{"id":16103,"date":"2012-10-26T13:00:26","date_gmt":"2012-10-26T17:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=16103"},"modified":"2012-10-26T13:00:28","modified_gmt":"2012-10-26T17:00:28","slug":"sometimes-its-not-what-you-know-its-who-you-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=16103","title":{"rendered":"Sometimes It’s Not What You Know–It’s Who You Know"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday the Washington Examiner<\/a> posted a story about the price of state dinners at the White House<\/a>. The cost of those dinners has soared during the Obama Administration. Please follow the link above to read the story. It states the obvious, but near the bottom of the story, there is an interesting fact:<\/p>\n

The documents also reveal that the Obama White House retained an outside planner for the dinners. Bryan Rafanelli, a Boston-based celebrity event planner who was retained last year, managed former first daughter Chelsea Clinton’s 2010 nupitals<\/a>. His firm’s website boasts<\/a> that he produced “State Dinners<\/a> hosted by President Barack Obama<\/a> and First Lady Michelle Obama<\/a>.”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"WALSH<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Rafanelli’s business partner<\/a>, Mark Walsh<\/a>, is deputy chief of the State Department’s<\/a> Office of Protocol<\/a>, which reimburses the White House executive residence<\/a> for the events.<\/strong><\/p>\n

My, isn’t that convenient.<\/p>\n

The article further reports:<\/p>\n

Asked about the propriety of a White House contractor having a business relationship with a federal official in a position such as Walsh, Walters (Gary Walters<\/a>, who ran presidential household operations for 21 years during Democratic and Republican administrations) said, “I don’t think it looks very good. Does it smell right? No.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Walters said he never used outside event planners because “I believed the White House residence staff could do the job.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Does anyone remember the White House travel office under the Clintons? It just seems as if the last two Democrat Presidents have used the office as their own personal payback fund.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Enhanced<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday the Washington Examiner posted a story about the price of state dinners at the White House. The cost of those dinners has soared during the Obama Administration. Please follow the link above to read the story. It states the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[117,4250,4252,4251,210,4253,430,211],"class_list":["post-16103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-barackobama","tag-chelsea-clinton","tag-gary-walters","tag-mark-walsh","tag-michelle-obama","tag-state-dinner","tag-washington-examiner","tag-white-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16103"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16106,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16103\/revisions\/16106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}