Life Lesson: if some upper-middle-aged guy who still lives with his mother asks you, the unaffiliated private citizen, for a $64,000 "loan" to fund his big inaugural ball, he probably has no plans of holding an inaugural ball.
Hypothetically.
Actually, not hypothetically at all. True story!
Darryl Dante Hayes, head of Congressional Education Foundation for Public Policy and promotes various fundraising parties -- including an inaugural ball for George W. Bush in 2001 -- is under investigation by the local U.S. attorney, D.C. attorney general and Secret Service for financial fraud regarding the Veterans Presidential Inaugural Ball.
The ball had been advertised as being held at the fancy St. Regis Hotel in downtown D.C., but at the last minute guests were told it would be at some random Hilton in the Virginia suburbs. They were also told that the Obamas might show up, but ha, good luck.
And then it was canceled the day before, with no explanation, and various beauty queens and half-famous people got upset. It was to benefit veterans! Opportunities for f-list celebrities to achieve this level of self-satisfaction don't come around very often.
The circumstances of this cancellation are appropriately sketchy. Apparently Hayes himself picked up invited guest Angela Luckey and two of her friends at the airport, and immediately asked them to put $64,000 in expenses on their personal credit cards. ""That's when I knew something was wrong," Luckey told the Washington Post. Well, no one ever said that Angela Luckey was an idiot.
Who is this Hayes clown anyway?
Reached at his mother's home in Baltimore, Hayes, 52, said he was forced to cancel after all but two of the ball's 15 corporate sponsors pulled their support.
Also: Mother wouldn't let him out of the basement that night. He had CHORES.
Jim Newell promotes balls in his writing for Wonkette and IvyGate.
