Obama girls growing up before the country's eyes
President Obama hugs the first lady Michelle Obama as daughters Malia and Sasha and U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts look on after taking the oath of office in the Blue Room of the White House January 20, 2013 in Washington, DC. / Photo by Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images
Spending a rare morning with her dad off the campaign trail one Sunday last August, Malia Obama was walking across Lafayette Park near the White House with the first family on her way to church, when a reporter shouted a question about her summer at camp. It was "good, thank you," she said, in true first-daughter form: Concise, but courteous, poised.
President-elect Barack Obama stands on stage along with his wife Michelle and daughters Sasha and Malia during an election night gathering in Grant Park on November 4, 2008 in Chicago.
/ Joe Raedle / Getty ImagesThe 10-year-old girl America saw in a bright red dress on Nov. 4, 2008, beaming up at her father as he was elected the first African-American president of the United States, now nearly matched his six-foot-one-inch height. And by the time President Obama hands off his executive duties during Inauguration 2017, Malia and her younger sister Sasha will be a freshman in college and a sophomore in high school, respectively.
It's a phenomenon the country is familiar with, but which usually happens on the other coast, in the surreal world of Macaulay Culkins, Lindsay Lohans and other child stars of Tinseltown: Particularly in the case of two-term presidents, the entire world watches as first sons and daughters progress through adolescence, very much in the public eye, and very much held accountable for their family's reputation.
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Daughters growing up in the White House
Despite rules and gentlemen's agreements that the press respect the privacy of the president's children, Malia and Sasha Obama have spent their formative years much more visible to the public than many of their predecessors. And aside from the obvious role of the Internet and social media, if there's a finger to be pointed for it, it's at their parents. Barack and Michelle Obama have developed a reputation for speaking freely about the goings-on of their daughters' lives. Journalists knew the girls had spent a month at a New Hampshire summer camp, for instance, because Mr. Obama mentioned it in interviews.
The transparency hasn't been without its risks, and controversies. In October, a bomb threat was reported at Washington, D.C.'s Sidwell Friends School, which Malia and Sasha attend, and which incidentally has also enrolled in the past Chelsea Clinton, Tricia Nixon Cox, and Archibald Roosevelt.
And then there was the bizarre, seemingly interminable episode when Malia last year ventured to Mexico with friends for her spring break amid warnings from Texas law enforcement over the country's escalating violence. After stories and photos of the trip emerged online, the White House demanded news outlets remove them, leading to what remained for a time a cycle of dead links; an inexplicable void in the world wide web. Months later, a conservative watchdog group said it would sue the Secret Service for records showing how much it cost to protect the first daughter on her vacation.
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Soooo glad the entire country was not subjected to my middle school yearbook photos...
Lol, ha..I think I know the type you describe. Not sure which party they affiliate themselves with though.
The Obama girls have grown up before us, they are beautiful young girls and I don't doubt they are being raised with responsibilities. :))
Also criminals don't get their guns legally. They steal them or they buy them illegally on the black market or they buy them from an individual who doesn't run a background check on them or they buy them at a gun show or sheriff's auction where they also don't run background checks.
Also guns are smuggled into the US everyday as well as drugs. If the federal government were to ever ban all guns and force law abiding citizens to turn in their guns, the only ones who would have guns would be the criminals. The law abiding citizens would be defenseless.
My point for saying this is IF all guns were to ever be banned in the US the only ones who would have guns would be the criminals
The same is said for ALL OF US, no exceptions, since we only know what is put out by the media and left to make inference. If said media articles are based on opinion or inference as opposed to fact, that compounds things even more.
Either way, none of us really knows.
And, as we've seen time and again in this world, the myth and image means more than the raw reality (even if the reality is hypocrisy, but people - especially most Americans - love their marketing and silver tonguing rather than being treated like intelligent people...)