What a difference a year makes.

A little over a year ago, a close friend of mine was chosen by her company to attend a GOP fund-raiser. Her company paid a zillion dollars and in exchange, she and a handful of other VIP's from her Defense contractor, engineering firm were going to get to go through a line and shake hands with President Bush, then get to sit and listen to an hour of speeches.

For this to happen, her company had to write the big check and then submit the names of those who were going to attend so they could be vetted (I assume by the Secret Service).
Actually, getting to the event itself was a whole other story.

Although it was being held in a public convention center, the Secret Service had cordoned off a two block area around the facility, to include a public park. NO ONE gets in. In order to attend this event, my friend had to drive to a separate parking lot some miles away where she was to be screened again before being allowed to board a bus. The bus was then to take these vetted and thoroughly screened, paying guests to the event where they would be screened again before entering the venue.

Fast forward to a little over a year later. Now we have a new President at his first State function. An event in the White House itself. A facility where the most state of the art surveillance and screening equipment have been in place for some time now.
Yet, a couple merely playing the part of guests, two people who apparently didn't even have to produce any credentials what so ever, are allowed by the Secret Service to merely walk in the front door and shake hands with the leader of the free world.

This is simply unfathomable to me.

In a time in which public already has very little trust in our governments ability to do it's job, it would seem our secret service couldn't even manage to perform the most very basic function of their job, checking credentials at the door, in order to protect a Democrat President. Our first Black President. A President who had received a record number of death threats before he even swore the oath of office.

I just can't even begin to understand this incident. Because the simplest answers are simply unconscionable.