White House Objects to Poster That Invokes Obama Children

[babylonsister]

White House Objects to Poster That Invokes Obama Children

By Kate Kilpatrick and Ruth McCann
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, August 11, 2009



The posters went up last week, 14 in 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?"

A Washington nonprofit that advocates nutrition-policy reform paid $20,000 to get its message across and carefully maneuvered Metro's tangle of regulations to display its posters. Metro gave it a go -- but the White House did not, according to the group. Within 24 hours of the signs' appearance, the White House asked the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine to take down the ads, which feature 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.

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. . . . They felt that mentioning the president's children was off-limits. They said {they're} not going to allow the use of their daughters as leverage."

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. The First Lady's Office declined to comment for this story.

more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/10/AR2009081003126.html?hpid=topnews

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

1. I read the article, and Neal Barnard is one hell of a dumb bastard.

Good job, Neal - you just killed your own cause.

[YOY]

2. I saw them (I work at Union).

Not exactly offensive and frankly it's a good question.

[babylonsister]

3. Give 'em an inch... the kids should be off limits, period, imo. nt

[jaxx]

4. It's lowdown to use the kids.

But then look at what we're dealing with.

One more thing to hurt the rightwing's image to those who don't live on the fringe.

[Jennicut]

5. Good message but use of the kids is a bad idea

Why even go there? It would start more and more people thinking they can use them in any way.

[NYC_SKP]

6. Another unnecessary un-rec.

I fixed it. :P

Fourth one in 32 seconds.

I'm getting a little tired of these trolls.