In an interview set to air tonight on ABC’s Nightline, the former social secretary of the Obama White House, Desiree Rogers, talks about the reality TV couple that crashed a state dinner in 2009, Tareq and Michelle Salahi, ever to be known as the “White House Party Crashers.” The two, socialites from Virginia, managed to get into a state dinner for the prime minister of India. “It’s unfortunate that, you know, this happened and…it’s over,” she said. “It’s the past, it’s behind us and that’s the end of it.”

So maybe it wasn’t just the Salahis that pushed Desiree Rogers out of her job as White House social secretary. Turns out it might actually been a penchant for putting on expsensives dresses…oh and perhaps being a tad too frank with the press.

Hard not to think this isn’t the long arm of the Salahis at work. It’s just been reported that Desiree Rogers will step down as White House social secretary next month. Rogers, you may recall, got into some hot water back in November after the Salahis “crashed” a state dinner at the White House.

Though the original story broke two weeks ago, Ornamentgate is still getting a surprising amount of attention, thanks to a recent essay explaining how all this came to be by the man responsible for adorning the White House Christmas tree with controversial imagery. Writing for the New York Observer, Barney’s Creative Director Simon Doonan gave his side of the story, and called out Andrew Breitbart, publisher of the original report. Mediaite contacted Breitbart and got his reply:

There were several disappointments at Thursday’s Crasher-gate hearing, but chief among them were Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan‘s continued insistence that the now-famous security breach posed no threat to the President, and the committee’s focus on Social Secretary Desiree Rogers‘ role in said breach. This is absurd on two counts.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs got into a heated exchange with April Ryan, a reporter with American Urban Radio Networks , over the president’s social secretary Desiree Rogers and her role at the White House State Dinner controversy. Testy exchanges seem to be commonplace in this administration, but rarely does the Press Secretary compare a reporter’s question to his petulant child. Video and text after the jump.

While there are plenty of jokes to be made about the Salahi’s White House state dinner party crashing, it is at the core an extremely serious breach of White House security that could have endangered the President’s life. That is not a joke. The focus now seems to be on the social office. Desiree Rogers to be exact. Is she about to be labeled the Social Czar?

What could be better for the slowpoke day-before-Thanksgiving than a glittering White House State Dinner, with its photos to page through (Michelle Obama’s looks like a beautiful Oscar! Desiree Rogers is in Commes Des Garcons!) and its guest list to parse (where was Richard Holbrooke? Chris Dodd made the cut but Harry Reid didn’t? Hey! [...]