Shielding the First Daughters From Media Spotlight

June 30, 2009— -- NEW YORK (AP) - President Barack Obama's face brightened as he looked up and saw his 8-year-old daughter Sasha on the White House's Truman Balcony. He gave an exaggerated wave, she waved back and photographers captured a rare, unscripted moment.

It seemed innocent enough, yetWhite House officials asked news organizations not to distribute the image.

Weeks later, when Obama took his daughters for ice cream the Saturday before Father's Day, photographers were permitted to provide family friendly pictures to cable news networks and newspaper front pages. The popular Parade magazine put a candid shot of the First Family on its cover the same weekend, illustrating an article about fatherhood that the White House had suggested.

The two events reflect both the First Family's insistence on raising their young daughters away from the spotlight of the White House and their penchant for carefully using them to bolster the president's political image.

"He's going to try to have it both ways until and unless people start to question his value system and his sincerity in playing that role," said Gerald Shuster, a political communications expert at the University of Pittsburgh.

There haven't been children this young in the White House since the Kennedys nearly 50 years ago. Pictures of Caroline and John went hand-in-hand with the image of youthful vibrancy that administration was trying to project. There's a reason why politicians from the local dogcatcher to potential presidents like pictures of kids - the young, non-misbehaving kind. They're political gold.

Yet even during the Kennedy administration, first lady Jacqueline didn't like the children being photographed, and a picture taken outside the White House of Caroline and her pet pony infuriated the first couple, said Dennis Brack, former chief of the White House News Photographers Association.

Images are great when they can be controlled. And when it comes to the Obama kids, the White House can be very controlling.