Too many times, I have seen my politicians families particularly their kids brought into the political limelight and it made it ask are politicians’ families fair game in this thing called politics. The answer is no. Politicians’ families are never fair game no matter what anyone may think. The attacks on Sarah Palin and her family where unfair and the attacks on Barack Obama and his family were unfair. I cannot understand how many Americans felt angry about Michelle Obama’s comments early on in the primary season but commenting on those comments were fair game but on other things that had nothing to do with the campaign is not fair and I don’t like. I have never liked when people bring politicians families into politics unless that spouse or child is out campaigning with the candidate and are making statements that one doesn’t agree with then no one should think that politicians’ families are fair game.
Now I say all of this because there are posters in D.C. that mention the Obama girls and the message is about healthy school lunches. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama have always said that they don’t want their girls involved in politics and they want to shield them from the media and any political attacks as much as possible. Therefore the posters went up last week, 14 in Washington's Union Station. On each of the large displays, a thought bubble rises up from a picture of a beautiful 8-year-old: "President Obama's daughters get healthy school lunches. Why don't I?" The posters are done by a Washington nonprofit that advocates nutrition-policy reform and they paid $20,000 to get its message across and carefully maneuvered the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority's tangle of regulations in order to display their posters.
The transit authority gave it a go - the White House did not, according to the group. Within 24 hours, the White House asked the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine to take down the ads, which feature Jasmine Messiah, a Florida resident who says her school offers no vegetarian or vegan lunch options. The first lady's office declined to comment for this story. For its part, PCRM has declined to take down the posters. PCRM President Neal Barnard, a nutrition researcher, says he received a phone call regarding the posters Aug. 4 (a day after they went up) from Associate Counsel Karen Dunn and Deputy Associate Counsel Ian Bassin. "They're very nice people. I like them a lot," Barnard says. "But they called and said: Please take those down, you can't mention the kids and so forth."
"What they said was that they wanted me to remove (the posters) voluntarily, but made it clear that they viewed this as something that could lead to legal action if I wasn't responsive. But that was an implication. If this story comes out as Obama vs. Us, I don't want that story," says Barnard, whose organization contacted the Washington Post on Monday about the dispute. The fact that the poster mentions the president's children has been the main point of contention, though neither the children's names nor their images appear. That reaction doesn't come as a complete surprise; when Ty Inc. marketed dolls in January named Sweet Sasha and Marvelous Malia, the first lady made her objections clear,, and the toy company stopped using the girls' names.
What PCRM is doing in this case is advocating vegan and vegetarian lunch options at public schools nationwide. Barnard hopes that when Congress revisits the Child Nutrition Act in late September, these options will be made mandatory. He cites Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, as a key supporter. According to Barnard, the majority of schools in the National School Lunch Program (which includes more than 94,000 public schools) do not offer vegetarian or vegan options, despite the fact that the American Medical Association passed a unanimous resolution in 2007 recommending that these options be available.
However the White House is upset that the posters mention the President Obama’s daughters in it although it doesn’t say the names of his daughters, it is as if political ploys are being used to play on the sympathy of the American people that why are the Obama girls getting healthy lunches but the rest of America’s children aren’t. Well the message is an accurate message and it doesn’t depict the Obama girls names and it doesn’t attack the Obama’s directly but indirectly it brings the Obama girls into the political fold which the Obama’s did not and do not want. Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is responsible for the ads as part of its Healthy School Lunches Campaign and the ads Jasmine Messiah, a vegetarian who attends a Miami-Dade County public school that, she says, offers no vegetarian or vegan lunch options. The Physicians Committee has declined to take down the posters because they feel their message is true. Obama’s daughters attend a private school that offers vegetarian or vegan lunch options but many public schools across America do not offer such options for the majority of America’s children who attend public schools.
Frank Luntz, a Republican political consultant, the White House's response to the posters is hardly shocking. "The children of the president are always off-limits. Always. No exceptions," Luntz says. "No ifs, ands or buts. And while it may draw short-term attention to the issue, the White House will hate the organization for it. And I assure you they will be punished. You don't mess with the president's children. It's an unwritten rule." Luntz says that the added publicity from the White House's response will not benefit PCRM's agenda. "What matters is not whether people are aware of your campaign," he says. "What matters is your success. And if the White House hates you, then it's not successful." "I do not think you can use the president's daughters for some cause -- good or otherwise -- that they don't play a role in," says Bonnie Angelo, a former White House correspondent for Time magazine and author of "First Families: The Impact of the White House on Their Lives."
"It's very hard for the presidential family to keep their daughters balanced in terms of getting too much exposure, and I think the Obamas have done a remarkable job of achieving that balance," Angelo says. "I think this goes beyond what's allowable." Barnard is still in communication with the Office of the White House Counsel, which asked Barnard to remain "open" to further discussion. He says he is. However Barnard doesn’t want this to become a legal fact because his cause is a good cause but it is overstepping its boundaries by mentioning the Obama girls but this is nothing new to politics. Politicians’ wives, kids and other relatives are always used in ads whether they are negative or good to get people to take notice to particularly issue. In this case, the issue is nutritional health and healthy school lunches which any parent would want for their child considering reports have shown that many Americans particularly our youth are growing up obese.
Still the campaign for healthy school lunches was planned well because the posters, several of which appear in a corridor leading from Amtrak gates to the Metro platforms, are large, wall-mounted displays, strategically placed to catch the eye of Hill commuters. "The main reason we put the posters there, of course, is for congressional staffers who get off at Union Station and they have to walk down that corridor," says PCRM's media relations manager, Jeanne McVey. In fact, Barnard says that the reception he's received regarding the poster has been positive and that he plans to leave the posters up until Aug. 31, the full period they were scheduled to be in the Metro stop. "It's a beautiful ad," Barnard says. "We've been on Capitol Hill for a long time, working with members of Congress, and it's fair to say there's a lot of support on Capitol Hill for exactly what we're doing." PCRM is advocating vegan and vegetarian lunch options at public schools nationwide. Barnard hopes that when Congress weighs in on the Child Nutrition Act, which comes up for reauthorization in October, the presence of these options will be made mandatory. And Barnard says he hasn't heard of any opposition to the posters apart from that voiced by the White House lawyers who contacted him.
Also Barnard says he doesn't see anything compromising or controversial about the poster, which features Jasmine Messiah standing impishly, arms crossed, in a red dress against a red background, with a clip-art-style thought bubble aligned with her left pigtail. For Barnard, juxtaposing Jasmine with Sasha and Malia was particularly important. "The direct comparison is: You have affluent children with access to healthy foods, and disadvantaged children have the same rights to the same kinds of healthy meals as affluent kids. And we are fighting for that fairness, so we felt that making that statement as directly as we could was important." To a degree Barnard and his organization are correct in what they are doing because affluent children are given perks that disadvantaged & underprivileged children don’t get such as healthier lunches and food. Plus what is perhaps on the campaigns side is that many young children worship the Obama girls that was reported on in another Washington Post article entitled Move Over, Miley. In Washington , The Obama Girls Are the Latest Craze. That article shows how many young girls idolize the Obama girls and want to know all about from what they wear to the food they eat to what they have in their bedrooms.
So with that said, it is understandable how it has been a positive message to the ads and why some might agree and feel that the statement is fair to use. Still I feel that politicians’ families are off limit particularly kids and I have always felt that way no matter what the ad campaign is. Nonetheless Barnard says the majority of schools in the National School Lunch Program (which includes more than 94,000 public schools) do not offer vegetarian or vegan options, despite the fact that the American Medical Association passed a unanimous resolution in 2007 recommending that these options be made available. After the White House contacted Barnard last Tuesday, he consulted with First Amendment attorney Jonathan Emord, asking whether the posters exploited the first family, constituted a violation of privacy or were in any sense legally sticky. Emord "said the handlers cannot take these ads down," Barnard says. "And frankly their boss, the president, would never stand for it. They just couldn't do it. It would basically amount to censorship."
Barnard and White House attorneys continued to communicate via e-mail last week, and when they spoke again on the phone, Barnard repeated what Emord had told him. Barnard, who says he thinks that objection to the poster comes solely from the president's "handlers" and not from the first family itself, says: "I was not about to pull the ads. They're important, and they're good, and they raise the issue, speaking for kids in America. And I'm not about to have them shut me up because they're nervous." As for the (literal) poster-child, Jasmine came to PCRM's attention this spring when she traveled to the District with her mother, Sarah Messiah, an epidemiologist at the University of Miami who spoke before the House and Senate on childhood obesity as part of a conference organized by PCRM. Barnard recalls that Jasmine had recently studied government in school and that she was eager to see theory in practice. At one of these hearings, Barnard says, the 8-year-old approached the mike. "She said: 'I have something I want to say. . . . In my school, there isn't anything I can eat. There isn't anything healthy at all.' " Barnard, inspired, got an on-hand photographer to take Jasmine's picture -- now the main image in the Metro posters. Jasmine has also written a letter to the president's daughters, which Politico obtained from PCRM. "I'm glad that your school, Sidwell Friends, already has lots of healthy options in the cafeteria. . . , " Jasmine writes. "If we work together, we can make sure all students can eat healthy school lunches."
Therefore while the campaign is a good campaign, I do think that both the White House and PCRM can get this legislation passed in October if they worked together on this issue because it is a shame that hundreds of thousands of U.S. children don’t have the option of healthy school lunch’s particularly vegetarian meals. This is what needs to be done but organizations like PCRM and politicians need to work together because these are good causes that benefit all Americans especially our youth. So let’s hope cooler heads prevail and both sides work together to achieve something that is needed without going to court to fight for the posters to be taken down. Also although politicians’ families shouldn’t be fair game, I do believe that politicians’ spouses or their kids can be good tools for great causes like this so this is something that I would encourage any politicians spouse or child to get involved in but this in no away means that organizations like PCRM should use politicians’ families to get across their message when they are not the one’s elected to office.
Sources:
Move Over, Miley. In Washington, The Obama Girls Are the Latest Craze.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/17/AR2009041703536.html
Posters alluding to Obama girls draw fire
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/11/MNQD196S7S.DTL
White House Decries Physicians Committee’s Poster, Which Mentions Obama Girls
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/10/AR2009081003126.html
Now I say all of this because there are posters in D.C. that mention the Obama girls and the message is about healthy school lunches. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama have always said that they don’t want their girls involved in politics and they want to shield them from the media and any political attacks as much as possible. Therefore the posters went up last week, 14 in Washington's Union Station. On each of the large displays, a thought bubble rises up from a picture of a beautiful 8-year-old: "President Obama's daughters get healthy school lunches. Why don't I?" The posters are done by a Washington nonprofit that advocates nutrition-policy reform and they paid $20,000 to get its message across and carefully maneuvered the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority's tangle of regulations in order to display their posters.
The transit authority gave it a go - the White House did not, according to the group. Within 24 hours, the White House asked the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine to take down the ads, which feature Jasmine Messiah, a Florida resident who says her school offers no vegetarian or vegan lunch options. The first lady's office declined to comment for this story. For its part, PCRM has declined to take down the posters. PCRM President Neal Barnard, a nutrition researcher, says he received a phone call regarding the posters Aug. 4 (a day after they went up) from Associate Counsel Karen Dunn and Deputy Associate Counsel Ian Bassin. "They're very nice people. I like them a lot," Barnard says. "But they called and said: Please take those down, you can't mention the kids and so forth."
"What they said was that they wanted me to remove (the posters) voluntarily, but made it clear that they viewed this as something that could lead to legal action if I wasn't responsive. But that was an implication. If this story comes out as Obama vs. Us, I don't want that story," says Barnard, whose organization contacted the Washington Post on Monday about the dispute. The fact that the poster mentions the president's children has been the main point of contention, though neither the children's names nor their images appear. That reaction doesn't come as a complete surprise; when Ty Inc. marketed dolls in January named Sweet Sasha and Marvelous Malia, the first lady made her objections clear,, and the toy company stopped using the girls' names.
What PCRM is doing in this case is advocating vegan and vegetarian lunch options at public schools nationwide. Barnard hopes that when Congress revisits the Child Nutrition Act in late September, these options will be made mandatory. He cites Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, as a key supporter. According to Barnard, the majority of schools in the National School Lunch Program (which includes more than 94,000 public schools) do not offer vegetarian or vegan options, despite the fact that the American Medical Association passed a unanimous resolution in 2007 recommending that these options be available.
However the White House is upset that the posters mention the President Obama’s daughters in it although it doesn’t say the names of his daughters, it is as if political ploys are being used to play on the sympathy of the American people that why are the Obama girls getting healthy lunches but the rest of America’s children aren’t. Well the message is an accurate message and it doesn’t depict the Obama girls names and it doesn’t attack the Obama’s directly but indirectly it brings the Obama girls into the political fold which the Obama’s did not and do not want. Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is responsible for the ads as part of its Healthy School Lunches Campaign and the ads Jasmine Messiah, a vegetarian who attends a Miami-Dade County public school that, she says, offers no vegetarian or vegan lunch options. The Physicians Committee has declined to take down the posters because they feel their message is true. Obama’s daughters attend a private school that offers vegetarian or vegan lunch options but many public schools across America do not offer such options for the majority of America’s children who attend public schools.
Frank Luntz, a Republican political consultant, the White House's response to the posters is hardly shocking. "The children of the president are always off-limits. Always. No exceptions," Luntz says. "No ifs, ands or buts. And while it may draw short-term attention to the issue, the White House will hate the organization for it. And I assure you they will be punished. You don't mess with the president's children. It's an unwritten rule." Luntz says that the added publicity from the White House's response will not benefit PCRM's agenda. "What matters is not whether people are aware of your campaign," he says. "What matters is your success. And if the White House hates you, then it's not successful." "I do not think you can use the president's daughters for some cause -- good or otherwise -- that they don't play a role in," says Bonnie Angelo, a former White House correspondent for Time magazine and author of "First Families: The Impact of the White House on Their Lives."
"It's very hard for the presidential family to keep their daughters balanced in terms of getting too much exposure, and I think the Obamas have done a remarkable job of achieving that balance," Angelo says. "I think this goes beyond what's allowable." Barnard is still in communication with the Office of the White House Counsel, which asked Barnard to remain "open" to further discussion. He says he is. However Barnard doesn’t want this to become a legal fact because his cause is a good cause but it is overstepping its boundaries by mentioning the Obama girls but this is nothing new to politics. Politicians’ wives, kids and other relatives are always used in ads whether they are negative or good to get people to take notice to particularly issue. In this case, the issue is nutritional health and healthy school lunches which any parent would want for their child considering reports have shown that many Americans particularly our youth are growing up obese.
Still the campaign for healthy school lunches was planned well because the posters, several of which appear in a corridor leading from Amtrak gates to the Metro platforms, are large, wall-mounted displays, strategically placed to catch the eye of Hill commuters. "The main reason we put the posters there, of course, is for congressional staffers who get off at Union Station and they have to walk down that corridor," says PCRM's media relations manager, Jeanne McVey. In fact, Barnard says that the reception he's received regarding the poster has been positive and that he plans to leave the posters up until Aug. 31, the full period they were scheduled to be in the Metro stop. "It's a beautiful ad," Barnard says. "We've been on Capitol Hill for a long time, working with members of Congress, and it's fair to say there's a lot of support on Capitol Hill for exactly what we're doing." PCRM is advocating vegan and vegetarian lunch options at public schools nationwide. Barnard hopes that when Congress weighs in on the Child Nutrition Act, which comes up for reauthorization in October, the presence of these options will be made mandatory. And Barnard says he hasn't heard of any opposition to the posters apart from that voiced by the White House lawyers who contacted him.
Also Barnard says he doesn't see anything compromising or controversial about the poster, which features Jasmine Messiah standing impishly, arms crossed, in a red dress against a red background, with a clip-art-style thought bubble aligned with her left pigtail. For Barnard, juxtaposing Jasmine with Sasha and Malia was particularly important. "The direct comparison is: You have affluent children with access to healthy foods, and disadvantaged children have the same rights to the same kinds of healthy meals as affluent kids. And we are fighting for that fairness, so we felt that making that statement as directly as we could was important." To a degree Barnard and his organization are correct in what they are doing because affluent children are given perks that disadvantaged & underprivileged children don’t get such as healthier lunches and food. Plus what is perhaps on the campaigns side is that many young children worship the Obama girls that was reported on in another Washington Post article entitled Move Over, Miley. In Washington , The Obama Girls Are the Latest Craze. That article shows how many young girls idolize the Obama girls and want to know all about from what they wear to the food they eat to what they have in their bedrooms.
So with that said, it is understandable how it has been a positive message to the ads and why some might agree and feel that the statement is fair to use. Still I feel that politicians’ families are off limit particularly kids and I have always felt that way no matter what the ad campaign is. Nonetheless Barnard says the majority of schools in the National School Lunch Program (which includes more than 94,000 public schools) do not offer vegetarian or vegan options, despite the fact that the American Medical Association passed a unanimous resolution in 2007 recommending that these options be made available. After the White House contacted Barnard last Tuesday, he consulted with First Amendment attorney Jonathan Emord, asking whether the posters exploited the first family, constituted a violation of privacy or were in any sense legally sticky. Emord "said the handlers cannot take these ads down," Barnard says. "And frankly their boss, the president, would never stand for it. They just couldn't do it. It would basically amount to censorship."
Barnard and White House attorneys continued to communicate via e-mail last week, and when they spoke again on the phone, Barnard repeated what Emord had told him. Barnard, who says he thinks that objection to the poster comes solely from the president's "handlers" and not from the first family itself, says: "I was not about to pull the ads. They're important, and they're good, and they raise the issue, speaking for kids in America. And I'm not about to have them shut me up because they're nervous." As for the (literal) poster-child, Jasmine came to PCRM's attention this spring when she traveled to the District with her mother, Sarah Messiah, an epidemiologist at the University of Miami who spoke before the House and Senate on childhood obesity as part of a conference organized by PCRM. Barnard recalls that Jasmine had recently studied government in school and that she was eager to see theory in practice. At one of these hearings, Barnard says, the 8-year-old approached the mike. "She said: 'I have something I want to say. . . . In my school, there isn't anything I can eat. There isn't anything healthy at all.' " Barnard, inspired, got an on-hand photographer to take Jasmine's picture -- now the main image in the Metro posters. Jasmine has also written a letter to the president's daughters, which Politico obtained from PCRM. "I'm glad that your school, Sidwell Friends, already has lots of healthy options in the cafeteria. . . , " Jasmine writes. "If we work together, we can make sure all students can eat healthy school lunches."
Therefore while the campaign is a good campaign, I do think that both the White House and PCRM can get this legislation passed in October if they worked together on this issue because it is a shame that hundreds of thousands of U.S. children don’t have the option of healthy school lunch’s particularly vegetarian meals. This is what needs to be done but organizations like PCRM and politicians need to work together because these are good causes that benefit all Americans especially our youth. So let’s hope cooler heads prevail and both sides work together to achieve something that is needed without going to court to fight for the posters to be taken down. Also although politicians’ families shouldn’t be fair game, I do believe that politicians’ spouses or their kids can be good tools for great causes like this so this is something that I would encourage any politicians spouse or child to get involved in but this in no away means that organizations like PCRM should use politicians’ families to get across their message when they are not the one’s elected to office.
Sources:
Move Over, Miley. In Washington, The Obama Girls Are the Latest Craze.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/17/AR2009041703536.html
Posters alluding to Obama girls draw fire
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/11/MNQD196S7S.DTL
White House Decries Physicians Committee’s Poster, Which Mentions Obama Girls
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/10/AR2009081003126.html
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