By now, most of us have seen Mr. and Mrs. Salahi. They’re the man and wife hungry for reality show celebrityhood. So hungry that they sneaked into the recent White House State Dinner, causing a big mess for all involved with White House security. When is America going to put its national foot down about grown people behaving like irresponsible children in order to get on national television? Look at all the wasted network news time and local money because a greedy, self-absorbed, controlling dad claimed that his little boy was carried into the air in a runaway balloon? I was watching Wolf Blitzer lob cottonball questions at that slappable dad in a live interview and my gut told me that the dad was flat out lying. For one thing, he dodged Blitzer’s questions and gave vague answers.
There’s something fishy of The Salahis too. And I wonder if that fishy odor comes from a peacock. The NBC peacock.
As the husband and wife prepared to crash the private White House party, they were filmed by a Bravo TV crew. Mrs. Salahi had dreams of being a member of Bravo’s popular “Real Housewives of…” franchise. Bravo is a cable branch of the NBC family tree. The party crashing couple gave its first interview about its security breach exclusively on NBC’s Today show. Matt Lauer conducted the interview this morning. A clip was posted on the show’s website.
NBC is, shall we say, very GOP friendly. Although he had no television experience whatsoever, local NBC New York hired a local rock morning radio show DJ named Billy Bush out of Washington, DC. He did local morning news lifestyles reports for WNBC. Four months later, he was booted up to network and became a contributor for the “Today” show. Within a year, he was added to “Access: Hollywood,” the show he now hosts. During that time, he was profiled in The New York Times and he talked about his uncle, then-President George W. Bush. Billy has another member of the family in the NBC spotlight. Former President Geo. W. Bush’s daughter, Jenna, is now a “Today” show contributor. During W’s presidency, Tom Brokaw wasn’t the only NBC talent granted admission into the Oval Office for an exclusive chat. So was Matt Lauer. And Al Roker.
Years ago when there was speculation that former action movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger would, like Ronald Reagan, leave movies and throw his hat in the Republican ring of politics, news outlets reported that Schwarzenegger was holding a press conference. At it, the wires reported, he’d probably make the official statement that he wanted to be the Republican Governor of California. At the last minute, came the news report that the press conference had been cancelled. That ended speculation of his political ambitions. Wrong! He was throwing his hat into the political ring. But, instead of holding a press conference, he decided to make the big announcement on a late night entertainment talk show — NBC’s Tonight show with Jay Leno. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you that Mrs. Schwarzenegger is Kennedy clan member Maria Shriver of NBC News.
If I was a TV reporter talking to The Salahis, I would need them to tell me that their crashing of our Democrat President’s White House state dinner was not partly aided by some mischief from a GOPeacock. Feel free to leave some comments.