Obama Daughters’ “Healthy Lunch” PSA Posters Can Remain, Despite Outcry from White House Lawyers
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on September 11, 2009
Remember this story posted here last month? The one about the Obama daughters being mentioned, not by their actual names, in a PSA poster campaign for healthy lunches and how the White House was all in a tizzy over it?
Maybe not. A lot was going on in the nation that week (I can say that with total confidence and no research, as every week is one of agitation with this administration).
Here’s the follow-up from Lynn Sweet at Politics Daily:
Those posters in Washington’s Union Station that refer to the Obama daughters and urge Congress to get behind healthy school lunches are staying up, despite calls from White House lawyers to take them down.
That’s what I was told by the president of the group that put them there, Neal Barnard, who runs the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs used the poster campaign to reissue a call to the media to protect the privacy of the Obama daughters, Malia and Sasha.
“Without getting into the specifics, we’ve been very clear, I think, from even before the administration started that their two girls would have a very private life, and we want to protect that private life and their privacy. And we hope that others will be respectful, as many in the media have been, about not using the girls as a publicity stunt,” Gibbs said.
It’s a heck of a publicity stunt.
After White House Associate Counsel Karen Dunn and Deputy Associate Counsel Ian Bassin asked Barnard to remove the posters, his organization called The Washington Post, generating a front page story on Tuesday.
When we chatted, Barnard was at an “Inside Edition” interview, had done CNN and had fielded press calls all day.
The 14 posters feature the picture of a little girl with the headline, “President Obama’s daughters get healthy school lunches. Why don’t I?” The names and faces of the Obama sisters do not appear. The Obama daughters go to one of Washington’s elite private schools. (They transferred this year from another private school — the University of Chicago Lab School.)
One of the top legislative agenda items of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is to have Congress mandate that school lunches be required to “provide daily nondairy, vegetarian meal options and a healthful nondairy milk alternative in their regular meal service.”
And that cause, said Barnard, is “one of the most important topics to any family in America and it would be ridiculous to back away.”
When we talked, Barnard said one reason he intended to let the poster campaign run its course — they are supposed to be up through Aug. 31 — is that he is not convinced the White House lawyers who called him were speaking for President Obama or First Lady Michelle. “The First Family has not objected to the ad,” Barnard said.
That strikes me as, well, an odd defense. The First Parents have made it very clear the kids are off limits. That’s the policy that has been passed along to staff. I doubt that the lawyers were freelancing when they made the call.
Related reading:
BV Black Spin: Healthy School Lunch Ad Blasts Obama Girls
Michelle Malkin: First Lady drags daughters into obesity campaign and Leave Obama’s kids alone…except when POTUS & FLOTUS need them for Obamacare and Socialist Bernie Sanders: We need more liberal media!
Mcnorman’s Weblog: Is it okay to talk about your daughters’ weight if it’s for the national good?
JustOneMinute: I’m Just Glad It Was Michelle Saying This
Vegetarian Star: Vegetarian Ads Targeting Obama Children Serves Up Controversy
To My Friends, With love…Sincerely, Toddy English: First Daughters Pulled Into School Lunch Debate!
Wordsmoker: Obama Kids’ School Menu Will Make You Hate Your Brown Bag Lunch For The Rest Of Your Life
SnagWireMedia: Obama Girls Eating Well!
Political Byline: White House Whines about Ad about Healthy School Lunches, Because it mentions the Presidents Daughters
Inspiring Sisters: Healthy Lunch Ad Insults Obama Girls.
Gribbit’s Word: Leftist and Media Attacks on Bristol Palin [UPDATED]
About the author
I worked in the public school system here where we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to feed healthy meals to children who….threw them away. What a waste of money and food….people who do not have to work for things learn not to appreciate them.
Sadly, I’ve witnessed the same thing, both of children and of adults.