The View From Their Window

Matt Welch | January 27, 2009

First Lady Michelle Obama thinks it's "inappropriate" for a toy manufacturer to sell little "Sweet Sasha" and "Marvelous Malia" dolls. Me, I was walking around the White House the other day, and found this AFL-CIO banner right across the street to be the height of inappropriateness:

Hasn't seemed to have gotten as much play, though.

Comments

Warty|1.27.09 @ 2:29PM|#

Those poor, sweet little girls. How long till they're legal?

she-troll|1.27.09 @ 2:30PM|#

paging lonewacko

|1.27.09 @ 2:33PM|#

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations will make sure they never get trampled at Wal-Mart.

|1.27.09 @ 2:40PM|#

I'm sure Ty is delighted at all the free pub Michelle is giving them, and there will be many more units of the dolls on the streets because of Michelle's protestations.

What she has done is precisely analogous to, and just as stupid as, the protests of books and movies by the fundies.

And for Michelle to claim that all she wants for her kids is a normal childhood is a little rich, isn't it? Especially given the way she and her husband trot them onstage regularly.

highnumber|1.27.09 @ 2:41PM|#

Both the dolls and the banner are inappropriate.
Also creepy, although in different ways.

|1.27.09 @ 2:41PM|#

I blame Ty for the current economic crisis. The Beanie Baby bubble of the late 1990s was unsustainable and should have been better regulated.

Zeb|1.27.09 @ 2:45PM|#

If she wants them to have a normal life, then she should have never appeared in public, not moved to Washington and never allowed the kids to make any public appearances. There is no law that says the first lady and children need to live in the white house.
If you make a choice to be a public personality, you are stuck with it (and so are your kids).

shecky|1.27.09 @ 2:49PM|#

I'd think it's inappropriate, too. Especially since TY insists the two dark skinned dolls have no relation to the two girls, and the doll names were just coincidentally the same as the Obama girls. C'mon! Ty isn't some kind of tiny blackmarket operation.

BDB|1.27.09 @ 2:52PM|#

I'd just demand royalties for using my likeness.

|1.27.09 @ 2:55PM|#

Jeez Matt, do I have to explain everything for you?

Ty Dolls is an evil profit driven corporation that has never done anything for working people but give them a paycheck. The AFL-CIO is an altruistic champion for the working class with hardly any mob connections anymore.

Mike M.|1.27.09 @ 2:55PM|#

For the first time in my adult life, I actually agree with Michelle Obama about something.

Nevertheless, she and the whole family had better learn to develop a thick skin, because this is pretty benign compared to the stuff that will inevitably come down the road.

|1.27.09 @ 2:57PM|#

"We believe it is inappropriate to use young private citizens for marketing purposes," Ms. Obama's spokeswoman said.

And unions don't market themselves. Everybody knows that.

Kolohe|1.27.09 @ 2:58PM|#

I'm thinking a Victoria's Secret banner with the same wording would have been the height of inappropriateness and creepiness.

NotThatDavid|1.27.09 @ 3:02PM|#

Of course it's inappropriate. Likeness rights, anyone?

Bush Twins|1.27.09 @ 3:03PM|#

Nevertheless, she and the whole family had better learn to develop a thick skin, because this is pretty benign compared to the stuff that will inevitably come down the road.

So MikeM, you think Obama will disapoint the democrat left that much?

|1.27.09 @ 3:05PM|#

If a registered sex offender moves into the neighborhood of the White House, does (s)he have to visit the President in person and get him to sign that little form?

Or could I just mail it to him?

she-troll|1.27.09 @ 3:18PM|#

@FrBunny
Interesting question...does that mean Congress has to move?

Johnny Nowhere|1.27.09 @ 3:23PM|#

"We believe it is inappropriate to use young private citizens for marketing purposes," Ms. Obama's spokeswoman said.

The spokeswoman continued, "But using them for political purposes, that's just fine."

|1.27.09 @ 3:24PM|#

"We believe it is inappropriate to use young private citizens for marketing purposes," Ms. Obama's spokeswoman said.

And just what are all those public appearances and photo ops with the kids during the campaign?

MNG|1.27.09 @ 3:25PM|#

I'm not sure I get the point here.

On one hand you have a enterprise making a profit using someone's likeness.

On the other hand you have an enterprise saying "welcome so and so."

I mean, really, what am I missing? Are these two things supposed to be the same?

It's the difference between selling NY Jets #4 Jerseys without Favre's permission and hanging out a banner saying "Welcome to NY Brett!"

|1.27.09 @ 3:31PM|#

For the second time today, I agree with MNG.

shecky|1.27.09 @ 3:33PM|#

Just imagine the inappropriateness if the AFL-CIO had sent a gift basket instead.

|1.27.09 @ 3:35PM|#

I don't understand why the average person isn't creeped out by this obvious cult of personality. I must have taken the red pill...

|1.27.09 @ 3:45PM|#

Just wait 'til the AFL-CIO goons negoitiators "drop by" the White House to help the girls explain the child labor laws to Ma and Pa Obama.

"We don't gotta make no beds! You're not allowed to exploit us, like this. It's against the Law."

..|1.27.09 @ 3:57PM|#

Does that remind anyone else of the "Mission Accomplished" banner?

robc|1.27.09 @ 4:00PM|#

On one hand you have a enterprise making a profit using someone's likeness.


False. I dont think the beanie babies look like them. First name are also pretty generic.

shecky|1.27.09 @ 4:09PM|#

False. I dont think the beanie babies look like them. First name are also pretty generic.

I've never known anyone with those names. The random chance that those two names turn up as a pair of dark skinned dolls at this time seems hard to buy. Let's not kid ourselves.

Unauthorized facsimiles of the First Family are going to happen. But it seems weird that a above board company like TY would try to pull a stunt like this.

Does that remind anyone else of the "Mission Accomplished" banner?

Only if by "Mission Accomplished" you mean, "Welcome".

Xanthippas|1.27.09 @ 4:21PM|#

I don't understand why the average person isn't creeped out by this obvious cult of personality. I must have taken the red pill...

Unless you lived in the Soviet Union under Stalin or China under Mao, any mention of a "cult of personality" is absurd. What you mean about Obama, is that he is pretty popular.

Pete O\'File|1.27.09 @ 4:23PM|#

"Those poor, sweet little girls. How long till they're legal?"

Depends on where you take them.

Pendulum|1.27.09 @ 4:25PM|#

If you make a choice to be a public personality, you are stuck with it (and so are your kids).

I think you're oversimplifying things a bit. It's been pretty clear to me that the Obamas have tried to keep the lives of their daughters relatively private, although at times they have made concessions, such as the TV interview during the campaign.

Maybe they should have made fewer concessions, but I still think that their desire for privacy should be respected. Don't pretend you've never done something which could have been made public that someone could have publicized, but out of decency and manners, chose not to.

Skip|1.27.09 @ 4:27PM|#

"I'd just demand royalties for using my likeness."

So if I want to circumvent campaign finance laws, I just make a knock-off Obama Kidz dolls and give Barack the "Royalties".

economist|1.27.09 @ 4:38PM|#

Actually, I have to agree with Michelle Obama: It is in really bad taste. Please leave their kids out of the Obama items sales craze. It might warp their fragile little minds.

economist|1.27.09 @ 4:42PM|#

Still, I am expecting my shipment of Barack Obama themed toilet paper soon...

|1.27.09 @ 4:44PM|#

The banner looks vaguely North Korean to me.

|1.27.09 @ 5:15PM|#

Unless you lived in the Soviet Union under Stalin or China under Mao, any mention of a "cult of personality" is absurd. What you mean about Obama, is that he is pretty popular.

Pfft. You clearly don't watch enough daytime television.

Mike Laursen|1.27.09 @ 5:47PM|#

I'm gonna go out on a limb and predict that the President's daughters are never, ever going to have a career nor even a temporary job where they have to join a union.

|1.27.09 @ 7:04PM|#

The "Daddy, what's a Teamster?" caption on the Sasha and Malia banner/picture is pretty hilarious, but it's not altogether true; the Teamsters and SEIU disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO in 2005.

But the gladhanding is correct as far as AFL-CIO affiliated Internation Union of Operating Engineers (which I'm a member of) is concerned. Our winter publication exclaims, on the cover, a wonderful,"WE DID IT! IUOE scores big in 2008 elections" and has a "special two page center spread" on election efforts. And, of course, my local just voted to give the boot and sue two former business managers involved in a cool $million$ severance pay scam. I'll tell you what, by jiminey, it's something else.

MNG|1.27.09 @ 7:05PM|#

robc
Please robc, you are a very bright guy.

A beanie baby likeness of any human being is not going to be an exact photographic reproduction. But these dark skinned beanie babies made to look like little girls with the same names as the President elect's two little girls show up right around his inauguration. C'mon man. You know what is up.

There is a famous case of a toilet seat that, when lifted, said "Heeeer'es Johnny!" It was found to be a tort against Johnny Carson, and rightly so. Everybody knows what that was about, and here too.

|1.27.09 @ 7:23PM|#

The girls are charming. The adults around them, not so much. The adults trying to exploit them, not at all. And Michelle Obama is a fine (if faintly carnivorous) figure of a woman.

Xanthippas|1.27.09 @ 7:52PM|#

(if faintly carnivorous

What?

cuernimus|1.27.09 @ 9:53PM|#

I think he means this.

Jeffrey Balla|1.28.09 @ 2:17AM|#

If you do a search for "Sasha Malia Banner building" instead, you get a few more articles.

|1.28.09 @ 12:30PM|#

So, if the dolls are Bad because Someone Is Charging For Them,

would that make a t-shirt that has the pictures of the Presidential Family also Bad? If not, why not? Does the fact that so many are being sold by apparent Obama supporters make a difference?