Free Cirque Du Salahi: Be Careful Who You Trust by Diane Dimond Page A

Dept/US Embassy in New Delhi discussing how critical these cultural games are to the two nations to strengthen the bi-lateral relationship between the two.
    http://newdelhi.usembassy.gov/pr070509.html
    Thank you,
Tareq Salahi
    United States Team Captain
    At 4:51 Tareq wrote to Jones yet again, letting her know that he believed there would be some last minute cancellations for the White House event.
     
Hi Michele,
    By the way—I know for a fact these persons are unable to attend the state dinner & the reception portion:
              1. Senator Harry Reid & his wife (they have gone home early for Thanksgiving)
              2. Kuma Gupta and husband (unable to travel to DC tomorrow)
              3. Bob Stevens and his wife (top brass from Lockheed Martin)
Cheers,
Tareq
    A few minutes later, at 5:06 p.m., Jones wrote back a one line response:
    Thank you sor (sic) the names, this will help also!
    Even though Jones obviously meant to write “thank you for the names,” this end-of-the-day message buoyed Tareq’s spirits and gave him assurance that everything would turn out. It was the famous Salahi optimism kicking in.
    At 8:46 the following morning, Michele Jones wrote to Tareq again about her attempts to get them to the White House. In the subject line she had written:
Arrival Ceremony.
Good Morning Tareq,
    The arrival ceremony (was scheduled to be outdoors) was cancelled due to inclement weather. They are having a very small one inside the WH very limited space. I am still working on tickets for tonight’s dinner. I will call or email as soon as I get word one way or another.
    Michele
    Michele Jones said nothing in that note to indicate they were not included in the arrival ceremony. So while anyone else might, at the very least, be confused after getting such an ambiguous email, in Tareq’s mind everything fell in place for attending the arrival event. However, Michele Jones never made it clear that the arrival ceremony she was writing about was taking place that same morning, ten minutes from when she was writing to them. No one had ever mentioned to the Salahis that there were any events scheduled for the morning, so they assumed all the festivities were taking place that night right before the dinner.
    Tareq didn’t care about attending the dinner itself; the arrival ceremony would be enough. Like everyone else on the OTR list, he realized that the mere fact of being at a presidential event at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue—even for ten minutes—would ensure bragging rights for years.
    There were no more e-mail messages between the Jones and the Salahis that day. The couple left their Virginia country house almost immediately after reading Jones’ early morning e-mail that told them the arrival ceremony was being held indoors. They were in a happy whirl of activity throughout the morning, scooping up everything they needed for the White House event—formal clothes, shoes, jewelry.
    The plan was to travel the hour and a half into DC and meet the Half Yard Productions camera crew at a Georgetown salon. The crew would be there to capture all the action for an upcoming episode of “ The Real Housewives of D.C. ” even though the show had not yet been officially announced to the public. Michaele would spend the day there filming and getting her hair and makeup done for the big event. The Salahis planned to don their formal wear at the salon before heading over to the White House in a stretch limo.
    It is unclear exactly what the Half Yard Productions TV producer knew about the genesis of the Salahis belief that they had been fully invited to the White House. The strict confidentiality agreements required by the network and signed by cast and crew members make it nearly impossible to confirm the facts on this point. But interviews with Erwin Gomez, owner of the Georgetown salon, and Peggy Ioakim (who refers to herself as a “hair artist”) confirm that Peggy asked one question of Michaele, over and