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I’m sure the Obamas are not the first First Family to go barefoot in the White House. Or to scatter plastic cups on the furniture and rugs. Or to eat junk food from the plastic platters. On the White House ottomans. But they’re the first to put the evidence on the record. Why?
Rob_654 // Jul 26, 2011 at 5:39 pm
Obama kept the Far Right tied up in knots over the birth certificate for years – maybe he decided its time to have some more fun with the Far Right and give them something stupid to babble on about and spin their wheels on while he gets things done.
icfantv // Jul 26, 2011 at 6:32 pm
indeed.
Saladdin // Jul 26, 2011 at 5:39 pm
Seriously David? So, the president can’t ever take his shoes off in his own home now? C’mon, this is hackery at it’s best.
dugfromthearth // Jul 26, 2011 at 5:44 pm
What’s amazing is that this far into the Obama administration and this is as big as the scandals get.
dafyd // Jul 26, 2011 at 5:46 pm
Good point
Kevin B // Jul 26, 2011 at 6:10 pm
+1
Impeach!
dafyd // Jul 26, 2011 at 5:45 pm
I can honestly say BFD, which president does this. They have families and it is nice that he can take some time to be with them. But I could see David’s point.
valkayec // Jul 26, 2011 at 5:50 pm
The picture kinda makes the First Family look like normal, average American families.
talkradiosucks.com // Jul 26, 2011 at 5:51 pm
Perhaps because Frum’s party has spent the last four years trying to portray them as foreign and unlike Americans.
Perhaps because, unlike Frum, they really are not snobs.
Chris Balsz // Jul 26, 2011 at 6:05 pm
Seem to recall Todd Lincoln hid under a desk during Cabinet meetings
valkayec // Jul 26, 2011 at 6:30 pm
(grin) A forerunner of the JFK kids. Too cute.
SteveT // Jul 26, 2011 at 6:06 pm
I see one bare foot, I see one plastic cup, I see nothing on the rug. It looks like salad of some kind (not junk food)
Great reporting, David.
Nanotek // Jul 26, 2011 at 6:09 pm
Seriously? Every American I know can identify with that situation. Talk about cultural elitism gone amuck.
BTW … what is your evidence that it is junk food? As good a shape as all are in, and TFL’s health advocacy, I seriously doubt it is “junk food.”
rbottoms // Jul 26, 2011 at 6:14 pm
Negro please.
Oldskool // Jul 26, 2011 at 6:39 pm
lol.
valkayec // Jul 26, 2011 at 6:51 pm
Huh? I don’t get this remark from you, unless you’re trying to be sarcastic. We all need to be better on the issue of race. I saw enough really awful racial discrimination as a kid in the Deep South some 50+ years ago that it changed my world and my life. If I’d been old enough and could have, I would have marched with Dr. King. I’ve also felt discrimination and obvious anger from Black high school students who assumed I because I was white I automatically discriminated against them until they came to know me and discovered I was not just an okay person but really helpful and unbiased.
While not aimed at you by any means, we all need to understand that the hatred and fear on all sides for all people must end, regardless of race, creed, color, religion, ethnicity, or gender. We’re all God’s children, made in His image, and we have to start acting like and teaching that ideal everywhere. The massacre in Norway, AZ, and 9/11 should be teaching moments, illustrating how deadly hatred can be.
“I have a dream…” I believe in that dream and want to see it manifest in the U.S.
Nanotek // Jul 26, 2011 at 7:09 pm
“I don’t get this remark from you, unless you’re trying to be sarcastic.”
valkayec … it is … big time
“’I have a dream…’ I believe in that dream and want to see it manifest in the U.S.”
indeed
Nanotek // Jul 26, 2011 at 7:07 pm
LOL
Frumplestiltskin // Jul 26, 2011 at 6:19 pm
Oh my God, and they are all black too.
For heaven’s sake, this is ridiculous. There are a ton of pictures of previous kids living in the White House doing normal things but no one ever once thought it noteworthy. How about the picture of John Kennedy Jr. playing under the Presidents desk in the Oval office?
budgiegirl // Jul 26, 2011 at 6:22 pm
good lord it’s not like he was wearing a wife beater t-shirt like they do in those red neck states.
Traveler // Jul 26, 2011 at 6:25 pm
You too right there dude. You mean negros is human too? Too many voters just can’t handle this shit, and I guess that includes our Frum. I mean, where is the cup on the rug? I always used to think you were supposed to put cups on tables. Oops that’s furniture- we’re not supposed to use it because that’s in the White House?
dante // Jul 26, 2011 at 6:27 pm
So what, David, it would be better if they were sitting at an ornate dining room table eating Arugula? Seriously? File this in the “Republicans will bitch and moan regardless of how elite or casual they look”…
jg bennet // Jul 26, 2011 at 6:29 pm
if frum needs a scandal how about this latest headline?…………….
Forget Anonymous: Evidence Suggests GOP Hacked, Stole 2004 Election
Three generations from now, when our great-grandchildren are sitting barefoot in their shanties and wondering how in the hell America turned from the high-point of civilization to a third-world banana republic, they will shake their fists and mutter one name: George Effin’ Bush.
Ironically, it won’t be for any of the things that liberals have been harping on the Bush Administration, either during or after his term in office. Sure, misguided tax cuts that destroyed the surplus, and lax regulations that doomed the economy, and two amazingly awful wars in deserts half a world away are all terrible, empire-sapping events. But they pale in comparison to what it appears the Republican Party did to get President Bush re-elected in 2004.
“A new filing in the King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell case includes a copy of the Ohio Secretary of State election production system configuration that was in use in Ohio’s 2004 presidential election when there was a sudden and unexpected shift in votes for George W. Bush,” according to Bob Fitrakis, columnist at http://www.freepress.org and co-counsel in the litigation and investigation.
If you recall, Ohio was the battleground state that provided George Bush with the electoral votes needed to win re-election. Had Senator John Kerry won Ohio’s electoral votes, he would have been elected instead.
Evidence from the filing suggests that Republican operatives — including the private computer firms hired to manage the electronic voting data — were compromised……….
****Connell was so scared for his security that he asked for protection from the attorney general, then Attorney General Michael Mukasey. Connell told close friends that he was expecting to get thrown under the bus by the Rove team, because Connell had evidence linking the GOP operative to the scandal and the stolen election, including knowledge of where Rove’s missing emails disappeared to.
Before he could testify, Connell died in a plane crash****
NOW THAT IS A SCANDAL!!
Read more: http://www.benzinga.com/news/11/07/1789905/forget-anonymous-evidence-suggests-gop-hacked-stole-2004-election#ixzz1TFk7JuJ2
icfantv // Jul 26, 2011 at 6:34 pm
seriously david, who the hell cares? you really think in this climate of 9% unemployment, a collapsed housing market, a GOP that would rather see the world economy collapse than raise taxes that people actually give a crap whether or not the president wears his shoes in HIS OWN HOUSE?
TerryF98 // Jul 26, 2011 at 6:42 pm
Fucking ridiculous. And pathetic at the same time. Please get a life Frum.
Oldskool // Jul 26, 2011 at 6:42 pm
Imagine the howls if they were pictured eating formally and not watching tv. “Elitists! We’re bankrupt and they’re eating like kings! Burn them!”
Graychin // Jul 26, 2011 at 6:43 pm
David Frum wears a coat and tie to dinner at home – his wife wears pearls and high heels – like Ozzie and Harriet Nelson.
When you viscerally hate the Obamas for no particular reason, I guess stuff like this is meaningful to you.
Pathetic.
ConnerMcMaub // Jul 26, 2011 at 6:50 pm
I think David is 180 degrees wrong on this. The President is constantly called elitist and out of touch with regular Americans, this image was deliberate.
jamesj // Jul 26, 2011 at 7:06 pm
David, with much respect, why are you reducing yourself to petty criticism of small minutia around the edges of Obama’s conduct while there are more serious matters to worry about and to report about? We’re seeing complete disrespect for a sitting president by the entire sitting body of a major political party, the wholesale invention of a financial crisis out of thin air and the willingness to risk default in order to ram job-killing, economy-slowing budget measures through the US House of Representatives.
I realize you are in a delicate position, being one of the few principled Conservatives left in the country with an audience (however small) and the balls to criticize the party, but must you lower yourself to throwing out this type of worthless red meat? Are you afraid you’ll lose what little pull you still have in Republican circles if you don’t keep stuff like this in the mix?
All I can say is, concentrate on what is actually important to the country. I don’t believe you honestly think Obama’s negotiating skills and Obama’s informal photo ops from the White House are the primary problem with the country at the current moment. Unless we want to see the Conservative movement disintegrate completely over the next decade we need to keep applying pressure where it is deserved, on the madness that has infected the hearts and minds of fellow right wingers in this country. I come to this site for a breath of rare sanity. Please keep up the yeoman’s work you’ve been conducting over the last couple years. It is appreciated.
jamesj // Jul 26, 2011 at 7:21 pm
One additional thought: Your recent TV Interview and some of your recent tweets and editorial posts seem to take the attitude “sure, House Republicans are playing irresponsible games with the world economy, but maybe if Obama had been willing to play irresponsible games right back at them we wouldn’t be in this mess right now since Republicans would not have been emboldened to be so ruthless”. Is that really where the focus of criticism should be? It sounds like a defensive mechanism – a deflection from what is really at issue. If our political philosophy has given rise to the current problem, we have a duty to discuss it in frank terms and take some responsibility. I’ve gotta say, Obama has come off looking like a sober Conservative while the Republicans in the House have come off looking like lunatics in my eyes. How do you talk down a hostage taker who’s main goal is to shoot the hostage (the entire apparatus of American government)? That’s the crux of the matter.
jnail // Jul 26, 2011 at 7:09 pm
David – are you crazy? Looks my family on movie night and any other family.
Criticize them on shoes?
So they should wear shoes at the beach too?
Get a life and focus on something meaningful
Charles M. Kelly // Jul 26, 2011 at 7:20 pm
Our nation faces a national economic disaster and you worry about petty nonsense like this?
Grow up.
I’ll ask again, in the hope of hearing an intelligent answer: how did the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler degenerate into this?
(For those who don’t recognize the name: Butler, a Republican, reportedly thwarted a planned putsch against FDR.)
Oldskool // Jul 26, 2011 at 7:25 pm
Wouldn’t it be great if this country was only that messy after eight years of Shrubbery.
think4yourself // Jul 26, 2011 at 7:26 pm
Maybe they were too riveted to the television watching David’s appearance on the Lawrence O’Donnell show to stop and put on their shoes.