The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Obama Flip Flops on His Own Kids

Text Size

The Spectacle Blog

Obama Flip Flops on His Own Kids

By Philip Klein on 7.10.08 @ 10:58AM

Earlier this week, Barack Obama had his wife and kids sit down for an interview with "Access Hollywood," and received glowing coverage along these lines:

"Access Hollywood's" Maria Menounos met up with the family in Butte, Mont., on Independence Day, where she found the Obamas in a carefree and relaxed mood.

It may have been a campaign stop for the Obamas, but family, as always, came first.

It was clearly a stunt designed to portray himself as a normal family man, just a daddy who gets teased by his daughters like any other. A typical move for an ambitious politician.

However, Obama is trying to prove he's a new kind of politician, and so he quickly changed his tune:

Days after Barack Obama granted the first television interview with his entire family, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said he regrets thrusting his two young daughters in the media spotlight.

"I think that we got carried away in the moment," Obama told NBC Wednesday morning. "We were having a birthday party and everybody was laughing, and suddenly this thing cropped up, and I didn't catch it quickly enough, and I was surprised by the attention it got."...

Appearing on ABC Wednesday morning, Obama said he didn't think it was healthy for his two daughters to be so exposed.

"Particularly given the way it sort of went around the cable stations, I don't think it's healthy, and it's something that we'll be avoiding in the future," he said.

Speaking with CNN Tuesday, Menounos, the Access Hollywood reporter, said the campaign had reached out to the show for an interview and her only goal was to show the Obama family dynamic.

Emphasis mine.

It is simply risible for a man who has been running for president for a year and a half to pretend he was "surprised by the attention" that the first interview with the Obama kids received. Clearly, the Obama campaign wanted the video of him and his family to be broadcast as widely as possible. That was the whole point of doing the interview. By saying he regretted it only after the fact, the video gets even more airtime, but he also gets favorable coverage as somebody who wants to keep his kids out of the spotlight and who is averse to exploiting them for political gain.

I note this because it is part of a larger overall pattern with Obama of doing the politically opportunistic thing, and then acting as if he's taking the moral high road. He calls for a civil campaign, dispatches a number of surrogates to attack John McCain's military background, and then haltingly criticizes the surrogates after the fact. He promises to take public financing, breaks his promise to gain a political advantage, and then portrays his action as a courageous stand against the system.

topics:
John McCain, Barack Obama, Television, Hollywood, Military