Like any government agency, I’m sure there are layers and layers of bureaucrats at the White House, but, guys, please, get your act together?  Who’s handling the protocol?  Who’s giving advice over there?  Someone or something is definitely missing at the White House. 

The latest fiasco with Leslie Macko is enough already.  Just the other day, President Obama parades her out for a press conference and tells the crowd that Ms. Macko lost her job at an ACAC fitness center in April of 2009, is only eligible for a few more weeks of unemployment, and has now turned to her father for financial support. 

Well, apparently, nobody bothered to check that a month before her termination she was found guilty of prescription drug fraud.  The CEO of ACAC has said she was not terminated because of any illegal activity but don’t you think the WH should’ve known about this before making her the poster child for why unemployment benefits should be extended? 

And then there’s Shirley Sherrod who said the WH forced her to resign from the Agriculture Department after a 38-second video clip appeared on the internet which sparked a racial controversy.  The WH never bothered to view the entire tape before forcing her to quit and once it had, the Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, apologized and was forced to offer her a new position.  Rather than throwing Ms. Sherrod under the bus, why didn’t the WH view the entire tape before asking her to resign?

And didn’t President Obama throw Sgt. James Crowley under the bus when he said Sgt. Crowley “acted stupidly” for arresting black Harvard scholar Henry Lewis Gates Jr. before he reviewed all the facts.  Isn’t there someone in the WH who’s supposed to vet these stories? 

And who can forget the party crashers, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, who attended a WH dinner for the Indian Prime Minister.  They were actually photographed with Vice President Biden and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel that evening.  The only thing missing was the photograph with the President himself.  How could uninvited guests have access to the VP and Chief of Staff in the WH?

While I’m at it, I’d like to know who’s providing the President with tips on protocol.  Where does Miss Manners say the President of the United States is supposed to bow to foreign dignitaries?  Am I the only one who thinks it’s inappropriate for my President to be bowing to kings and emperors – heads of state equal to the President himself?  In April of last year, the President was seen bowing to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.  Didn’t anybody nudge him and say, “You probably shouldn’t do that.  It doesn’t look good to the people back home?”  Again, in November, he’s seen bowing to Japanese Emperor Akihito.  Finally, this past April, we see President Obama, yet again, bowing to Chinese President Hu Jintao.  Will someone please tell the President not to do this or get him a back brace to keep him standing straight? 

There’s also the now-famous photograph of President Obama sharing a handshake and mile-wide smile with happy Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez on April 17, 2009, when only weeks before, in Tehran, Chávez said our Middle East policy is “a policy of permanent aggression, of war, of terrorism by the U.S. empire. That’s the great guilty one, the great Satan, as they call it here.”  I know I’d like my picture taken with a thug like Chávez. 

And, finally, President Obama should get himself a personal shopper.  Who’s buying the gifts at the WH?  How is giving 25 DVDs of American films to then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown an appropriate gift when they weren’t even region encoded for England?  The “gift” is even more appalling when you consider PM Brown’s gift to the President was an ornamental pen holder made from the timbers of the Victorian anti-slave ship HMS Gannet.  According to reports, the unique present delighted Mr. Obama because oak from the Gannet’s sister ship, HMS Resolute, was carved to make a desk that has sat in the Oval Office in the White House since 1880.

 I think in this situation, it would be perfectly alright for the Prime Minister to re-gift his DVD set…to someone he didn’t like so well.

Why the most powerful man in the world can’t surround himself with competent people is a mystery to me.  I know he’d be far too expensive, but President Obama should’ve put Donald Trump in charge of staffing the WH.  Perhaps we wouldn’t see all these gaffes, faux pas, and screw-ups every week. 

I don’t get it and, if you do, God bless you.