I was passively absorbing The Situation Room yesterday when I was caught off guard by Wolf Blitzer’s intro to a story on the Obama girls. He was describing a story about “the changes in store for those adorable little Barack Obama children.” Most of the squishy emphasis was on “adorable” and “little,” so it came out a little like you might imagine the phrase “adorable little puppy!!!” only with “Barack Obama children” in place of “puppy.”
It was weird, but not in a “keep that creepy old man away from my daughters” kind of way. It was weird in a “We’re so excited to introduce this product to you!” kind of way. There was very much a sense that the Obama children are ours to enjoy, especially during this long feel-good period leading up to the changeover. They’re our reward for making it through the last eight years of old drunken twins. More than anything, they symbolize the youth and vigor and optimism of the campaign because that’s what kids do: remind us that no matter how badly we’ve screwed up, we’ve got a chance to try again.
That’s all cool, really. The problem is that they’re little kids, and extensive news coverage of their adorable little lives goes against the fairly strict “cameras off” policy of the last 16 years. The Clintons protected their daughter from the media, though they couldn’t do much about the people who wanted to make fun of her braces and frizzy hair (and OMG, what that girl can do with a flat iron today!). Even the Bushes kept their kids out of the limelight. Arguably they belonged there given their age, but you can’t blame the administration for wanting to keep their underage drinking spells under wraps…and hey, it’s probably the least of the things they covered up.
It will be interesting to see when the Obamas start shutting the cameras down and how the media reacts.
