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Air Force One landed just before daybreak in Washington on Tuesday morning after an overnight flight from the island of Oahu. The president is returning from vacation the same day Republican presidential candidates square off in the Iowa caucuses, the first nominating contest of the 2012 campaign.

Obama plans to make his presence in the campaign known quickly.

The president will host a live web chat with supporters in Iowa on Tuesday night as the caucuses are unfolding. The following day, Obama will travel to Cleveland for an event focused on the economy.

Obama aides said the president will seek to draw a contrast with his GOP challengers during Wednesday’s trip to Ohio, a state sure to figure prominently in the presidential campaign.

Obama returns to Washington facing further debate on extending payroll tax cuts, the same issue that consumed Washington during the final days of December.

Congress broke through a stalemate just days before Christmas, agreeing to extend the cuts for two months. Lawmakers will get back to work later this month to negotiate a full-year extension of the cuts, which Obama supports.

White House officials say the tax cut extension is the last “must-do” legislative item on Obama’s agenda this year. His strategy for his fourth year in office will focus largely on taking executive actions that do not need approval from lawmakers as he seeks to break away from a deeply unpopular Congress.

The payroll tax cut debate almost prevented Obama from taking his annual Christmas trip to Hawaii. He delayed the trip nearly a week, finally departing on Dec. 23, just hours after Congress finalized the two-month extension.

The president, wife Michelle and daughters Malia and Sasha stayed largely out of the public eye during their trip to Oahu, the island where Obama was born and mostly raised.

The Obamas stayed in a multimillion-dollar oceanfront rental on Kailua Beach, near Honolulu, and surrounded themselves with a close-knit group of family and friends. That included Obama’s sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, who lives on Oahu, and several of the president’s childhood friends.

Obama’s outing consisted largely of trips to the gym and golf course at Marine Corps Base Hawaii near his vacation rental. The first family also made a few outings around the island, including a snorkeling trip to popular Hanauma Bay and a stop for shave ice, a Hawaiian snow cone.

The president also took his family to the East-West Center, a research and exhibition center that is displaying the anthropological work of his late mother.

Aides say Obama spent a bit of time on vacation brainstorming ideas for his Jan. 24 State of the Union address, where he will lay out an agenda that also will serve as the basis for his campaign message. He also was briefed by a small cadre of traveling advisers on some of the international issues looming in 2012, including renewed threats from Iran and a request from Yemen’s outgoing, autocratic president to come to the U.S. for medical treatment.

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Obama, vacationing in Hawaii with President Barack Obama and their two daughters, was participating for the second straight year in the annual NORAD Tracks Santa program, run by the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

“It is wonderful to be part of this holiday tradition. I love answering calls from children who were anxious to learn where Santa was and when he would arrive at their home,” the first lady said in a statement.

“I passed on to each child the current location of Santa and reminded them that he would come to their house only after they were in bed sleeping.”

NORAD’s Santa tracking tradition dates back to 1955.

The air command — which monitors the skies over Canada and the United States — makes every effort to locate Saint Nick, using no less than four high-tech systems: radar, satellites, “Santa Cams” and even fighter jets.

Children and the young at heart can track the jolly man in the big red suit online at noradsanta.org, which shows a map of Santa’s current location and provides constant updates in eight languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese and Chinese.

Norad Santa has also made his way to Facebook, where he has received “likes” from more than 940,000 visitors to his page.

“What has Santa been feeding these Reindeer? They’ve flown, warp-speed, through Balkanabat, Turkmenistan,” Norad posted on Facebook.

As of 0030 GMT Sunday, Santa’s reindeer-pulled sleigh was flying over London. “Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace — Santa is enjoying the sites and a spot of tea,” it said.

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In speaking at Spelman’s commencement ceremony this past weekend, First Lady Michelle Obama talked directly to the members of her husband’s most loyal electorate – Black females. In 2008, there was no larger voting bloc that helped Barack Obama become president than Black women. Turnout at the polls among black women in 2008 was 68 percent.

With the Obama’s successful political and legal careers – and their strong emphasis on parenting, education, and religion – many in this generation liken the Obama’s to the real-life version of the fictional iconic black couple, Cliff and Clair Huxtable.

In the late 80′s, the duo of Bill Cosby and Phylicia Rashad represented the Black version of the American dream on The Cosby Show. Rashad, who played the role of Claire, shared the stage with Obama on Sunday, receiving an honorary doctorate degree.

While she gracefully declined to comment directly on the comparison, she called Obama “a great lady who represents many of the ideals of womanhood as powerful, dynamic, creative and nurturing.”

In an era where having it all — husband, career, children — is a bigger challenge than ever before for black women, here comes Michelle Obama. That’s why she excited this generation of Spelman about their own possibilities, without even trying to.

What do you think of the comparisons? Are they accurate or do you find them to be offensive in some manner?

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National Journal reports:

“If he thinks this is an appropriate way for us to deal with security as he has defended, then I’ve said, ‘OK, Mr. Obama, take your wife, your two daughters and your mother-in-law to Washington Reagan National Airport and have them publicly go through both the body scanner and the full enhanced pat-down in front of others,’” Huckabee said in an interview on Fox and Friends. “‘If it’s OK for your wife, your daughters, and your mother-in-law, then maybe the rest of us won’t feel so bad when our wives, our daughters and our mothers are being put through this humiliating and degrading, totally unconstitutional, intrusion of their privacy.’”

Huckabee’s dare to the president is certainly dramatic though it’s unlikely to happen.

Does anyone think the opponents of pat-downs would be mollified by the president submitting himself and his family to be frisked? Obama also would probably be accused of wasting scarce government resources if he did what Huckabee suggests.

To Huckabee’s point about the unconstitutionality of such searches, it’s unclear if that is true. Courts have sided with the federal government when it comes to security screening though the scanning devices haven’t been specifically challenged in court yet.

Read entire article at NPR.com

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Monday, on the Today Show, President Obama was asked if his children could receive the same high quality education at a DC public school that they were receiving at their elite private school. His answer, in nutshell “Obama speak” was bluntly, “No.” He went on to elaborate, however, that there were “terrific” schools in DC (both charters and traditional), as there are across the nation, and that DC was still struggling though we had made important strides. As I watched, I was okay with his answer, though it struck a chord of worry in my conscious. Maybe I wasn’t doing the absolute best for my children because even though E.L. Haynes and Watkins are, in my view, “terrific” public schools, I had not at least tried come up with the requisite $60,000 tuition to insure the most “terrific” future for both of them.

It is interesting to watch the “fall-out” from the President’s remarks, as local media pokes about to find out who took offense. It turns out, very few. Michelle Rhee, the hard-charging but polarizing change agent credited for improving DC schools but calling the recent election results defeating the current mayor “devastating” was apparently not offended. Vincent Gray, by all accounts the next DC mayor, was also apparently not insulted. While it is good to know that Ms. Rhee and Mr. Gray are not afraid to face the truth about current educational progress, the $60,000 question here is whether they will be able to work together to continue that progress in a Gray Administration that will purportedly focus on a type of outreach and inclusiveness that might slow-down Rhee’s expeditious nature.

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I also don’t think that many parents were offended by President Obama’s comment. In fact, many would undoubtedly jump at the opportunity for their child to attend Sidwell over a DC public school any day. After all, parents, including the President and First Lady, have the right to send their daughters to any school – public or private – of their choosing.

Trouble is that most parents do not have such options. And many actually choose to remain in public schools while reformers like Rhee seek to expand educational success stories from isolated islands of excellence to widespread hemispheres of hope (to coin a phrase from Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, NJ).

I suppose I fall somewhere in the middle. While my government salary and extra cash I earn writing children’s books certainly would not support the cost of double tuition at Sidwell Friends, there is also something inspiring and exciting about living the educational change that we seek. As a citizen of this democracy and a personal benefactor of public-school educational opportunity, I should not expect any less.

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Perhaps what gnaws me about the President’s comments is simple – most families in DC and the nation have false choices. $60,000 tuition – not a realistic option. Winning the educational lottery – works if you’re lucky. Transferring to a new school because yours did not measure up to annualized targeted average test scores – impractical, unworkable, and what happens when we there are no more places to run?

My children won the public school educational lottery. If they (and the school) stay on track, perhaps they will meet Malia and Sasha in college. But what of those whose numbers were not called? Which of the educational choices are they left with? Will the reformers stand by them even when it’s politically untenable?

Whether we are speaking of Malia and Sasha Obama, the Carney-Nunes children, or the fictional “Johnson children” from “around the way,” all of our children are a precious resource with which we will fill the whole of this country’s future. As a nation, if we refuse to roll up our sleeves and invest in each and every one of them, then our entire country’s economic security – and indeed our whole future – most certainly is in grave peril.

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Barack and Michelle Obama put their girls off-limits to the news media after they moved to the White House, saying they wanted to keep their daughters’ lives as normal as possible. But tidbits about the private doings of the youngest children to live in the White House since the Kennedy family do dribble out. Often they come from a surprising source: Mom and Dad.

It was President Barack Obama who revealed, perhaps to his daughter’s utter embarrassment, that Malia had been fitted with braces. He also spilled her plans to spend most of August at camp.

“She’s my baby,” he said of Malia, straying from his script at a political fundraiser of all places. “Even though she’s 5-(foot)-9 now, she’s still my baby. And she just got braces, which is good, because she looks like a kid and she was getting … she’s starting to look too old for me.”

The prospect of spending even part of the summer without his first born around also had Obama waxing sentimental.

Asked about summer vacation plans, Obama told an interviewer that “a month of it’s going to be taken up with Malia going away for camp, which she’s never done before. And I may shed a tear when she’s on the way out.”

In a separate interview, Obama said his daughters have savings accounts and they get an allowance, though he didn’t say how much they get or how often they get it. He also said the girls are getting old enough where they may be able to start earning money by baby-sitting.

The first lady is also guilty of breaching the privacy wall she and her husband put up around the girls.

“Malia’s one issue for her father is saving the tigers,” Mrs. Obama told an audience of young children visiting the White House. “So we talk about the tigers at least once a week and what he’s doing to save the tigers.” Tigers apparently are Malia’s favorite creature.

Mrs. Obama also has revealed that:

—Both girls play the piano; Malia also plays the flute.

—Sasha likes to dance hip-hop. The girls also are working on their tennis game.

—They are not allowed to watch TV during the week, and weekend viewing is limited.

—The girls can only use the computer during the week if they need to for school assignments.

The White House says the Obamas are just behaving like, well, parents when they talk about Malia and Sasha.

“I think they’re proud of their daughters and, you know, they do not try to go out of their way. There’s no strategic decision to talk about them,” press secretary Robert Gibbs said in an interview. “I think a lot of it comes from … pride.”

Text continues after Sasha and Malia gallery

Photo Gallery:

Even their grandmother, Marian Robinson, has dished a detail or two; she said the girls have separate bedrooms.

The Obamas aren’t the first presidential parents to want to shield children from life in the fishbowl known as Washington.

First lady Jacqueline Kennedy sought to keep her children, Caroline and John Jr., out of the glare as much as possible. After she left the White House, she advised other first families with young children, such as Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton, to do the same.

Chelsea Clinton, who got married in July, was curly haired and entering her teenage years when Clinton was elected president in 1992. “Saturday Night Live” incurred her parents’ wrath by lampooning her, but the news media generally respected her privacy. It also helped that the Clintons were so tightlipped about Chelsea that it sometimes failed to register that a child was living at the White House.

George W. Bush’s twins, Barbara and Jenna, were living away at college when he was sworn in to office in 2001.

Anita McBride, who was first lady Laura Bush’s chief of staff, said presidents and first ladies are constantly weighing how much they want to shield their children from exposure against how much they’re willing to satisfy public curiosity by talking about them.

“It’s a very fine line,” she said. “People want to know about what’s happening with first families and children in the White House.”

For the most part, Malia and Sasha are kept out of the limelight, except for some trips, such as the family’s vacations in Bar Harbor, Maine, and Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., and other appearances with one or both parents.

The White House has invited some coverage of the girls, such as on their first day of school in Washington in January 2009. But it also complains about other coverage, even when the girls are brought to official events where the media are present.

The girls have spoken publicly at length just once: They and Bo, the family’s Portuguese water dog, joined the first lady last year for a Christmastime reading of stories at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington. They took turns reading a story and helped Mom answer questions afterward.

Once, though, the president got into trouble by talking about Malia — and ended up apologizing to her.

During a speech last year about his education priorities, Obama told the audience at a Madison, Wis., middle school how disappointed Malia was after getting 73 percent on a science test. Gibbs said Obama later apologized to her.

Gibbs didn’t know if Dad also apologized for his revelation about the braces.

“I think he is now very careful to make sure that he does not stray beyond what is acceptable,” Gibbs said.

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TRENTON, Maine — President Barack Obama brought his family to the coast of Maine Friday for a biking and hiking getaway made even sweeter by a double helping of good news from Congress and the Gulf of Mexico.

Obama, his wife Michelle, and daughters Malia and Sasha touched down at Bar Harbor airport on a smaller version of Air Force One around lunchtime. Their dog, Bo, and staff had arrived earlier.

The Obamas planned to stay through Sunday to enjoy Acadia National Park’s trails and scenic coastal views. No public events were planned.

Click below to view our photos of summer at the White House:

From the airport, the Obamas’ motorcade drove for about a half hour onto Mount Desert Island, passing forested granite hills and ocean inlets before turning onto a narrow park road. The family planned to ride bicycles on a trail along Witch Hole Pond, aides said.

Obama’s getaway from the Washington bubble he regularly decries came a day after the Senate sent him a far-reaching new banking and consumer protection bill that had been one of the president’s top domestic priorities since taking office. It also came a day after BP managed to cap the well that has been spewing oil into the Gulf since April.

Obama no doubt hopes this jaunt doesn’t fall victim to the family’s travel hex. That would be the one in which events seem to scramble the plans whenever Obama has his wife and daughters in tow.

In a mere 18 months on the job, Obama has rolled up an impressive record of diversions, interruptions, delays and outright cancellations of planned family travel — all thanks to the nonstop demands of a turbulent presidency.

The visit to Acadia National Park follows last summer’s Obama family trip to Yellowstone National Park and Grand Canyon National Park, which included whitewater rafting and peach-picking.

But that schedule was altered to include town meetings in Montana and Colorado, so Obama could address the growing furor over his health care plan.

It set a pattern, which has continued this year.

Their Memorial Day weekend in Chicago was overtaken by the Gulf oil spill. After the Obamas slept at their Chicago home for the first time in a year, the president got up and left for a daylong Gulf inspection tour.

That followed the Obamas’ Christmas trip to Hawaii, interrupted repeatedly for briefings and comment on the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound jet.

And it followed last summer’s Martha’s Vineyard stay, marred by the death of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, whose Boston funeral Obama and his wife, Michelle, attended.

Then there was the planned visit to Indonesia, where Obama spent part of his youth. He’d hoped to show his daughters his old haunts. But the trip was scrubbed twice, first in March as health care neared its climax in Congress, then again in June because of the oil spill. It’s now expected late this year.

The spill could further scramble the family’s plans. In an NBC interview Thursday, Obama didn’t rule out a vacation trip to a Gulf beach.

Despite two wars and an economic collapse crowding his plate, Obama’s taken comparatively little time off.

According to a tally kept by Mark Knoller, a CBS News reporter long recognized by the White House as authoritative on such matters, Obama has spent all or part of 65 days on vacation, including days at Camp David. At this point in his tenure, George W. Bush had logged 120 days. That included 13 trips to his Texas ranch.

That hasn’t stopped critics from complaining. GOP Chairman Michael Steele, for one, has been scathing — calling it incredible that Obama goes on golf outings while oil flows into the Gulf.

The White House dismisses such gripes.

Bar Harbor and its surroundings are famed as a summer getaway for the rich and famous, from the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts who built homes there to Hollywood stars who often turn up.

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CHICAGO — Good friends, good food and the comforts of his own home.

President Barack Obama enjoyed all three when he brought his family home to Chicago for a long Memorial Day holiday weekend. It was the first family’s first sleepover at their red-brick home in more than a year.

Obama’s only public appearance Sunday was for a roundtrip to a private gym for a workout. Top advisers also updated him on efforts to manage the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

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The president was due back at the White House on Monday after paying respects to the nation’s war dead during Memorial Day observances at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, Ill., south of Chicago.

Some veterans groups have criticized Obama, who has sent tens of thousands of troops into a ramped-up war in Afghanistan, for skipping the traditional wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. Obama helped lay a wreath at Arlington last year but this year has handed the honor to Vice President Joe Biden.

Obama spoke at the Lincoln cemetery on Memorial Day in 2005.

Before taking office in January 2009, Obama expressed a desire to visit his $1.6 million home in the city’s Hyde Park neighborhood about every six weeks.

“Our friends are here. Our family is here. We are going to try to come back here as often as possible … at least once every six weeks or couple of months,” he told the Chicago Tribune back then.

But the demands of the presidency and his daughters’ busy schedules of weekend soccer and basketball games, birthday parties and sleepovers have thwarted his intentions.

First lady Michelle Obama, daughters Malia and Sasha, Obama’s mother-in-law Marian Robinson and family dog Bo arrived in Chicago on Thursday night.

On Friday, Obama interrupted his getaway to visit the Louisiana coast for an update on efforts to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf. He also sought to assure coastal residents, and others unhappy with the federal government’s response to the nation’s largest oil spill, that he is in command.

Back in Chicago on Saturday, Obama indulged in one of his favorite sports — a game of basketball — at the University of Chicago Lab School where his daughters were enrolled when the family lived in Chicago.

A member of the group of reporters that travels with Obama also briefly saw Mrs. Obama in the backyard of their home, wearing yellow rubber gloves. The reporters were stationed nearby to await word on Obama’s next move.

That word came just before the family took a rare stroll down the now-barricaded public streets surrounding Obama’s house to the home of neighbor and friend Marty Nesbitt for a backyard barbecue. They stayed until after dark. The Obamas, including a casually dressed, sandal-clad president and Bo, were joined by Mrs. Robinson, her son Craig, his wife Kelly and their new baby.

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From NYTimes.com:

WASHINGTON — President Obama and his wife, Michelle, reported earnings of $5,505,509 in 2009, more than double their 2008 income of roughly $2.6 million, according to tax returns made public on Thursday by the White House.

Mr. and Mrs. Obama, who listed their occupations as “U.S. President,” and “U.S. First Lady,” reported wages, salaries and tips of $374,460. (Mrs. Obama is unpaid.) The vast majority of the first family’s income stems from sales of the president’s two best-selling books, “Dreams from My Father” and “The Audacity of Hope.”

Click here to view photos of the Obamas In Martha’s Vineyard:

The Obamas paid nearly $1,792,414 in federal income tax, the returns show, and donated $329,100 — nearly 6 percent of their income — to 40 charities. Their largest donations were $50,000 contributions each to CARE, a humanitarian organization that fights global poverty, and the United Negro College Fund.

Click here to read more.

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From NYTimes.com:

MEXICO CITY — Moved by their singing and dancing as well as their difficult lives, Michelle Obama hugged student after student at a Mexico City elementary school on Wednesday, offering individual hugs, small group hugs and mass embraces in which her towering frame was intertwined with a dozen or more pint-sized children jockeying for a touch of the American first lady.

“Just to let you know — today you did your country proud,” she said on the second day of her first solo foray out of the United States as first lady, a trip in which she surrounded herself with young people and attempted to offer them hope no matter how hardscrabble their lives. Speaking in a video message on her way from Haiti to Mexico that the White House distributed Wednesday morning, Mrs. Obama said: “My message to the young people is that success and possibility doesn’t know a race, a background, a gender, a socioeconomic class. We are going to need the energy and the passion of every single young person. We are going to have to develop those schools and have those young people believing in their own potential.”

Click here to view photos of the First Lady In Mexico:

Click here to read more.

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NEW YORK — Madame Tussauds’ in New York has unveiled a wax figure of Michelle Obama in a one-shouldered white gown inspired by the one she wore to the inaugural ball.

The first lady’s likeness joined a wax tuxedo-clad President Barack Obama on Tuesday. His figure was unveiled at the museum last year.

In about two weeks, the Obama wax figures will exchange their formal wear for everyday wear.

The museum says Michelle Obama will be clad in a mint green J. Crew skirt and an embellished cream cardigan. The president will get a business suit.

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HONOLULU – President Barack Obama ended a Hawaiian vacation to return Monday to the Washington he never really escaped.

Obama and his family boarded Air Force One on Sunday evening for an overnight flight, capping off an 11-day trip that would be remembered more for an al-Qaida affiliate’s botched attempt to bring down aChristmas Day flight about to land in Detroit from Amsterdam rather than the hours spent on golf courses or at luaus. The failed terror attack refocused the president’s trip from R&R on the island of Oahu to a river of memos from homeland security aides.

Even though it was called a vacation, the trip to Obama’s childhood home was hardly the holiday most Americans seek. Between golf outings, he phoned his homeland security secretary and counterterrorism adviser for regular updates. Rather than restaurant recommendations, the president was handed thrice-daily updates from the White House Situation Room.

And an attack that killed seven U.S. intelligence officers put him on the phone with the CIA director before heading to the island’s North Shore for a party with high school friends.

Such a hyped-up tone was exactly what officials sought to dodge.

“I asked the president if he had any special message for you guys,” deputy press secretary Bill Burton deadpanned to reporters on the way to Oahu on Christmas Eve. “He would like for you to relax and to not anticipate any public announcements or news-making events.”

It echoed almost exactly what Burton told reporters as they headed toward Obama’s summer vacation off the coast of Massachusetts. That trip saw clambakes interrupted with the renomination of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, recreation replaced with mourning the death of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

This week shouldn’t have come as a surprise, really. Presidents don’t truly get to leave behind 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

One aide traveled back and forth between a makeshift White House complex — at a hotel on Waikiki — to Obama’s rented residence with secure memos. A third-floor room overlooking a sea of whitecaps had its curtains drawn while officials used it as a secure briefing room for the National Security Council. And officials — sometimes in sandals or gym clothes — visited reporters in a the hotel ballroom they used for workspace.

“We reserve the right to screw up your day at a moment’s notice,” a smiling Burton casually told reporters seeking the president’s schedule one afternoon.

There was plenty to keep the first-year president busy even without the attack on the Northwest Airlines flight. As Obama heads back to Washington, lawmakers from the House and Senate must resolve their differing versions of a health care overhaul that is squeaking toward passage. His departure was delayed until Christmas Eve, when the Senate voted on the White House’s top domestic priority.

Financial regulations are on the verge of winning their own version of an overhaul. A State of the Union addressto Congress is due during the first weeks of 2010. The escalating war in Afghanistan is not going to run itself and the intelligence community is not going to reorganize without a direct hand from the Oval Office.

So even though Obama wore casual slacks on New Year’s Day when he took his daughters to see a 3-D version of the film “Avatar,” that BlackBerry on his belt wasn’t for fashion. For a wartime president who dodged dealing with a terrorist attack on Christmas, it’s just one reminder he’s never completely distanced from his job as commander in chief.

Even when ordering popcorn.

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KAILUA, Hawaii — President Barack Obama has kept a low profile during his Hawaiian vacation, but the public got a glimpse of the first family when he took his daughters and friends for a treat on Friday. The group enjoyed a local treat of ice shavings and flavored syrup, while the President joshed with his friends about college football.

Obama and about 20 people drove to a shave ice store the president has visited during past trips to Hawaii. He ordered a flavor combination of lemon-lime, cherry and passion-guava syrups.

“It’s the Snowbama,” Obama said, noting that the store lists the combination on its menu.

He chose not to add sweet azuki red beans or ice cream, as some people do in Hawaii.

“I like my shave ice straight, no frills,” said a casual Obama, wearing a white T-shirt, khaki shorts and sandals.

About 100 people packed into a shopping center parking lot to catch a glimpse of the vacationing president and his girls, who have largely stayed out of public view while on the island of Oahu.

While waiting in line Obama teased a friend who rooted for Oregon. The Ducks lost to Ohio State in the Rose Bowl earlier in the day.

“He’s heartbroken, so I’m buying him shave ice,” Obama said.

The store – Island Snow – said on its Facebook page that the first daughters already had visited the store during this vacation.

First lady Michelle Obama was not seen with the group.

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WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama offered Christmas wishes to the nation on Thursday, including a special thanks for the U.S. military. They urged Americans to help support military families this holiday season.

In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama said serving as commander in chief has been his greatest honor as president. He saluted the “selfless spirit” of those who serve and said he has been “humbled, profoundly” by those who made the ultimate sacrifice.

“So to all our men and women in uniform spending the holidays far from home — whether it’s at a base here in the states, a mess hall in Iraq or a remote outpost in Afghanistan — know that you are in our thoughts and our prayers,” the president said in a message released two days early because of Christmas. “And this holiday season — and every holiday season — know that we are doing everything in our power to make sure you can succeed in your missions and come home safe to your families.”

Mrs. Obama recalled her visits with “military spouses doing the parenting of two” to keep their households together.

“But even these strong military families can use a hand, especially during the holidays,” she said, her first time sharing the president’s weekly address. “If you live near a military base, you can reach out through your workplaces, your schools, your churches.

“There are so many ways to help — with child care, with errands, or by just bringing over a home-cooked meal,” Mrs. Obama said.

For service members serving around the world, the president added that kids can send greeting cards and adults can send care packages or prepaid phone cards. He directed listeners to the White House Web site “for more ways to let our troops know you care.”

Even in these tough economic times, Obama said, there’s still much to celebrate this Christmas, including the birth of Jesus.

“The love family and friends. The bonds of community and country. And the character and courage of our men and women in uniform who are far from home for the holidays, away from their families, risking their lives to protect ours,” he added.

Obama left the White House Thursday morning, along with his wife and their daughters, Malia and Sasha, for the family’s traditional Christmas vacation in Hawaii, where he was born.

BEIJING — President Barack Obama said Wednesday that he met briefly with a half brother who lives in China and who recently wrote a semi-autobiographical novel about the abusive Kenyan father they share.

Obama, who spent three days in China during his first official tour of Asia, acknowledged the meeting in an interview with CNN. He offered no details. An aide said later that the meeting took place Monday night after Obama arrived in Beijing, the Chinese capital.

The White House had declined to say whether the president and Mark Ndesandjo would meet. And no White House official mentioned the visit until Obama did when asked about it.

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“I don’t know him well. I met him for the first time a couple of years ago,” Obama told CNN. “He stopped by with his wife for about five minutes during the trip.”

Describing the meeting as “overwhelming” and “intense,” Ndesandjo told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday that he had long anticipated the chance to welcome his famous brother to China.

“I think he came directly off the plane, changed some clothes and then came down and saw us,” Ndesandjo said. “And he just gave me a big hug. And it was so intense. I’m still over the moon on it. I am over the moon. And my wife. She is his biggest fan and I think she is still recovering.”

In the CNN interview, Obama said he hadn’t read his brother’s book, “Nairobi to Shenzhen,” which features a protagonist who is the son of a Jewish mother and an abusive father from Kenya.

Ndesandjo has revealed in previous interviews that his father, Barack Obama Sr., beat him and his mother. The president also wrote about his father, who abandoned him as a child, in his best-selling memoir.

“It’s no secret that my father was a troubled person,” Obama said. “Anybody who has read my first book, ‘Dreams from My Father,’ knows that, you know, he had an alcoholism problem, that he didn’t treat his families very well. Obviously it’s a sad part of my history and my background but it’s not something I spend a lot of time brooding over.”

Ndesandjo said he bought tickets months ago to fly from the southern boomtown of Shenzhen, where he has lived since 2002, to Beijing, in hopes of reconnecting with his brother. The two last met in January when Ndesandjo attended Obama’s inauguration as a family guest.

The three chatted on Monday, with Obama being introduced to Ndesandjo’s wife, a native of Henan, China, whom he married a year ago, he said. He gave few details of what they discussed.

“All I can say is, we talked about family, and it was very powerful because when he came in through that door, and I saw him and I hugged him, and he hugged me and hugged my wife. It was like we were continuing a conversation that had started many years ago,” he said.

The two men did not grow up together. Ndesandjo’s mother, Ruth Nidesand, was Barack Obama Sr.’s third wife. Before arriving in Beijing on Monday, Obama had been in a townhall-style meeting with students in Shanghai, and joked that a family gathering at his house “looks like the United Nations.”

RELATED: Obama’s Half Brother Calls Their Father Abusive

RELATED: Obama’s Half Brother, George Obama, Gets Book Deal

President Obama’s father had been a Kenyan exchange student who met his mother, Kansas native Stanley Ann Dunham, when they were in school in Hawaii. The two separated two years after he was born.

The senior Obama married Ndesandjo’s mother after divorcing the president’s mother. They returned to Kenya to live, where Mark and his brother, David, were born and raised.

Obama Sr. died in an automobile accident in 1982 at age 46.

Ndesandjo lives near Hong Kong and earns a living as a marketing consultant. For most of that time, he has maintained a low profile, with few people knowing of his connection to the U.S. president.

RELATED:

Obama’s Half Brother Calls Their Father Abusive

Obama’s Half Brother, George Obama, Gets Book Deal

From The Huffington Post

Westboro Baptist Church, a hate group that travels around the country holding anti-gay rallies, protested outside the school attended by President Obama’s children on Monday morning.

The “church,” run by Fred Phelps and composed largely of his extensive family, is known for staging its events for maximum publicity and controversy. In the past, members have demonstrated outside troops’ funerals. Recently they have been targeting Jewish temples. Now they’re aiming their vitriol at Washington-area schools — including Sidwell Friends, where Malia and Sasha Obama are students.

A message on Westboro’s website refers to the Obama children as “satanic spawn” of a “murderous bastard.” Along with various schools, the church is also protesting outside the White House, the World War II memorial, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission field office.

Click Here For More

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GUANGZHOU, China — President Barack Obama’s half brother has broken his media silence to discuss his new novel – the semi-autobiographical story of an abusive parent patterned on their late father, the mostly absent figure Obama wrote about in his own memoir.

In his first interview, Mark Ndesandjo told The Associated Press that he wrote “Nairobi to Shenzhen” in part to raise awareness of domestic violence.

“My father beat my mother and my father beat me, and you don’t do that,” said Ndesandjo, whose mother, Ruth Nidesand, was Barack Obama Sr.’s third wife. “It’s something which I think affected me for a long time, and it’s something that I’ve just recently come to terms with.”

Like his novel’s main character, Ndesandjo had an American mother who is Jewish and who divorced his Kenyan father. The novel, which goes on sale Wednesday by the self-publishing company Aventine Press, is one of several books in the works by relatives of the president.

President Obama’s parents separated two years after he was born in Hawaii in 1961. The senior Obama, a Kenyan exchange student, divorced the president’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, in 1964 and had at least six other children in his native Kenya.

For the past seven years, Ndesandjo has been living in the booming southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, near Hong Kong, and has refused all interview requests until now.

Ndesandjo, who said he attended Obama’s inauguration as a family guest, declined to discuss his earliest memories of the president or describe their relationship over the years. However, he said he plans to meet his brother in Beijing when the president makes his first visit to China on Nov. 15-18.

“My plan is to introduce my wife to him. She is his biggest fan,” he said.

Shortly after divorcing the president’s mother, Obama Sr. met Nidesand while studying as a graduate student at Harvard University. Nidesand returned with Obama Sr. to his native Kenya in 1965, where Mark and his brother David were born and grew up. David later died in a motorcycle accident.

In Kenya, Obama Sr. also had four children with his first wife, Kezia, some of them while he was still married to Nidesand. Nidesand and Obama Sr. eventually divorced amid allegations of domestic abuse. Nidesand returned to the United States and later married a man whose surname Mark Ndesandjo took.

Obama Sr. died in an automobile accident in 1982 at age 46.

President Obama saw his father only once after his parents’ divorce, when he was 10 years old. In a best-selling memoir, “Dreams from My Father,” Obama wrote about his fatherless upbringing and search for identity.

In it, Obama described a visit to Kenya to meet his half siblings and learn more about his father. While painting his father as abusive, he called Obama Sr. a gifted but erratic alcoholic who never lived up to his intellectual promise or his family responsibilities.

Obama, in his book, also quotes Ndesandjo criticizing their father, saying, “I knew that he was a drunk and showed no concern for his wife and children. That was enough.”

Ndesandjo, who is an American citizen, spent most of his childhood in Kenya before moving to the U.S. to go to college and work in telecommunications and marketing. He has a bachelor’s degree from Brown University in physics and a master’s degree in the same subject from Stanford University. He also earned an MBA from Emory University in Atlanta, he said.

“I see myself in many ways as a person who has many places, has feet in many places,” he said.

Intensely private, Ndesandjo declined to answer several questions about himself. He even refused to give his age, saying only that “I’m younger than Barack.”

With a trim, athletic physique, he has a strong resemblance to his taller brother in Washington. His left ear is pierced, and he wore a black crew neck shirt under a dark jacket to the interview last week.

Ndesandjo moved to China after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks when his job was cut in the rocky U.S. economy. He taught English, immersed himself in the study of Chinese culture and volunteered as a piano teacher at an orphanage.

He now speaks Mandarin and said he earns a living as a consultant in strategic marketing, though he would not elaborate on his business.

Ndesandjo said the White House was aware of the book project. A White House spokesman declined to comment on Ndesandjo’s interview or to discuss President Obama’s relationship with his half brother.

The author said 15 percent of the book’s proceeds would be donated to charities for children.

Closely patterned on Ndesandjo’s own life, the novel depicts David, an American who leaves the U.S. corporate world after the 9/11 attacks to create a new life in China. He falls in love with a Chinese dance instructor and develops a bond with an orphan who is a gifted pianist battling a serious illness.

In the book, David also writes letters to his American mother asking for details about her failed marriage to his late abusive Kenyan father.

In one passage, Ndesandjo writes, “David easily remembered the hulking man whose breath reeked of cheap Pilsner beer who had often beaten his mother. He had long searched for good memories of his father but had found none.”

Ndesandjo said such passages were drawn from his own experience.

“I remember situations when I was growing up, and there would be a light coming from our living room, and I could hear thuds,” he said in the interview, tears welling in his eyes. “I could hear thuds and screams, and my father’s voice and my mother shouting. I remember one night when she ran out into the street and she didn’t know where to go.”

Ndesandjo said his mother often called Obama Sr. “a brilliant man but a social failure.”

The novel never mentions other wives David’s father might have had. Nor does it include a half brother who would become the first black U.S. president.

On Wednesday, a week after speaking to the AP, Ndesandjo said at a book-launching news conference that his brother’s election victory, among other recent events, helped “peel away the hardness” that he developed emotionally during his difficult childhood.

“I became proud of being an Obama,” he said.

Since the election, he said the extra attention has changed his life, but he has coped by focusing on things that are important to him: music, writing, calligraphy and teaching piano to disadvantaged children.

“The simple things sort of help pull you through,” he said.

Watch The Video

Ndesandjo told the AP he didn’t want to touch on any political themes in the book. “I think my brother’s team is doing an extraordinary job and I really don’t want to cause him additional heartburn,” he said.

Besides the inauguration, he said he last visited his brother in Austin, Texas, before a debate last year with then-Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“He came up to me, and we hugged. I gave him a gift, a gift of calligraphy,” Ndesandjo told the AP. “I was just thinking of how happy I was and how proud and how much I loved him.”

“It was a very powerful experience.”

Another of the president’s half brothers, George Obama, 27, of Huruma, Kenya, has penned a memoir that will be published by Simon and Schuster in January 2010.

Other Obama relatives working on books include a half sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, daughter of Obama’s mother and her second husband, Lolo Soetoro; and Craig Robinson, first lady Michelle Obama’s brother.

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From HuffingtonPost.com:

The Obamas sat down to discuss their union in the New York Times Magazine’s November 1st cover story “The First Marriage,” by Washington correspondent Jodi Kantor.

According to the NYT press release:

“Clearly, the Obamas prefer to think of themselves as largely unaltered. ‘The strengths and challenges of our marriage don’t change because we move to a different address,’ the first lady said, the president studying the carpet as she answered. But even as they serve as sources of continuity for each other, their own partnership is undergoing significant change, not just in outward circumstance — the city, the exposure, the security, the staff, the house and so on — but far more fundamentally. Michelle Obama has gone from political skeptic to political partner to a woman with a White House agenda of her own, and an approval rating higher than the president’s.” – “The First Marriage” by Jodi Kantor
COVER STORY – New York Times Washington correspondent Jodi Kantor sat with the President and First Lady in an Oval Office interview about the effects of the presidency on their marriage. The Obamas have recast the rules for how a politician and spouse are supposed to behave, primarily by speaking frankly about their marriage – “The bumps happen to everybody…” says Michelle Obama.

One secret to the first couple’s success is maintaining a regular date night. See a slideshow of their “Sexy Saturdays” here. They’re also famous for their public displays of affection, so much so that we’ve made an Obama PDA Big News page.

From BlackAmericaWeb.com:

A six-year-old who saw her mother brutally gunned down on the streets of Brooklyn two years ago has written a letter to first daughters Sasha and Malia Obama asking them for support.

“Hi Malia and Sasha,” Bianca Perez wrote in her letter to President Obama’s 11- and eight-year-old girls. “Two years ago, I lost my mommy. She was killed by a bad man in front of me. …

“I’m writing this letter to see if you can ask your daddy to help me and my daddy,” Bianca wrote in pencil above a drawing of Obama and his girls.

Bianca wrote the letter with the help of her father, Joseph Perez, 31, last week, according to the New York Daily News. They sent the letter over the weekend.

Her mother, Christina Scarabaggio, 27, was shot to death by an abusive boyfriend in September 2007 as she tried to shield Bianca, then four, in front of their Bay Ridge home.

Christopher Flynn, 27, shot Scarabaggio twice in the back and once in the face before turning his .380-caliber handgun on himself.  Bianca has been living with her father on Staten Island ever since. Like many New Yorkers, he has fallen on hard times.

He’s a mover and a union member, but work has slowed to a trickle in the past few months. He owes his landlord $3,800.  His hours at work have been dwindling, and he hasn’t been working enough to qualify for health care, he said, so Bianca hasn’t been able to go to her therapist or dentist.

The city’s Administration for Children’s Services gave him a couple of beds, he said.  His luck turned worse last month, when his sister told him she would no longer be able to pick up Bianca from school because she had to get a job. Perez said he has no choice but to pay for day care when he’s working.

“I really don’t know how I’m going to do all this,” Perez said. “This week, I just worked one day.”

He said his daughter still has dreams about her mother’s killing but doesn’t like to talk about it.

Bianca said she often thinks about how her mom used to read books to her before bed. “Sometimes I have dreams about my mom,” she said. “She’s singing, ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.’”

To read more, click here.

From TheDailyVoice.com:

The White House today released a family portrait of the First Family.

The image, taken by photographer Annie Leibovitz on September 1, shows the color coordinated First Family in the Green Room located in the residence of the White House. Michelle, Sasha and Malia Obama are all wearing black and white, while President Obama, shown without a suit jacket, provides color with his necktie.

To read more, click here.

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via Associated Press

Maybe this joint-trip to Copenhagen to fight for Chicago 2016 Olympic Games was really a cover. You know, the President’s been so busy with the economy and healthcare, he needed to reconnect with the Mrs… It’s possible considering all this PDA! I guess absence does make the heart grow fonder..

CHECK OUT THE PICS BELOW:

The first family settled in Sunday for their vacation on Martha’s Vineyard not long after Hurricane Bill scampered away, leaving behind big waves and heavy rip currents for the Obamas.

A tropical storm warning was lifted just hours before President Barack Obama began his first vacation since taking office. The hurricane forced him to delay his departure from Andrews Air Force Base by a few hours.

During the flight from Washington to Cape Cod, White House spokesman Bill Burton conveyed a message from Obama, who boarded Air Force One in khakis and without jacket or tie, to the reporters traveling with him.

“He wants you to relax and have a good time. Take some walks on the beaches. Nobody’s looking to make any news,” Burton told reporters.

From NYDailyNews.com:

It’s another first for this First Lady.Michelle Obamamade her debut Wednesday onForbes magazine‘s annual list of the world’s 100 most powerful women, taking the 40th spot.

“Not only is she a First Lady, she’s the first African-American First Lady and that accords her a certain amount of power,” saidHeidi Brown, a ForbesWoman staffer who helped compile the list.

When ranking the women, Brown said they take into consideration how much attention a candidate gathers – andMichele Obamais a media magnet.

Click here for more.

From the NYTimes.com:

THINGS for President Obama to do when on vacation here next week: shoot some hoops, view the majestic Aquinnah Cliffs, peruse the Featherstone Flea Market and, if the owner of C’est la Vie, a clothing store here, has his way, buy the T-shirt that lays out all these options.

The Obamas are vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard, and the only ones working harder than Secret Service agents to get ready are the souvenir shop, restaurant and other store owners scrambling to stock and sell T-shirts, posters and muffins commemorating the Obamas’ first vacation as first family.

“Look at that, an ‘Obamarita,’ ” said Kathy Santaniello, a tourist from Wilbraham, Mass. as she walked past Sharky’s Cantina here, which advertised the drink — a margarita made with crushed mandarin oranges (rumored to be Mr. Obama’s favorite fruit), pineapple juice (a nod to his Hawaiian heritage), triple sec and tequila.

Eric Godbout, a bartender, said the drink had been selling briskly ever since the White House announced the president will arrive here Aug. 23. Michelle Obama and their daughters are expected to arrive earlier.

Click here for full story.

HAGERSTOWN, Md. – The Secret Service is investigating a man who authorities said held a sign reading “Death to Obama” outside a town hall meeting on health-care reform in western Maryland.

The sign also read, “Death to Michelle and her two stupid kids,” referring to the first name of President Barack Obama’s wife, said Washington County Sheriff’s Capt. Peter Lazich.

Lazich said deputies detained the unidentified, 51-year-old man near the entrance to Hagerstown Community College about 1 p.m. Wednesday after getting calls from a number of people attending the meeting held by Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md. Obama was not at the meeting.

The sheriff’s office turned the man over to the Secret Service, Lazich said.

Barbara Golden, special agent in charge of the agency’s Baltimore field office, said Thursday that an investigation is ongoing but declined further comment. A spokesman at the agency’s Washington headquarters also declined to discuss the investigation.

Police said there were no other arrests among the nearly 1,000 people, some carrying protest signs, who came to the college for the meeting or demonstrated off-campus.

Cardin’s national communications director, Sue Walitsky, called the incident “unfortunate.” She said she was unaware of it until Thursday morning.

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From The Washington Post

The posters went up last week, 14 in Union Station. On each of the large displays, a thought bubble rises up from a picture of a beautiful 8-year-old: “President Obama’s daughters get healthy school lunches. Why don’t I?”

A Washington nonprofit that advocates nutrition-policy reform paid $20,000 to get its message across and carefully maneuvered Metro’s tangle of regulations to display its posters. Metro gave it a go — but the White House did not, according to the group. Within 24 hours of the signs’ appearance, the White House asked the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine to take down the ads, which feature Jasmine Messiah, a vegetarian who attends a Miami-Dade County public school that, she says, offers no vegetarian or vegan lunch options.

The Physicians Committee has declined to take down the posters.

PCRM President Neal Barnard, a nutrition researcher, says he received a phone call regarding the posters Aug. 4 (a day after they went up) from Associate Counsel Karen Dunn and Deputy Associate Counsel Ian Bassin.

“They’re very nice people. I like them a lot,” Barnard says. “But they called and said: Please take those down, you can’t mention the kids and so forth. . . . They felt that mentioning the president’s children was off-limits. They said [they're] not going to allow the use of their daughters as leverage.”

Read The Whole Story

From NYTimes.com:

The far-flung Obama clan is coming closer together. President Obama’s half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, is moving her family here from Hawaii and will spend the next several months living in the nation’s capital, White House officials say.

The extended stay means that the siblings will live in the same city, at least for a while, for the first time in years.

Click here for full story.

First lady Michelle Obama says the White House is a place where people should feel free to speak their minds. To that end, she and President Barack Obama welcomed actors, poets and writers to the East Room on Tuesday.

The Obamas hosted a night of poetry reading and the spoken word featuring James Earl Jones, Esperanza Spalding and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

The night also included musical interludes, modern poetry and excerpts from Shakespeare.

Mrs. Obama says the administration wants to make the White House available to everyone. She also wants performers to share their experiences.

The president says such performances can express beauty and pain.

Students from Washington-area colleges joined the Obamas around small tables.

Watch the Performance

President Barack Obama and his family have welcomed their new dog Bo to the White House, and they’re showing him off around the grounds.

The 6-month-old Portuguese water dog made his debut Tuesday afternoon in front of reporters and photographers. And the Obamas even walked him over near the fence on the White House South Lawn.

“I finally got a friend,” President Obama joked.

Said the president: “He’s got star quality.”

First lady Michelle Obama did most of the walking, with Bo on a leash. But daughter Malia took a turn, too, as Bo took off running. “I love him, he’s perfect,” she said.

Watch the Obamas Welcome Bo

Ziggy Marley Will Perform at White House Egg Hunt

President Barack Obama welcomed thousands of children and families to the White House Easter Egg Roll Monday, calling it “one of the greatest White House traditions.”

Obama and his wife, Michelle, appeared with on a balcony overlooking the South Lawn where thousands of children and families took a break from participating in the festivities to listen and cheer enthusiastically for the first family. The president’s daughters, Sasha and Malia Obama, were also there, along with his mother-in-law Marian Robinson.

Above is an exclusive picture of the new White House dog. Apparently he will be named Bo after singer, Bo Diddly. Although he made a brief appearance at the White House for the picture, he will officially come to the White House tomorrow.

We have lots of exclusive details on the Portuguese Water Dog
President Barack Obama and Michelle are getting for Sasha and Malia. The pooch will make its grand entrance on Tuesday, and it’s coming from a prominent Texas kennel, with the help of Senator Ted Kennedy’s family.

The black dog — a male — is approximately six months old. We’ve learned it was bred at the kennel and sold to someone who gave it back. The kennel is now “re-homing” the dog to the Obamas. The dog was named Charlie, but the Obamas will rename it.

Read the whole story

For those who don’t know about Martha’s Vineyard, it has been a vacation spot for the black bourgeois off the coast of Massachusetts. Here’s what the Boston Globe had to say.

Following in the footsteps of Bill and Hillary Clinton, President Barack Obama may vacation this summer on Martha’s Vineyard, we’re told

The White House wouldn’t confirm the first family’s vacation plans yesterday, but word is the Obamas have rented a house for two weeks at the end of August in the East Chop neighborhood of Oak Bluffs.

Located on the northern tip of Martha’s Vineyard, Oak Bluffs has become something of an African-American enclave. Politician and pastor Adam Clayton Powell Jr., writer Dorothy West, and Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke were all early homeowners, and celebrities such as Spike Lee and Oprah Winfrey are frequent visitors.

Ogletree, who has owned a place in Oak Bluffs for 15 years, has hosted Obama on several occasions. The first time was in August 2004, after the then-Illinois senator gave a rousing speech at the Democratic National Convention.

“He would tell you I misled him,” Ogletree said yesterday, laughing. “I asked him to just drop by [the Vineyard] and say hi, and then when he showed up there were all these really excited people there to meet him.”

Ogletree said Obama would likely use his time on the island to read, play golf, and spend time with his wife, Michelle, and the couple’s two girls, Malia and Sasha. “He’ll be Mr. Dad as opposed to Mr. President,” Ogletree said.

From New York Magazine:

At a time when people are having trouble holding on to their houses, Barack and Michelle Obama have sensibly decided not to use taxpayers’ money to renovate theirs. New presidents are allotted $100,000 to overhaul the White House residence and the Oval Office, and the Obamas hired Hollywood decorator Michael S. Smith (known, per his site, for mixing “Old World classicism with very contemporary settings”). But the First Couple isn’t spending that money.

Click here for the full story.

This isn’t just another wag-the-tail story: The Obamas are getting a dog in April.

First lady Michelle Obama tells People magazine that the target date for the arrival of the family pet is after her daughters’ spring break trip in April, though 7-year-old Sasha is convinced the dog is coming April 1.

“So Sasha says ‘April 1st.’ I said, ‘April.’ She says, ‘April 1st.’ It’s like, April!” said Mrs. Obama, who said she favors Portuguese Water Dogs.

The Obama girls — Sasha and 10-year-old Malia — attend the private Sidwell school, which has spring break March 20-29 and a day off for students on April 13.

The first couple and their daughters have been going back and forth on possible names. Among the two Mrs. Obama mentioned — and nixed — were Frank and Moose.

“I’m like, no. Come on. Let’s work with the names a little bit,” she told People.

Barack Obama and his wife had promised their daughters that they would get a dog if he were elected president, and the selection of the first pet has been eagerly awaited not only by the children but by the nation’s dog lovers.

In the interview, the first lady discussed the family’s daily routine in the White House, her efforts to keep things normal for her children and a recent girls’ night in.

She said on Feb. 19, when the president traveled to Canada, she invited secretaries and policymakers to the White House for popcorn and a screening of the movie, “He’s Just Not That Into You.”

She said she and her husband rise at 5:30 a.m., exercise in the White House gym and typically have breakfast together. The White House chefs cook “mean waffles and grits,” she said.

“We have dinner as a family together every night, and Barack, when he’s not traveling, tucks the girls in,” she said. “We haven’t had that time together for (years), so that explains a lot why we all feel so good in this space.”

The interview with Mrs. Obama appears in Friday’s editions of People. The first lady appears on the magazine’s cover.

From PARADE:

Dear Malia and Sasha,

I know that you’ve both had a lot of fun these last two years on the campaign trail, going to picnics and parades and state fairs, eating all sorts of junk food your mother and I probably shouldn’t have let you have. But I also know that it hasn’t always been easy for you and Mom, and that as excited as you both are about that new puppy, it doesn’t make up for all the time we’ve been apart. I know how much I’ve missed these past two years, and today I want to tell you a little more about why I decided to take our family on this journey.

When I was a young man, I thought life was all about me—about how I’d make my way in the world, become successful, and get the things I want. But then the two of you came into my world with all your curiosity and mischief and those smiles that never fail to fill my heart and light up my day. And suddenly, all my big plans for myself didn’t seem so important anymore. I soon found that the greatest joy in my life was the joy I saw in yours. And I realized that my own life wouldn’t count for much unless I was able to ensure that you had every opportunity for happiness and fulfillment in yours. In the end, girls, that’s why I ran for President: because of what I want for you and for every child in this nation.

Click here for the full letter.

President-elect Barack Obama made an unannounced visit Saturday night with his family to see the Lincoln Memorial, paying tribute to a former president he frequently invokes as an inspiration.

It was a day in which Obama played the role of tourist, seeing the most famous monuments in the nation’s capital while experiencing the flavor of the city.

After riding in a motorcade from their temporary home at the Hay-Adams Hotel, Obama, his wife, Michelle, and daughters Malia and Sasha entered the grounds around the memorial shortly after 7 p.m. Bundled in coats in the near-40 degree weather, they walked up the dozens of steps in a close pack and into the memorial.

Once inside, Obama and his family had the opportunity to gaze at the nearly 20-foot statue of the 16th president and see the carved inscriptions of Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address and his Gettysburg Address on the walls.

After touring the memorial for about 20 minutes, including the lower part of the memorial that houses some exhibits, the Obamas walked out, facing the reflecting pool and Washington Monument. They waved to some onlookers standing around the memorial’s lower steps.

Obama frequently invokes the memory of Lincoln. He announced he was running for president in Springfield, Ill., at the steps of the Old Capitol, where Lincoln was a legislator.

He even plans to use the same Bible at his inauguration that Lincoln used for his swearing in. Obama will be the first president since Lincoln to use that Bible, part of the collection of the Library of Congress.

On Inauguration Day, the luncheon that will be served in Congress’s Statuary Hall to Obama, Vice President-elect Joe Biden and their families — as well as congressional leaders, justices of the Supreme Court and pending members of Obama’s Cabinet — will include foods that Lincoln enjoyed.

Obama will be back at the Lincoln Memorial soon. He plans to trace the train route that Lincoln took and hold a welcome event at the Lincoln Memorial ahead of his Jan. 20 inauguration.

Check Out A Gallery of The Obamas Visit to the Lincoln Memorial

President-elect Barack Obama and his wife took their daughters to work at a food bank on the day before Thanksgiving, saying they wanted to show the girls the meaning of the holiday, especially when so many people are struggling.

Ten-year-old Malia and 7-year-old Sasha joined their parents to shake hands and give holiday wishes to hundreds of people who had been lined up for hours at the food bank on Chicago’s south side.

Sasha wore a pink stocking hat over her pigtails and Malia had on a purple striped hat as the family handed out wrapped chickens to the needy in the chilly outdoor courtyard. Those seeking food on Wednesday at St. Columbanus also received boxes with potatoes, oranges, fresh bread, peanut butter, canned goods, oatmeal, spaghetti and coffee.

The president-elect, dressed casually in a leather jacket, black scarf and khaki pants, was in a jovial mood, calling out “happy thanksgiving” and telling everyone “you can call me Barack.”

He told reporters that he wants the girls “to learn the importance of how fortunate they are, and to make sure they’re giving back.”

The soon-to-be first lady said the Obamas wanted to give their children “an understanding of what giving and Thanksgiving is all about.”

The Obama family’s activities in the courtyard quickly drew the attention of schoolchildren whose windows overlooked the courtyard. They put up a sign against the glass that read: “We love our prez” and screamed when the president-elect waved to them.

Obama then turned to his wife and suggested they go visit the kids. Secret Service agents, looking surprised, disappeared inside the building to accommodate his request.

Minutes later, hundreds of children were brought down to the school auditorium, and Obama loped onstage as they screamed and cheered.

“I just wanted to come by and wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving,” he said. He then asked the children what they would be eating for Thanksgiving dinner.

Turkey? Stuffing? Green beans? Sweet potato pie?

Perhaps it was a hint at the planned menu for the Obamas, who are planning to host a holiday gathering at their Hyde Park home.

The president-elect then took questions from the children, one of whom wanted to know what it was like to be followed around all the time. It is a topic that seems to touch a nerve in Obama, who has lamented the lack of privacy that comes with his new job.

“I gotta admit, sometimes it’s kinda strange … you just want to go take a walk or go out and ride your bike or something, and you always have someone with you,” Obama said. “So you don’t have a lot of privacy and that’s one of the things you have to sacrifice in order to run for president.”

According to TV Weekly, shows such as Access Hollywood, will treat the Obamas like a Hollywood family. Other show like Entertainment Tonight and The Insider are also expected to give the Obamas the Hollywood treatment.

TV Weekly is also reporting that these shows will treat the Obamas like royalty, bringing back the Camelot mythology of the Kennedys.