Reality TV pair gatecrash Obamas’ state dinner

White House Secret Service agents will be spending Thanksgiving trying to ascertain how on earth a Virginia couple, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, managed to gatecrash President Barack Obama's first state dinner on Tuesday night.

Tareq and Michaele Salahi, aspiring reality TV stars who hope to get a part on a new cable show The Real Housewives of DC, got into the event without invitations. Photos they posted on Facebook afterwards showed the couple posing with Vice President Joe Biden and with Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel among others.

How anyone not on the guest list for one of the most elaborate dinners ever staged at the White House could get so close to Washington's elite is exercising the US media.

Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan confirmed that an investigation is underway but claims the President and the First Lady were never in any danger because the couple were screened for weapons just like the 320 official guests present. "Everyone that goes into the White House grounds goes through magnetometers and other levels of screening," said Donovan.

One thing the Salahis, described as "polo-playing socialites" in the Washington press, were not able to do was sit down to the lavish dinner for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. It is assumed they simply wandered from photo opportunity to photo opportunity before making their escape. ·