The military angle brings to mind yet another event that shook up Obama and gave him a reason to worry about his safety and the quality of the protection he's given.
In a well-known incident in 2009, shortly after he took office, a couple managed to get into a White House state dinner without an invitation, and got so close to Obama they were able to get their picture taken with him. Michaele and Tareq Salahi were characterized as essentially harmless publicity hounds, but Obama took the breach seriously.
As the Washington Post reported at the time:
"On the eve of the president's major speech on Afghanistan policy, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs on Monday was inundated by reporters' questions about the Salahis and the security breach at the state dinner.
"'Look, the reason there's an investigation is the president and the White House has asked for that to happen," Gibbs told reporters... 'So I think, suffice to say, the president is rightly concerned about what happened last week.'"
So were others. Here's ABC News's website, at the time:
"'What concerns me the most is that someone was able to walk in off the street to a White House event, without the proper credentials, without the proper vetting, and get next to the president,' said Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee."
The Secret Service, red-faced, later apologized for sloppy procedures that enabled the couple to pass through two checkpoints.
Curiously, there were again military connections -- two of them. For one thing, the Salahis had been encouraged via e-mails to believe they might gain access to the White House by Michele S. Jones, special assistant to then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates -- and Pentagon liaison to the White House.
As reported by the Washington Post:
"The e-mails apparently do not contradict that version of events, but are described as having given the Salahis the confidence to get dressed up, mingle with some of the most powerful Washington players and post snapshots of their presence at the party on their Facebook page.
"The e-mail exchange is said to include assurances from Jones that she was trying to score an official invitation, complete with seats at the dinner, for the couple. By the time they arrived in line, the couple believed that Jones had succeeded in getting them approved only for the cocktail reception and a handshake with the president, sources said."
Jones presumably had pull with the White House. A high-ranking African-American military backer of Obama, she'd delivered a speech on his behalf at the 2008 Democratic convention. How she came to be hired as Gates's special assistant is not clear. It's an intriguing issue -- as is the very fact that Obama had asked Gates, who served as George W. Bush's defense secretary, to stay on as his. Gates had a long track record as a Bush family retainer, serving as CIA director under George HW Bush and then as chief of the elder Bush's presidential library in College Station, Texas; he also served on corporate boards with Bush connections.
Why did Gates's assistant even know the Salahis? She declined to say. As the Post reported:
"Asked how she knows the Salahis and why she would have tried to get them into the White House, she said: 'I am not going to say anything at this point at all. In fact, I am going to terminate the call right now because I am not sure what in the world is going on here.'"
As for the Salahis, they too have clammed up. Appearing before the Committee on Homeland Security, Tareq Salahi read a statement: "We reiterate that, on advice of counsel, we respectfully invoke our right to remain silent and will decline to answer any questions surrounding the circumstances around the events of November 24, 2009."
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