ClydeR
05-04-2009, 09:07 PM
The Wall Street Journal Magazine documents a connection between Obama and New Orleans' voodoo. There needs to be an investigation about whether or not Obama has used voodoo to advance himself in politics. I quote the best parts below.
Desirée Glapion Rogers is the descendant of a Creole voodoo priestess named Marie Laveau Glapion. The first time I meet her, she welcomes me into her East Wing lair—a rhythm and blues tune plays on a white iPod, a potted white orchid perches between two windows, fresh flowers sit on a heavy wooden desk. This is a woman who never sees a wilted bloom. The 49-year-old turns on just enough Southern charm to camouflage an aura of self-assuredness typically reserved for runway models or first ladies. Wearing a crisp white shirt, black patent flats and high-waisted navy slacks that would look terrible on almost anyone else, Rogers talks about her job as White House social secretary.
More... (http://magazine.wsj.com/features/the-big-interview/desiree-rogers/)
‘We have the best brand on Earth: the Obama brand,’ Rogers says. ‘Our possibilities are endless’
With her direct access to the first couple and unparalleled connections to White House staff, as well as D.C. and Chicago power brokers, Rogers is considered by many to be the key to Brand Obama. She stands at the center of the careful marketing of the first family and an administration-wide effort to make the White House appear a hip and accessible abode. Mrs. Obama’s press team manages a media blitz that includes cover shots on People, Vogue and Oprah’s O magazine, among others, while Rogers controls the day-to-day development and execution of the brand. The former marketing executive must create a White House that helps Americans visualize Mr. Obama’s campaign promises of change and transparency.
Above all, Rogers is a world-class networker—the ultimate social engineer, not just planning White House dinner parties as well as her own intimate soirees but also connecting powerful people in her orbit.
At times Rogers can sound like she came from East Coast privilege. In fact, she’s a daughter of the middle-class Seventh Ward of New Orleans. Red beans and rice on Mondays. Fried fish and potato salad on Fridays. Dreams of Wellesley and Harvard as she walked to high school on St. Charles Avenue. A city councilman father who used to ask little Desirée to serve drinks or gumbo and help entertain when company arrived. A constant flow of company moved through Roy E. Glapion Jr.’s house—a revolving door of guests, the mayor, business leaders, Creole aristocracy, the local garbage man, the grocery store bagger. School nights didn’t exist in the Glapion house. “There was never any normal type of family,” says Roy A. Glapion, Rogers’ only sibling, a 47-year-old businessman and civil engineer who still lives in New Orleans. “You eat what you want to eat, when you want to eat it.”
Rogers, who calls herself the “eyes and ears” of Mrs. Obama, has known the first lady for nearly two decades. They met through Rogers’ ex-husband, John Rogers Jr., who played basketball at Princeton with Mrs. Obama’s brother, Craig Robinson. They have an easy way together, elbowing and joking, chatting about their daughters and smiling widely at each other, the way only old girlfriends do. Mrs. Obama pops her head in Rogers’ office to chat like someone who is still surprised that she works down the hall from her friend. Friendships with all the right people may be one of the reasons that Obama chose Rogers for the job of planning every social event that takes place at the White House—from black-tie dinners to pickup basketball games, press conferences, movie nights and birthday parties.
Summing up what she does for a living, Rogers says she plans events that “promote the Obama presidency” and make sure “the White House asset is reflective of who they [the Obamas] are.” In keeping with her corporate background and her Harvard M.B.A., Rogers uses words like “strategic plan” and “brand” when she describes how a constant string of lunches, parties and concerts can help her mission. “You have to think about it [the social secretary job], in my mind, almost like a business. Otherwise, you never get there. You get caught in linen hell and flower hell, list hell,” Rogers says as she reflects on the first series of high-profile events.
Unlike previous administrations, which have kept the East and West Wings separate, Rogers and her five-person staff are a vital part of its political operation, according to a White House aide. Every morning at 8:15 a.m., Rogers strides from the East to West Wing, where she attends a meeting with Mr. Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, top Obama aide David Axelrod and other senior White House officials. Letitia Baldrige, social secretary to Mrs. Kennedy, says the policy makers in the West Wing “always wanted to take over the social events” during the Kennedy administration. She says she advised Rogers “to fight back tooth and nail.”
At the White House, traces of New Orleans are everywhere. The grim photo of a house, white wooden siding busted from hurricane winds, hangs on Rogers’ wall. She is reading “The House on First Street: My New Orleans Story,” a memoir by Julia Reed. The first lady jokes that New Orleans pralines seem to be requested quite often as the two review the desserts for the Governors’ Dinner. “For anyone who lives here and leaves, New Orleans is part of your soul,” says Glapion, Rogers’ brother. “Even though she’s been gone since she was 17 years old, she’ll always be of New Orleans. She couldn’t get away if she tried.”
The link in the first quote contains a graphical depiction on her spider web of connections to powerful people.
There's no way someone her age could be that pretty naturally. She looks like a model! I could overlook a little voodoo as long as she keeps up the fried catfish and pecan pralines.
Desirée Glapion Rogers is the descendant of a Creole voodoo priestess named Marie Laveau Glapion. The first time I meet her, she welcomes me into her East Wing lair—a rhythm and blues tune plays on a white iPod, a potted white orchid perches between two windows, fresh flowers sit on a heavy wooden desk. This is a woman who never sees a wilted bloom. The 49-year-old turns on just enough Southern charm to camouflage an aura of self-assuredness typically reserved for runway models or first ladies. Wearing a crisp white shirt, black patent flats and high-waisted navy slacks that would look terrible on almost anyone else, Rogers talks about her job as White House social secretary.
More... (http://magazine.wsj.com/features/the-big-interview/desiree-rogers/)
‘We have the best brand on Earth: the Obama brand,’ Rogers says. ‘Our possibilities are endless’
With her direct access to the first couple and unparalleled connections to White House staff, as well as D.C. and Chicago power brokers, Rogers is considered by many to be the key to Brand Obama. She stands at the center of the careful marketing of the first family and an administration-wide effort to make the White House appear a hip and accessible abode. Mrs. Obama’s press team manages a media blitz that includes cover shots on People, Vogue and Oprah’s O magazine, among others, while Rogers controls the day-to-day development and execution of the brand. The former marketing executive must create a White House that helps Americans visualize Mr. Obama’s campaign promises of change and transparency.
Above all, Rogers is a world-class networker—the ultimate social engineer, not just planning White House dinner parties as well as her own intimate soirees but also connecting powerful people in her orbit.
At times Rogers can sound like she came from East Coast privilege. In fact, she’s a daughter of the middle-class Seventh Ward of New Orleans. Red beans and rice on Mondays. Fried fish and potato salad on Fridays. Dreams of Wellesley and Harvard as she walked to high school on St. Charles Avenue. A city councilman father who used to ask little Desirée to serve drinks or gumbo and help entertain when company arrived. A constant flow of company moved through Roy E. Glapion Jr.’s house—a revolving door of guests, the mayor, business leaders, Creole aristocracy, the local garbage man, the grocery store bagger. School nights didn’t exist in the Glapion house. “There was never any normal type of family,” says Roy A. Glapion, Rogers’ only sibling, a 47-year-old businessman and civil engineer who still lives in New Orleans. “You eat what you want to eat, when you want to eat it.”
Rogers, who calls herself the “eyes and ears” of Mrs. Obama, has known the first lady for nearly two decades. They met through Rogers’ ex-husband, John Rogers Jr., who played basketball at Princeton with Mrs. Obama’s brother, Craig Robinson. They have an easy way together, elbowing and joking, chatting about their daughters and smiling widely at each other, the way only old girlfriends do. Mrs. Obama pops her head in Rogers’ office to chat like someone who is still surprised that she works down the hall from her friend. Friendships with all the right people may be one of the reasons that Obama chose Rogers for the job of planning every social event that takes place at the White House—from black-tie dinners to pickup basketball games, press conferences, movie nights and birthday parties.
Summing up what she does for a living, Rogers says she plans events that “promote the Obama presidency” and make sure “the White House asset is reflective of who they [the Obamas] are.” In keeping with her corporate background and her Harvard M.B.A., Rogers uses words like “strategic plan” and “brand” when she describes how a constant string of lunches, parties and concerts can help her mission. “You have to think about it [the social secretary job], in my mind, almost like a business. Otherwise, you never get there. You get caught in linen hell and flower hell, list hell,” Rogers says as she reflects on the first series of high-profile events.
Unlike previous administrations, which have kept the East and West Wings separate, Rogers and her five-person staff are a vital part of its political operation, according to a White House aide. Every morning at 8:15 a.m., Rogers strides from the East to West Wing, where she attends a meeting with Mr. Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, top Obama aide David Axelrod and other senior White House officials. Letitia Baldrige, social secretary to Mrs. Kennedy, says the policy makers in the West Wing “always wanted to take over the social events” during the Kennedy administration. She says she advised Rogers “to fight back tooth and nail.”
At the White House, traces of New Orleans are everywhere. The grim photo of a house, white wooden siding busted from hurricane winds, hangs on Rogers’ wall. She is reading “The House on First Street: My New Orleans Story,” a memoir by Julia Reed. The first lady jokes that New Orleans pralines seem to be requested quite often as the two review the desserts for the Governors’ Dinner. “For anyone who lives here and leaves, New Orleans is part of your soul,” says Glapion, Rogers’ brother. “Even though she’s been gone since she was 17 years old, she’ll always be of New Orleans. She couldn’t get away if she tried.”
The link in the first quote contains a graphical depiction on her spider web of connections to powerful people.
There's no way someone her age could be that pretty naturally. She looks like a model! I could overlook a little voodoo as long as she keeps up the fried catfish and pecan pralines.