We heard this during the Clinton administration, but apparently it’s getting worse: people invited to White House events don’t RSVP.
At a conference of White House social secretaries hosted by the Smithsonian Institution and White House Historical Association, former George W. Bush party planner Lea Berman aired the complaint publicly. “You’d be surprised how many people we always have to call and say, ‘Will you be coming.’”
She suggested that it’s epidemic among partisan guests, or in her case, Democrats refusing to go to the Bush White House because they didn’t like him or his policies. “Being there is enough of an honor,” she said, adding that a presidential invitation “is such a gift.”
Her advice: “If you get invited to the White House and you despise the sitting president, just go!”
And if your hatred for the president is so great you won’t go, added Bess Abell, LBJ’s social secretary, “graciously decline so somebody else can be invited.”
