Obama Family Values

The Scrapbook was a little surprised to learn, in the Washington Post last week, that the Obama reelection apparatus is featuring imagery of the entire First Family—Barack, -Michelle, Malia, Sasha—in its forthcoming advertising campaigns. “In the months to come,” writes the Post reporter, “political strategists expect to see the first family used as a political asset.” The Post then goes on to quote the ubiqui-tous Democratic pollster Celinda Lake: “The value of the family is enormous. The more you know this family and the more you think of Barack Obama in these terms, the harder it is to vilify him.”

Barack Obama and his political assets

NEWSCOM

To which The Scrapbook responds: Oh, really?

You see, what surprises The Scrapbook is not the apparent fact that the Obamas are a nice, close-knit family, or that Malia, 13, and 10-year-old Sasha are appealing young girls. What surprises The Scrapbook is that, up until the re-election campaign of Barack Obama, news organizations such as the Washington Post have been exceedingly protective of Democratic presidential families, especially children, and highly critical of any comment made about, any attention whatsoever paid to, presidential offspring.

Unless, of course, the children were the offspring of Republican presidents. This contemporary trend began with the election of Bill Clinton, whose daughter Chelsea was 12 years old when her father entered the White House. The senior Clintons did not want hostile attention paid to their pre-adolescent daughter—a reasonable, and understandable, concern—but this soon devolved into a blanket protectiveness about Chelsea Clinton who, at age 32, still enjoys a kind of all-encompassing immunity in the media.