This is Gina. I know.I know. Many of you didn’t like Desiree Roger’s high profile. But say what you want to say about Desiree, if she had anything to do with the thousands of ordinary Americans getting unprecedented access to the White House and the First Lady, then she did a fabulous job. I’m not going to toss aside the Healthy Kids Fair, the Music Series, the Mentoring Program, the White House Garden, and all the other events which brought ordinary individuals into the White House just because two ignorant strivers, in the form of the Salahis crashed her party.
With Roger’s departure and the entrance of Juliana Smoot, could we be seeing an East Wing that focuses more granting access to high powered rich folks instead of the adorable tots from Bancroft Elementary? I don’t know, but that’s the early speculation. That Smoot was selected to cater to the rich and the powerful and all the egos that got bruised when the East Wing opened its arms to DC school children and apparently gave the DC power elites the shaft.
Rogers told Lynn Sweet that she saw her role as turning the White House into the “people’s house,” and Michelle Obama praised her in a statement for “welcoming scores of everyday Americans through its doors, from wounded warriors to local schoolchildren to NASCAR drivers.”
Smoot may have the same goal, but her credentials and relationships point in the opposite direction: To ensuring access and satisfaction for the ultra-wealthy elite who will, incidentally, be called on to finance President Obama’s next campaign. Ben Smith, Politico
Only time will tell. Desiree, we wish you the best of luck in the future, some have said you aren’t a nice person and appeared to be a camera hog. That may well be true, but they can’t say you didn’t make the White House open and available to ordinary Americans. It was awesome to watch the East Wing blossom over the past year, we hope that trend continues.
All the best,
Gina
