Assistant press secretary Tommy Vietor wasn’t scheduled to accompany the President overseas, but he made a surprise appearance yesterday to pop the question to his girlfriend.
Vietor’s now-fiancee, Katie McCormick-Lelyveld, is press secretary to Michelle Obama and was traveling with the First Lady.
Vietor surprised McCormick-Lelyveld in a Paris hotel room to propose.
In Paris, he solicited the aid of First Lady Obama’s traveling aide Kristen Jarvis, who phoned McCormick-Lelyveld to tell her the Obama girls Sasha and Malia were ready early, and she needed to come to the Embassy residence as soon as possible.
Jarvis pointed McCormick-Lelyveld to a room where Vietor was waiting.
“Why are you here?” a stunned McCormick-Lelyveld asked.
“I thought she was going to pass out,” Vietor recalls.
Vietor got down on one knee and presented a lovely ring he’d bought with the guidance of his mother.
Obama seemed impressed. “Pretty smooth move,” he told an aide. When OBAMA thinks you’re smooth, you’ve done something right.