When Chris Matthews described Barack Obama as the last Kennedy brother, we assumed that even the White House would have a laugh over the ridiculous jock-sniffing of Matthews for both Obama and the Kennedys.  Apparently not.  Just a week after the death of Ted Kennedy, Obama decided to evoke Camelot for the cameras, using one of his daughters to pay an homage to JFK, according to the Times of London:

It is a clear homage to perhaps the most iconic White House photograph.

Almost 46 years after the world first saw two-year-old John F. Kennedy Jr playing under the Oval Office desk as his father worked, the White House has released a picture of Sasha Obama, 8, hiding behind a sofa as President Obama reads briefing papers at the same desk.

According to the White House, Sasha is sneaking up on her father as he nears the end of a working day behind the Resolute desk, which was a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1879.

The original photograph, taken in October 1963, a month before President Kennedy was assassinated, shows John Jr peering out from under the desk as his father, like Mr Obama, reviews briefing papers. It was a photograph that helped to promote the image of Kennedy’s Camelot — the youthful President running the country with a young family playing at his side in the White House.

Didn’t this same President once warn people about politicizing his family?  Candid photos around the White House are to be expected, but staging photos with his daughter so he can act like John Kennedy is not just hypocritical, it’s more than a little pathetic.  And as the Times points out, it’s the second time he’s done it.

Here are the two photos put together:

The President has a lovely family and deserves respect for raising two intelligent daughters, but he shouldn’t be using them to attempt to make himself a faux Kennedy.

Update: A warning: remarks about the younger Obamas will get deleted and users banned.  Leave the kids out of the line of fire, please.

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