“WE REMEMBER; WE REBUILD; WE COME BACK STRONGER” President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama look out onto the World Trade Center Memorial from 1WTC — which is still under construction — during a visit to lower Manhattan on June 14; the President signed a steel beam that will be installed at the top of the building. (Photos: Carolyn Kaster / AP [top]; Justin Lane / EPA via the New York Daily News)
President Barack Obama dances with First Lady Michelle Obama in the Blue Room of the White House prior to an “In Performance at the White House” series concert honoring songwriters Burt Bacharach and Hal David, May 9, 2012. During the concert the President presented Bacharach and David with the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. (by The White House)
When the pictures were taken and the family was about to leave, Mr. Philadelphia told Mr. Obama that his sons each had a question. In interviews, he and his wife, Rosean, said they did not know what the boys would ask. The White House photographer, Pete Souza, was surprised too, as the photo’s awkward composition attests: The parents’ heads are cut off, Jacob’s arm obscures his face, and his older brother, Isaac, is blurry.
Jacob spoke first.
“I want to know if my hair is just like yours,” he told Mr. Obama, so quietly that the president asked him to speak again.
Jacob did, and Mr. Obama replied, “Why don’t you touch it and see for yourself?” He brought his head level with Jacob, who hesitated.
“Touch it, dude!” Mr. Obama said.
As Jacob patted the presidential crown, Mr. Souza snapped.
“So, what do you think?” Mr. Obama asked.
“Yes, it does feel the same,” Jacob said.
(Isaac, now 11, asked Mr. Obama why he had eliminated the F-22 fighter jet. Mr. Obama said it cost too much, Isaac and his parents recounted.)
In keeping with a practice of White House photographers back to Gerald R. Ford’s presidency, each week Mr. Souza picks new photos for display. That week, Jacob’s easily made the cut.
“As a photographer, you know when you have a unique moment. But I didn’t realize the extent to which this one would take on a life of its own,” Mr. Souza said. “That one became an instant favorite of the staff. I think people are struck by the fact that the president of the United States was willing to bend down and let a little boy feel his head.”
David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s longtime adviser, has a copy framed in his Chicago office. He said of Jacob, “Really, what he was saying is, ‘Gee, you’re just like me.’ And it doesn’t take a big leap to think that child could be thinking, ‘Maybe I could be here someday.’ This can be such a cynical business, and then there are moments like that that just remind you that it’s worth it.”
— President Obama, in his commencement address at Barnard College today (via barackobama)
— President Obama at the 2012 White House Correspondents’ Dinner
![thedailywhat:
Irresponsible Response of the Day: Asked at a press conference today in Louisiana about the persistent belief among many Americans that President Obama is a Muslim, Newt Gingrich said he personally takes the commander-in-chief “at his word” concerning his Christianity, but understands why some do not.
“Why does the president behave the way that people would think that [he’s Muslim]?” Gingrich told reporters. “You have to ask, why would they believe that? It’s not cause they’re stupid. It’s because they watch the kind of things I just described to you.”
According to Politico, those “things” included the president’s “excessive sensitivity” toward non-Judeo-Christian faiths. Gingrich has also accused the Obama administration of “anti-religious bigotry” and slammed the president for “apologizing” to Muslims.
“The fact is I take him at his word,” Gingrich is quoted as saying, “but I think it is very bizarre that he is desperately concerned to apologize to Muslim religious fanatics while they are killing young Americans while at the same time going to war against the Catholic Church and against every right to live Protestant organization in the country. I just think it’s a very strange value system.”
Maggie Haberman notes that, in a radio interview yesterday, Gingrich admonished the media for “going easy on coverage of Obama’s ‘Muslim friends’.”
[politico / photo: tpm.]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1crrc1Kdb1qzpwi0o1_1280.jpg)
Irresponsible Response of the Day: Asked at a press conference today in Louisiana about the persistent belief among many Americans that President Obama is a Muslim, Newt Gingrich said he personally takes the commander-in-chief “at his word” concerning his Christianity, but understands why some do not.
“Why does the president behave the way that people would think that [he’s Muslim]?” Gingrich told reporters. “You have to ask, why would they believe that? It’s not cause they’re stupid. It’s because they watch the kind of things I just described to you.”
According to Politico, those “things” included the president’s “excessive sensitivity” toward non-Judeo-Christian faiths. Gingrich has also accused the Obama administration of “anti-religious bigotry” and slammed the president for “apologizing” to Muslims.
“The fact is I take him at his word,” Gingrich is quoted as saying, “but I think it is very bizarre that he is desperately concerned to apologize to Muslim religious fanatics while they are killing young Americans while at the same time going to war against the Catholic Church and against every right to live Protestant organization in the country. I just think it’s a very strange value system.”
Maggie Haberman notes that, in a radio interview yesterday, Gingrich admonished the media for “going easy on coverage of Obama’s ‘Muslim friends’.”
By now, you may have heard about Andrew Breitbart’s last project involving footage of Barack Obama speaking in support of former Harvard professor Derrick Bell. (If not, read about it here.) A 1990 profile written by Times’ staffer Tammerlin Drummond after Obama’s election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review touches on the tenor of the race relations at the school a little before the footage was taken. Read it, it’s fascinating.
Yet tensions were building. White students grumbled about the attention paid to Obama’s race. Black students criticized him for not choosing more blacks for other top positions at the review. Caught in the cross-fire, Obama, who has a tendency toward understatement, downplayed his own achievements.
“For every one of me, there are thousands of young black kids with the same energies, enthusiasm and talent that I have who have not gotten the opportunity because of crime, drugs and poverty,” he said. “I think my election does symbolize progress but I don’t want people to forget that there is still a lot of work to be done.”
… Referring to his fellow students at the review, whom he edits, he said: “These are the people who will be running the country in some form or other when they graduate. If I’m talking to a white conservative who wants to dismantle the welfare state, he has the respect to listen to me and I to him. That’s the biggest value of the Harvard Law Review. Ideas get fleshed out and there is no party line to follow.”
… “While I applaud Obama’s achievement, I guess I am not as hopeful for what this will mean for other blacks at Harvard,” said Derrick Bell, the school’s first black tenured law professor.
“There is a strange character to this black achievement. When you have someone that reaches this high level, you find that he is just deemed exceptional and it does not change society’s view of all of the rest.”
President Obama gives me a shoutout, calls me out on lack of Twitter followers.
I still can’t believe this happened.
We just followed you on Tumblr, if that helps at all.
Obama talks about Parks and Rec and Twitter. Obama might secretly work for Flavorpill.
(Source: youtube.com)
President Barack Obama holds Arianna Holmes, 3, before taking a departure photo with members of her family in the Oval Office, Feb. 1, 2012. Arianna’s mother, Angela Holmes, is a departing Special Assistant in the International Economic Affairs office of the National Security Staff.
(Source: theamericanprospect)
