Sandra McElwaine sets out clearly how glamorous White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers ended up on the sidelines. Rogers, whose involvement with the party crashers to Obama’s first state dinner has never been explained, now wears a ‘dog tag’ and with clip board in hand, plays the more traditional role befitting a Social Secretary.
Daily Beast: Desiree Rogers will no longer be swanning about at White House parties. Au contraire. Ever since the glamorous social secretary was hobnobbing with celebrities, oblivious to two reality TV wannabes who were crashing the Obamas’ first state dinner in November she has been given a timeout.
Until Desiree Rogers, White House, social secretaries were considered worker bees who stayed in the shadows compiling lists, organizing events and seating charts, and averting last-minute disasters, but the high-flying business executive had no intention playing an inconspicuous or subservient role . From the moment she arrived she quickly broke the mold by flaunting her upscale life style and interests, sometimes outshining her boss, posing for Vogue and other glossies, and announcing a totally new agenda for the social office. “You have to think about [the social secretary job], in my mind, almost like a business,” she told the Wall Street Journal in April. “Otherwise, you never get there. You get caught in linen hell and flower hell, list hell.”
