“Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.” –George Washington

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving was a big day at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, as the Obama administration prepared for the biggest social event of its presidency: the White House State Dinner.

The official 338-person guest list read like a who’s who on the Left – an elite scroll of Obama appointees, Demo politicians and big-dollar donors mixing it up with assorted sycophants from the media and entertainment industries.

“Everyone looks great; we’re feeling great,” White House social secretary Desiree Rogers observed as she entered the event.

According to the Obamas’ fawning media, Barack was decked out in his finest fitted silk tuxedo while Michelle was splendidly sleeveless in a gold-and-tan sheath dress overlaid in silver with a complementary designer shawl. The receiving areas were dressed in green and purple, the tables were draped in green and gold, with hydrangeas, roses and sweet peas for accent. Guests were treated to a fine lineup of entertainment while they dined on potato and eggplant salad, red lentil soup, roasted potato dumplings and green curry prawns followed by pumpkin pie tarts and pear tatin.

Among the guests was a socialite couple from Virginia horse country: Tareq Salahi, reportedly a member of the American Task Force on Palestine, and his wife Michaele, a blond wrapped in a red and gold Indian lehenga.

Like the other White House guests, they looked and acted the part.

As you have undoubtedly heard, however, the Salahis were impostors, reality-TV wannabes who schmoozed their way into the event though they were not on any guest list. Not only did they manage to pass through every security checkpoint, but they also posed for photo ops with Obama, Joe Biden and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

The charade wasn’t discovered until the next day, when the impostors boasted about their attendance on social network pages: “Honored to be at the White House for the state dinner with President Obama and our First Lady!” one of them posted.

Like Obama himself, the Salahis got into the White House without qualification or a background check. Of course, the Salahis merely had to hoodwink three security checkpoint personnel, while the Obamas duped some 33 million voters. (Yes, I know, Obama received 66,882,230 votes, but at least half of those were from people who knew full well they were electing a socialist. The other half, however, were just temporarily mesmerized by Obama’s “hope-n-change” mantra.)

Among the most interesting accounts of these charlatans is one from Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum in an essay entitled, “Social climbing with a twist.”

Her column is directed at the Salahis, but one can’t escape the irony that it could be just as easily directed at the Obamas.

Applebaum writes, “Social climbing is an ancient art, one as old as society itself. The character of the high-society impostor – the fake aristocrat, the soi-disant marquis, the ‘professor’ with no degree – has been known in every era, too.

"Over the centuries, some societies have been more susceptible to these sorts of swindles than others,” notes Applebaum. “Catherine the Great’s Russia, for example, was positively swarming with phony English duchesses and Italian princes.”

Applebaum continues, “To that notable group of societies we can now add 21st-century Washington. Like 18th-century Russia, it is a world of neophytes, a society whose members have only recently ‘made it’ into an elite magic circle and who don’t necessarily know the other members all that well. Like 19th-century New York, it is also a world where appearances matter: You get invited to the event … not just because of who you are but because of what you represent, which costume you wear, which ethnic group you come from.”

Or as Obama put it in the opening pages of his political autobiography, “I am new enough on the national political scene that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”

“Above all, says Applebaum, "it is a world that seems to offer wealth and fame to those outsiders who manage to enter it. … Just like all charlatans and swindlers over the centuries, they managed [to get into the White House] by looking and acting the part. … They knew how to behave around the contemporary aristocracy: Simply act as if you belong, don’t stare too hard at the celebrities, don’t eat or drink too much, and do engage your neighbors in light chit-chat.”

That is an apt description of the Obamas, who are the epitome of nouveau riche.

“But,” writes Applebaum, “there are differences between [them] and, say, Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, a self-described ‘Spanish aristocrat’ who set himself up as a glamorous ‘faith healer’ in 1770s St. Petersburg and made his living by borrowing money from gullible courtiers. [They] are hoping to cash in faster – a lot faster … and they also have a lot more [mass media] help than did the swindlers of yesteryear.”

Yep, that’s Barack and Michelle, alright.

Applebaum concludes that such impostors and charlatans succeed with their ruse unless or until they’re found out: “The Spanish Count Cagliostro was eventually expelled from St. Petersburg, after the empress learned that he was neither Spanish nor a count. The ‘King’ and ‘Duke’ in ‘Huckleberry Finn’ were tarred, feathered and ridden out of town on a rail.”

With domestic and foreign policy failures abounding, it appears that the Obama regime’s façade is beginning to unravel. I suppose that is yet another similarity between Obama and the Salahis: They are both party crashers. The sooner the Obamas are ridden out of town on a rail, the better for all concerned.

In the meantime, for the sake of our nation and our posterity, we should pray for Barack Obama – maybe 1 Timothy 2:1-6, or should Obama not mend his ways, perhaps something along the lines of Psalm 109:8, “May his days be few; may another take his office!”