview I’ve ever seen of her, she’s come across as an entitled, upper-crust witch who is so completely convinced of her own importance she couldn’t even conceive of a world outside of her tiny circle.
She looks so far down her nose at everyone she practically has to swallow her chin to make it happen.
I think she’s nervous because she’s seeing her own mortality – in the sense of her importance in the Washington scene. She’s probably not ruling the roost in this administration and that stings.
Annie
Only a truly wise and insightful journalist could talk about a social secretary, and Obama’s masterful crafting of a strategy for Afghanistan, in one article. AND, then to use the example of a WH social mishap to discuss administration accountability….
Maybe that is why Bush/Cheney were never held accountable for their policies — all the time, their social secretary did just fine.
Rhoda
@jwb: You’re absolutely right. But, it’s something that can still be corrected. I think that the democrats pivoting to a jobs bill, financial reform, and immigration would open the door to the kind of knock out fight that would energize the base. But it means the president taking a risk he wasn’t willing to do in the health care reform; failing. Going out and championing Glass-Stegall would be one way. Hell, just cramdown alone would make sense. There are a bunch of progressive reforms needed that “New Democrats” who are tied to Wall Street in the House and conservadems in the senate are determined to avoid. He needs to take them on.
But Obama isn’t being well served by his economic team. Al Hunt had a story on Bloomberg that illustrated this clearly:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=av2Wtqnf1X7E
I blame Summers who frankly can’t manage his way out of a paper bag and hasn’t set up clear objectives and clear list of priorities. I mean, wow. And this is affecting everything; the administration knew the stimulus wasn’t big enough but it didn’t go bigger b/c of the politics. They should have swung for the fences, frankly and Krugman was right. This failure is haunting them on every single other issue.
The folks at WashPo can’t see that because they’re idiots. I’m hoping the White House will learn from the mistakes of ’09 and pull this thing around in ’10.
kay
@Napoleon:
Okay. But she’s running the party. She could have helped them when she realized it was raining, guests were standing in the rain, and they felt pressure to move the line. You’re really telling me the planner isn’t ultimately responsible for the list?
Everything’s a team effort, until several people screw up, and then it isn’t.
I don’t think he was in any danger. I think the nitwits in the media are seizing on that because they’re idiots, and they wanted to talk about this.
I just think the White House looks foolish when they won’t let her appear at an inquiry. She can consent to appear, and then there’s no issue. Easy. One day.
She has to work with the Secret Service constantly. How hard would it have been to appear like Sullivan did and say “I should have had someone at the door” ? I think it sucks that she left them out there.
eemom
@Comrade Luke:
That’s a very good piece and well worth the read. Thanks for the link.
As for Sally Quinn, I am proud to say I’ve never read a word she’s written, even though I remain among the hapless local suckers who continue to subscribe to the Kaplan daily shit-rag.
kay
@Napoleon:
If you took that job, wouldn’t you know going in that the nature of the beast was going to be dealing with idiots like Quinn? Um, people who go to parties?
I don’t know, Napoleon. If she thinks the details of party throwing are unimportant and can be reasonably left to security, should she be the party planner? I just think she’s in the wrong job if she’s going to insist it really doesn’t matter if they’re standing in the rain, or if the menus have spelling errors. It sort of does matter, in the context of that job.
Napoleon
@kay:
No. I am saying that she and anyone from her department is not responsible for checking the list against people who are trying to gain admittance to the WH. DR prepares the list, she does not impement site security based on the list. There is a department that has that responsibility and its called the Secret Service. DR was not appointed to run the Secret Service and she would have been completely out of bounds if she tried to usurp the authority of the SS over security.
Your position is as insane as claiming that the Department of Transportation should go out of their way to have their snow truck drivers pull over motorist to enforce driving laws and blaming them if there is an increase in motorist DWI instead of the Highway Patrol.
If one of my employees came up with some kind blame shifting theory similar to the one you are floating where magically DR is responsible for someone else’s job to explain why they were not responsible for a screw up I could not fire them fast enough.
aimai
Kay,
That’s the bizarrest overreaction to a minor social secretary screw up I’ve ever seen. No one gets fired because there’s a complex interaction between weather and security. That’s just ridiculous. If there’s some kind of problem with a party you learn from it and move on. The whole point of the catty bitch attack is that, as el cid points out, Obama and Michelle have to be made to pay for having the temerity to bring their own friends and supporters to the white house with them. In that sense DR is no different from that poor guy who killed himself when the Clintons went to the White House, or the travelgate “scandal.”
No one bats an eye when Republican presidents bring their entourage with them to the white house: their personal pillows, food fetishes, friends, and hangers on. Its just one of the perks of the system. But when Democrats do so it suddenly becomes a focus of hysterical attention from the socialite commentariat–and more important, headhunting those people becomes a sport. When *Sally Quinn* or one of her avatars is out to headhunt your friends and co-workers there is, almost definitionally, no there there. The object is to make the Obama household/administration give up and let the Quinn’s count coup, nothing more.
BTW: a better argument would be made that Desiree Rogers didn’t know her job (Or her place if you take the full on Quinn meaning) if she’d been hustling the secret service along and insisting that they suspend their security methods to make the line move faster.
aimai
jwb
@Rhoda: Any jobs bill at this point will come too late to affect the economy by next fall—though it may well still be politically wise to appear to be doing something, and it might help dissipate some of the anger of the left if it could actually be done. I have my doubts as to whether they can get any useful jobs legislation through the Senate.
As for Summers, I agree that he’s a disaster, and a wholly predictable one at that. All you needed to see is how tone deaf he was at Harvard to see that he was going to be a huge liability.
bayville
Didn’t Sally Quinn die in a car crash in New Zealand a week ago?
John
I hate Sally Quinn too, and all, but not linking? That’s really annoying. Your quote doesn’t provide much context, so to actually read the column, I have to go and google it, when you could have easily just gotten off your high horse and given us a link.
The article is as awful as advertised, but it seems to me that, no matter how distasteful an article may be, you should always offer a link so that we know what the hill you’re talking about.
DougJ
The article is as awful as advertised, but it seems to me that, no matter how distasteful an article may be, you should always offer a link so that we know what the hill you’re talking about.
I’ll take that under consideration for the future.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@aimai:
Sally Quinn has a different understanding of what the term “political party” means from the rest of us. In her world, it’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to, shaawow, shaawow.
Brachiator
@Ed in NJ:
It’s not dangerous to focus on GWB.
It’s a waste of time.
Dubya has left the building, and he ain’t coming back. It’s also clear that Dubya has had little lasting influence. There have been recent stories about how people still fear Darth Chaney. There are no stories about anyone giving a rat’s ass about Bush.
Oh, please. People are looking to the Democrats to actually govern. Every second the Democrats waste talking about the damage that Bush did to the country is a second that they could spend undoing the freakin’ damage.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
As an illustration that nothing in the social world of DC changes, IIRC in Edmund Morris’s TR biography Theodore Rex there was a bit of circa 1906 gossip about how the UK ambassador to the US Mortimer Durand was forced out and sent home packing mostly because he was a cheapskate who gave lousy parties.
And yes, that is the same Durand after whom the Durand Line – the ill-defined border between Afghanistan and Pakistan – is named. Funny how gossip and social flutter was more important than geopolitics back then, too.
Mike Kay
@dmsilev:
it’s beyond stupid to think Rahm is gonna resign this July (18 months after taking office), only a few months before the midterms.
catclub
to John @ 69
Always trust the shorter.
aimai
I agree with Brachiator on this one–not only has everyone forgotten about Bush and his eight years, the Republicans have gone massively on the offensive making every anodyne reference to PO (pre-Obama) into a cowardly attempt by the Democrats to shift responsibility to a long ago time.
But I do think its time for Obama and the Dems to craft a realistic populist strategy of calling out (some kind of) devil–it can be the bankers, the insurance companies, michael steele, rush limbaugh, cheney or anyone else. It can be an omnibus of evil, but it has to be someone. Windy talk about the process, excuses about the blue dogs and bipartisanship, won’t cut it emotionally or in terms of the news cycle–neither for Obama’s supporters nor the imaginary independents. Obama and the dems have the same problem every majority party has–they want the credit from the voters for the good things they are trying to do, but they are actually hugely hampered (well, this only happens to democrats) by the utter malfeasance and destructive acts of the previous majority party and the current minority party. Not only have the Democrats had a hard time getting their good policies through, they’ve seen them watered down and traduced until the public scarcely knows which end is up.
The solution, of course, is as it ever was: to run against “entrenched interests.” If you are out, you run against “washington” if you are in you run against “the real washington of entrenched interests.” There’s no point running against former Washington, and pretty much no one is more former at this point than Bush. I suggest they run pro-actively against Palinism and Know Nothingism and do nothingism.
aimai
Ed Drone
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Actually, I think the more accurate image of the average English businessman is closer to Vernon Dursley.
Ed
kay
@aimai:
All I said would it would have been a good idea for Rogers to take her part of the responsibility. It would have been easy, and a decent thing to do, too.
I don’t have any opinion on what this says about “The Village”, or any of that.
I don’t think that matters. Apart from all that, did she do a good job? I don’t think so.
I’m looking at Rogers the same way I looked at the director of Homeland Security. I dismissed the critics there, because they couldn’t point to anything substantive she did or didn’t do. They focused on a half a sentence taken out of context.
All I’m doing is looking at the work. That’s what we’re constantly asking the press to do, right? Look at the work?
I understand it’s a less important AREA. I get that. Why does that matter, if the question is “how well did she do the job?”
kay
@Napoleon:
We’ve already established that her office has traditionally posted someone at the door to help with the list. Which makes a lot of sense, because then no one needs to make a phone call.
That’s all she had to say, Napoleon. “I should have had someone at the door”.
If she has someone at the door next time, and she will, can we then acknowledge she screwed up?
It’s not a big deal. Or wasn’t. Now it is. Rogers herself could have insisted in taking her part, instead of leaving Gibbs out there babbling. I’m betting she’s not his favorite person.
JenJen
What I find the most infuriating about this kind of Sally Quinn drivel is that DFH’s like myself were screaming for the head of Rumsfeld from at least 2003 until 2006 when Bush really had no choice left but to shitcan him. Where was Kaplan in those days? The way I remember it, they thought Bush was a pretty awesome fella for circling the wagons around his cabinet.
The Republic of Stupidity
What the…?
Death is OPTIONAL?
Why was I not informed of this at an earlier date?
Sheeeeez… I would have taken better care of mysef, ya know!
Laid off that third cheeseburger… ‘n quit at two martinis… skipped gittin’ married that 4th time… and NO MORE credit cards, period.
Now you mean there’s actually an outside chance I’ll have to PAY for all this worthless shit?
aimai
Kay,
I guess I think its absurd to act on the principle, or insist others act on the principle, that people have to apologize *to Sally Quinn* before they can be permitted to continue in their jobs. Perhaps DR apologized profusely to the Obamas personally and promised to do a better job. Perhaps she didn’t–perhaps she, and they, laughed it off. So what? If the Obamas are satisfied with their party planner really what business is it of anyone else?
Sally Quinn and her coterie are *not legitimate reporters* letting you, and us, in on the “real facts of the case.” It is totally unclear whether the imaginary “person who stands there” that DR is imaginarily responsible for not putting there would have prevented the Salahi’s from getting through. In fact I believe it came out that there have, in previous administrations, been other party crashers, presumably with other “people at the door.” Jeff Gannon was in and out of the White House like a daisy cutter styled condom and no one was fired. The Secret Service has a job to do and they failed to do it and they took responsibility, end of story. No one needs to be fired, no one needs to show the appropriate level of embarrassment at being a black social secretary in the white house. This is a hugely silly tempest in a teapot. But the reason it matters is that its just the beginning of a long line of attacks on this democratic president and his personal friends, and his mother in law, for *not knowing their place* which is *not in the white house.* So it behooves the sensible commentariat here not to fall for the okey doke every fucking time.
aimai
kay
@aimai:
I don’t care at all about Sally Quinn. I never said she had to apologize to Sally Quinn.
I think if your job is party planner, and things go wrong at the party, and idiotic Democrats in Congress want to show-boat on that, so call witnesses, and Republicans respond to that and call the party planner,she should show up, to share responsibility.
No big deal. “I should have someone at the door”. Done.
I’m not judging her within the context of Sally Quinn. I’m just looking at her like I would any other person with a job.
I think she screwed up and made it worse. She alone did that. She could have easily made a different decision, regardless of Sally Quinn, and I would expect her to do that. She didn’t. I expect that from her as a grown-up person.
I don’t care if they fire her. I think it’s an absolute given that someone else will now follow up on everything she does, though, so that’s a waste of time and a headache for someone else who already has one job. I’d get rid of her, but, as I said, I don’t care all that much.
Come on, she’s a crony. It’s not a crucial position, so it’s fine that’s she in it, and you’re right, Republicans hire cronies, too.
kay
@aimai:
Jesus. A simple appearance to share responsibility for an easily avoidable fuck up is now some grave threat to her dignity as a human being?
Let’s hope she doesn’t think like this. This is how small problems get bigger.
One more time: it isn’t about her. The nature and very essence of that job is this: it isn’t about her.
Nellcote
Sally Quinn used to be DC’s queen bee. Along comes Rogers who is younger, richer and more personally accomplished. It’s pure unfiltered jealousy.
kay
@Nellcote:
Could be true. I don’t know. I now realize it is crucially important we retain Rogers because that will show that Sally Quinn who’s boss, or move the Overton Window on party planning, or something.
Mnemosyne
@kay:
You’re right as far as that goes: this kerfuffle isn’t about her. It’s about the Republicans embarrassing the Obamas and Quinn flexing her social muscle. The Obamas are not One of Us any more than the Clintons were so they need to be monitored and punished. You didn’t get any of this BS when Bush was president because he was One of Us (son of a president, grandson of a US senator) so he could do pretty much whatever he wanted and Quinn would make excuses for him.
This is the kind of stuff that people mean when they talk about how Washington is wired for Republicans: the entire social structure of cocktail parties etc. is built around Republicans as the default and Democrats as the outsiders. A huge amount of business is done at social events, not just on the floor of Congress, and discounting that because it shouldn’t be that way doesn’t fix a thing.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Mnemosyne:
The word for this is: Aristocracy.
We don’t have formal titles of landed nobility in this country, but we have other ways of getting the same results. Sally Quinn and her friends are members of the aristocracy, and the rest of us are not, nor are our elected leaders members, if the aristocracy disapproves of them (* cough * might raise taxes on the rich * cough *). The outcomes of our elections are irrelevant to the composition and membership of the aristocracy.
kay
@Mnemosyne:
I’m not actually discounting it. I wish I hadn’t entered this discussion.
I think if you plan a party, and the party ends up being about the planner, you’re doing it wrong.
Irrespective of Sally Quinn, or the Village, or any of that.
Brachiator
@aimai:
Exactamundo. This should be easy. The GOP said “let’s do nothing,” and the result was the near collapse of the economy. Now, the GOP is saying, “let’s do more nothing” and expect things to get better.
As an aside, over the holidays I was talking with a guy, deeply Republican, who is looking desperately for a way to keep the faith. He actually said that Bush failed because he was a liberal and invoked the ghost of Ronald Reagan as what a real Republican should be.
Connecting the dots, this is another reason to avoid wasting time trying to blame Bush. The true believers have already discounted his failure.
aimai
Kay,
I just don’t get what’s at stake, for you, in continuing to argue that this is at all about the party planner. Sure, maybe there’s something unbecoming about Desiree Rogers having attended the dinner? That’s already more inside baseball than I care to know, but I’ll give you that since I think that is what you are responding to. And perhaps, if you thought that you personally and the american people are owed an apology for, variously:
DR not being good enough to prevent the rain, or thinking of some fabby disneyeseque way to shorten people’s waiting time in the rain…
Not preventing the former social secretary honcho from leaving her job
Not getting the SS to do their jobs properly
Or sitting at the big kid’s table when, apparently, taking the Social secretary job meant that was a social solecism
then you’d think that DR hadn’t done her job to fit the description and should apologize. But you have *no way of knowing* if she did apologize to the Obamas, her employers. Neither you nor sally quinn are owed anything like a formal apology.
And I can’t think of anything that makes this incident “more about the planner” than this laser focus on DR and not on the party itself, or the Obamas, or politics.
You are engaging in the most politically motivated of attacks on a very minor personage. Doesn’t it even give you pause that the only other people who care and who are making a huge stink are the very same people who always attack Democrats in the White House, and always for the same perceived lack of class? Its *you* who are making this about the party planner and dragging out this non incident. The rest of the white house, and the country, has simply moved on like the grown ups they are.
aimai
kay
@aimai:
Oh, forget it. If this is going to become about me and my motives, I don’t engage on those terms.
I said something simple (and I think true) about this person’s work and it becomes this big deal, where I have all sorts of secret intent.
Mnemosyne
@kay:
It’s not so much that we think you have secret intent as that we really think you’re discounting the motives of Rogers’s critics. It was, in the scheme of things, a pretty small mistake, and yet they want her to testify in front of Congress about it. Doesn’t that seem a bit like overkill to you? It would be like insisting that, when I make a mistake in my job as an assistant, I should have to answer questions about it at the annual shareholders’ meeting.
Here’s what Mark Halperin included in his year-end roundup about the administration:
There really is a Village, it really has Villagers, and they have enough mass media instruments to make their petty squabbles about who’s going to whose parties into national issues. That’s why most of us are so wary about demands that Rogers appear in front of Congress — it would not end there and the Village would not be content until Rogers resigned or was fired.
kay
@Mnemosyne:
Except. Democrats called for a hearing first. I don’t think the way to respond to DC and GOP abuses during the Clinton years is to live in that past.
Aren’t you just playing into it?
If it were me, and I were Rogers, stuck in that horrible, gossipy realm, I would just do what I would do, and not worry about them.
What I would do, independent of Quinn, is accept responsibility for my part and move on.
By reacting in the context of these idiots, aren’t you letting them control the dialogue and behavior?
“It would be smart and effective for me to take responsibility for my part, but I cannot do that, because that would be forgetting what happened in the Clinton years”.
I think that’s nuts. It’s way too complicated. It’s also reactive and defensive, never a powerful place to be. Never.
aimai
Kay,
Sorry, didn’t mean to come across as questioning your motives or your bona fides politically. Really didn’t. I meant something totally else, basically what Mnemosyne and Napoleon and others have been arguing. They are literally making a *federal case* out of this, as they have out of Napolitano’s completely innocuous “after the incident the system seems to ahve worked” comment and as they did about that poor guy who got tagged as a “marxist” and was driven out as the “green jobs” czar and as they have with a bunch of Obama’s appointments including Dawn Johnson. This is simply not an isolated incident. Its just part of a top to bottom attempt to isolate Obama and his administration–to keep them from having the people around them they want to have. Look at the Napolitano thing: she’s in a job that has to be approved by congress and Sullivan was demanding she resign. If she or Obama take the bait then that will mean months of time without a DHS head and more infighting as someone acceptable to the right wing is forced on us.
The attacks on DR, which have just been bizarrely petty and dressed up as reasonable and all about the protocol and appearances, are just one instance of a total attack on Obama and his nominees in every rank and corner of the administration. Its better not even to get started letting people like Quinn and the Republicans think they have any say in this matter or they will be demanding he divorce Michelle because she’s not good enough.
aimai
aimai
Kay,
You keep insisting that rogers didn’t “take responsibility.” I just have no idea what that means. None. And you don’t either. What Sally Quinn thinks is “responsibility” and the kind of public seppukku that the wapo thinks is sufficient level of humiliation to be accepted back into their good graces is simply absurd. I see Rogers as “accepting responsiblity and moving on” by moving on. That’s appropriate. Anything more is a waste of all our time.
aimai
Nellcote
@kay:
.
Rogers has already done that. Quinn still wants her scalp.
Nellcote
@aimai:
Van Jones. A real dissappointment that he left.
kay
@aimai:
Yes, I do. “Taking responsibility” means making a public statement about your role. Once the Democrats stupidly called a hearing, and the Republicans predictably responded by calling Rogers, she had an opportunity to do that, and she didn’t do it.
If Obama and his staff are going to react to what transpired in 1993, and operate accordingly, that is a defensive posture.
It’s not a position of strength.
Reaching back to 1993 and saying “oh, no! The Village! cut this off at the pass!” is defensive.
A position of strength has another advantage: it’s much simpler.
No guessing at motive, no figuring out the village, none of that. Just look at the result of your work, make a simple statement on your job and you’re done. Whatever happens after that, happens, but her work is done.
Mnemosyne
@kay:
Who was it who said, “The dead past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past”? When the Village is reacting to Obama the same way they reacted to the Clintons and is attempting to pull exactly the same stunts, why are we supposed to pretend that what they’re doing is new and surprising?
She did. Now you have people like Quinn saying it wasn’t good enough and she still needs to be fired. What’s your response for that?
And, again, I really don’t get the disproportionate response that insists that she has to testify in front of Congress in order to properly expiate her sins instead of, you know, apologizing to her employers and taking steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again. I have a feeling she’s not the first White House social secretary to make a few mistakes at her first official event, and I doubt she’ll be the last.
Not at all. By reacting in the context, you’re pointing out that their complaints are silly, because they’re not White House employees or employers. They’re random people who may have been dinner guests. Do dinner guests generally get to dictate if a party organizer should be fired or not?
Mnemosyne
Though I have to say, it’s pretty funny to see people like Peter King insisting that Desiree Rogers must testify about a state dinner for the good of the country but questioning Karl Rove was out of bounds when the US attorneys scandal came up. I know I shouldn’t even expect consistency at this point, but geesh.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
some background:
Still, a tempest in a teapot.
aimai
Menomosyne,
I was just thinking the same thing. It used to be that you didn’t call white house staffers up to be cross examined unless you really were looking at a breaking of the law situation. Kay seems to want to see DR tearfully apologize to the people for not being a perfect social secretary–is that really the new standard for appropriate deference to presidential prerogative? Anyone remember back as far as the shock and real consternation and legal issues that surrounded the republicans trying (and I think getting) the secret service to testify about what they saw while they were guarding Clinton? Christ on a crutch what on earth is the legitimate policy issue surrounding DR and what she knew, when, that the Senate or House should be inquiring into? Her choice of stationary? the guest list in general? How does anything that DR knows relate to any legitimate security issue? Even if you think that the white house civil service staff and the SS should have a serious regrouping of their training sessions for incoming new white house personell what does any of this have to do with DR testifying or publicly apologizing?
I think this continued harping on the notion that she should apologize really gets my hackles up. She has already apologized to her employers. No one else is entitled to any kind of apology–the continued insistence that she does something more–more public, more extended, more grovelling is just a bizarre attempt by high class washingtonians to put her and the Obamas in their place. Quinn *as much as says that* in the article. The chief offense is that DR is too powerful and rich and accomplished to be permitted to serve as gatekeeper to the Obamas, and that old white washington resents her holding a position thata lower level or more traditional Social secretary might hold. Digby noticed at the time of the party that there was such tension over who would get invited that Michelle Obama had to apologize in advance that they weren’t able to “invite everyone.” The same thing happened at the channukkah party–the number of people who want invitations to this white house is just much bigger than they can accomodate and some of the old pussies are worried they won’t be able to corner the market on the invitations the way they want to. Its as simple as that. Force Rogers to resign, force (in your imagination) Michelle to pick someone from another team, and then call the social shots.
aimai
Nellcote
via Lynn Sweet
aimai
But Brachiator that quote, and the original article, really cuts in a totally diffferent direction.
The woman who used to stand at the door had the following function: to make sure that people who *were invited* but whose names were *not on the list* got in-that is,that the SS had someone right there to make sure that people who were invited did make it in, not to make sure that gate crashers who shouldn’t have been on the list and weren’t on the list *were prevented.* That’s what she says: the usual problem was people who thought they were on the list, weren’t, and needed to be authorized. DR demoted her to a less glamorous position because DR thought they weren’t going to have enough big state dinners for that to be the woman’s only job. She then quit–she wasn’t fired–and “she believes” that no one else took on her job. But she doesn’t know. Because she left the White House staff. The secret service quotes all argue that DR and her new staff thought that it would be sufficient for the SS to have the contact number of a staffer to check with if there was some kind of question about someone at the gate who didn’t have a proper invitation/wasn’t on the list. And, indeed, the SS had the number of this person but didn’t call him or her.
Yeah, if I’d been DR I’d have spent whatever it takes to make sure that the party went smoothely, I’d even have spent my own money if I were as rich as her, but perhaps her budget had been cut and she tried to make up for miss thing quitting in a huff by having another staffer with a smaller ego “on call” for the secret service instead of standing there with the *exact same list* that they had already furnished the secret service with.
aimai
aimai
Nellcote, fascinating article by Sweet. Thanks for putting it up. The sheer number of events for which DR is responsible is just astounding. I had been under the impression that the Soc sec job was much smaller. 170 already by the time the dinner party took place? 28 in the month of november alone?
aimai
kay
@aimai:
Why put it in those terms? Why describe it as “groveling”?
Rogers is a perfectly accomplished person, and she can presumably describe what happened in a paragraph, all by herself.
I think you give these people way, way more power than they have. They have the power to turn a simple statement of fact into “groveling”.
I think she got bad advice. I woulda just put her up and let her speak for herself. I certainly wouldn’t insist she “grovel”, and I would hope she wouldn’t see a simple statement of fact as cruelly demeaning, because that’s ridiculous.
aimai
Kay,
The question of whether a close personal friend of the Obamas, who they do not believe is responsible for the breach of security, should be examined by a Congressional committee is not actually a personal one: it goes to the separation of powers. If you don’t know that, you should. The white house refused to have her testify because they thought it would be a bad precedent–and it would have been a bad precedent. For one thing you have no idea what she might have been asked, and refusing to answer might have gotten her in very hot water.
Again: you seem to feel that DR owes an apology or an explanation to the american people or to congress. She doesn’t. She owed an apology, if she did, to her employers and presumably she gave it to them to their satisfaction. Your arguments are starting to make less and less sense.
Me: I’m sure DR apologized to the Obamas and they accepted her apology.
You and Sally Quinn: but she didn’t apologize to the American people. So how can we know she’s sorry and won’t do it again.
Me: Well, you can be pretty sure that if the Obama’s weren’t satisfied with her apology and her intention to do better, or didn’t think her other work outweighed this error (whatever it was) they’d fire her or ask for her resignation.
You:???
Well, what is it? DR put the Obamas in danger and they are too stupid to know it? or DR embarrassed the Obamas and they haven’t figured that out and need to fire her but don’t grasp that?
I just can’t figure out what model of politics, the white house, presidential staffing, friendship, or reality you are working off of at this point if you continue to argue that DR *needs* to apologize in front of a congressional hearing when the Obamas and the Secret Service clearly don’t think that. At this point *for whose benefit* is this staged show trial supposed to be happening for?
aimai
kay
@aimai:
Yeah. I’m familiar with the separation of powers.
I thought it was a completely lame argument in this context, and I bet Obama does too. Ugh. That one’s going in the history books for lame arguments. It’s cringe-worthy as a legal argument, aimai. If Obama’s AG is called on a serious matter, he’s going to rely on the refusal to consent appear re: the social secretary precedent?
I thought the congressional inquiry was stupid. But, once the Republicans played the idiot Democrats who called it, I think it’s always wise to consent to show up, and tell your side of the story, in a straight-forward and businesslike manner. She could do that, and well. She ran a fucking utility. She’s been to a hearing or two, I imagine.
No regular person (village idiots aside) is ever going to reject that good-faith, simple, affirmative move. I’ve read her interviews. She would have been fine, and she would have saved Gibbs three days of babbling senselessly.
There are very few situations where not showing up is the correct answer. If she didn’t show up to teach the villagers a lesson, that’s even crazier, and I think they should drop that playbook, immediately.
Mnemosyne
@kay:
No, he’d probably rely on the Karl Rove refusal to consent during the US attorneys coverup, which in my mind was a tad bit more serious than a couple of wannabe reality show stars crashing the gate at a state dinner.
I can see your point that the whole “controversy” could have been nipped in the bud, but I don’t see any reason to give it more attention than it’s already been given. She’s the freakin’ social secretary. Frankly, she’s not so important that she needs to be appearing in front of congressional committees.
kay
@Mnemosyne:
I want to stop responding. I want to stop reacting. I want to stop analysing everything based on the opposition’s chosen narrow view, from a defensive crouch.
I get why the “villagers” theme is important: because we’ve seen this movie before. I get that. But, the only place that leads is defense. We’re guessing their next move, speculating on motive, angry and frustrated. It’s still about them. How is this a powerful position?
I would like it if we could do the next right thing separate and apart from people like Sally Quinn.
Mnemosyne
@kay:
I think that’s a big part of the disconnect here — I don’t actually think that having Desiree Rogers testify in front of Congress is the right thing for her to do. It’s ridiculous. It’s not even the first time that there have been gatecrashers at a White House party — it happens in every administration. Since Rogers’s error seems to have been believing the Secret Service when they told her they could handle things, I’m not sure what she’s supposed to say other than, “I believed the professionals and they turned out to be wrong, so now I know not to believe the Secret Service when they tell me they can handle social events. My bad.”
rikyrah
two words:
UPPITY NEGROES
and you know they don’t use Negroes.
plain and simple.
Nellcote
Quinn’s classic Village harrummpt that Cole linked to is foundational reading to understand the below the radar bullshit the Obama administration is having to put up with.
Elie
@kay:
kay I agree with your two comments on this — if nothing more, the giant pain in the ass this was and how that could have been avoided. Though I acknowledge others as well screwed up, Desiree could not look at this as anything other than a gigantic f- up. I would feel that if I were her … I am sure that all smiles in place, the First Lady’s staff will be looking over her shoulder a bit the next time…just common sense
kay
@Mnemosyne:
Well, no. She would just appear on consent and tell what happened. Republicans and Sally Quinn would natter on and on about it, but it wouldn’t matter.
I think showing up with a straight face and reciting facts usually shows up idiots to be idiots.
I guess the key for me would be for her to play it straight. That’s hard to discredit or denigrate, earnestness.
She walks in, she listens to questions, and she responds in simple sentences. It’s particularly effective with people who have an agenda.
I would have her look at Sotomayor’s testimony. She did that beautifully. She knew it was bullshit, but responding patiently made the GOP Senators look like fools. She never once lost control of her own role in that hearing. No matter what they were (jerks, with an agenda), she was Judge Sotomayor, answering questions she decided were presumptively good-faith. She was almost cheerful. I think it’s really effective.
Brachiator
@aimai:
Like I said, I was just providing background, not supporting any particular position. But you are right in your take on this.
But I also tend to think that Quinn and company are rankled that an old social hand was let go, and that this fuels the stupid social and political infighting that has kept this crap alive.
The double irony here is that Obama antagonists love to try to bash him for being elitist, but here the Beltway crowd is also bashing him for not being elitist and aristocratic enough in how the social secretary has handled things. I also think that Quinn and company are peeved that the Obama’s appear to be promising fewer elitist social gatherings, which affords the Beltway snobs fewer opportunities to pose and preen.
Elie
@kay:
“One more time: it isn’t about her. The nature and very essence of that job is this: it isn’t about her.”
Yep
Not a big deal in my opinion for a professional woman of her experience to just step up, do what she needs to do, move past it. Really. Not the end of civilization as we know it, or a crushing blow to her pride. Just being an accountable professional who keeps things in perspective and keeps unnecessary heat off of the boss..
Mnemosyne
@kay:
Well, no, it wasn’t bullshit because Sotomayor was required to appear at that hearing in order to get the job. It was her job interview. I agree with you that it was good that she did well in her job interview in front of the whole country.
I’m still not getting why it’s vitally necessary for Desiree Rogers to do something that no other White House social secretary has ever been required to do and testify in front of Congress. Again, this event wasn’t even that unusual, except that the Villagers wanted something to scream about. They want her to appear to show that they were able to flex their muscles and force her to appear. I’m not getting why caving in and doing what they want is a sign of strength.
Elie
@Mnemosyne:
I do see your point, but I think that what kay is saying and what I also agree with is that it isnt a big enough deal to refuse to do it. Refusing to do it makes it more of an issue and more of a war — its capitulating from a different direction by being forced into a game that “they” actually want to play. They want resistance because that raises the ante and the profile. Holding aside the true merits of your statement that this has never been required and should not be required, the game, as being joined, is real and would be more of a distraction and raise this more than just doing the deed, so to speak.
To circle back, Desiree has been in the “bigs” before. She knows the drill and the score. Just do it, be done with it, move on. Remove the ISSUE.
Mnemosyne
@Elie:
Again, I think this is where we disagree — I don’t think that Rogers testifying to Congress will solve a thing. In fact, I think it will make things worse. Giving these people an inch makes them think they can have the whole mile and, oh, they’ll take a second one, too, thanks.
I suppose you could argue that she should have agreed to testify, but that horse is already out of the barn and doing so now would be rightly interpreted as bowing to pressure from total morons, which we already do plenty of.