The official portrait of the first family is in.

There’s Sasha, the youngest at 8 years old, casually draping her arm over the shoulder of the president of the United States.

Older sister Malia embraces her mom, first lady Michelle Obama, as they all sit for their first official first family portrait in the Green Room at the White House on Sept. 1.

It is the work of portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz, known for some of the most famous celebrity photographs of our time — Demi Moore pregnant and nude on the cover of Vanity Fair, and a nude John Lennon curled around Yoko Ono for the cover of Rolling Stone taken on the day of Lennon’s death.

But back to the first family’s portrait. Hold on, isn’t someone missing? Where’s Bo, the first dog? Is he already in the dog house?

“Bo didn’t make the cut,” the first lady’s spokeswoman tells us with a laugh. “He was upstairs at home.”

Maybe he hasn’t learned to say cheese yet…

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Photo credit: White House photo of first family portrait, Reuters/Larry Downing photo of Bo

 President Barack Obama celebrated the growing contribution of Hispanic culture and music to the United States with a “Fiesta Latina” at the White House, part of a musical series started by First Lady Michelle Obama.

Latin music “moves us and tends to make us want to move ourselves,” the president declared.

Actors Eva Longoria Parker, George Lopez and Jimmy Smits began the show joking that Obama is Hispanic.

Gloria Estefan followed with her Billboard hit “No Llores,” accompanied by Jose Feliciano and percussionist Sheila E.

While the celebration of Hispanic music brought other entertainment heavyweights as Marc Anthony and Jeninfer Lopez, Los Lobos, Thalia  and Pete Escovedo to the White House, the evening’s standing ovation went to the newest member of the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic member of the high court.

Bachata also came out of the dance clubs and onto the White House’s South Lawn, with the Bronx-based group Aventura performing a style of music that has begun to dominate dance floors alongside Salsa and Merengue in clubs across the country.

The music was first heard at parties in the Dominican Republic in the 60s but, largely thanks to Aventura, it has recently taken hold in the United States.   The four-man music group debuted in 1999 and is known for combining the ballad-like music and its strumming guitars with r&b, hip-hop and Reggaeton.

In his remarks, Obama said  the roots of Latin music are threaded throughout the world, from the streets of New York to West Africa.   “Even though it is constantly evolving and changing, Latin music speaks to us in a language we all can understand,” Obama said.

For everyone who didn’t get an invite to the concert,  fret not — the “In Performance at the White House: Fiesta Latina” will be broadcast on PBS Thursday night  and on the Spanish language network Telemundo on Sunday.

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Photo credit: Larry Downing (George Lopez, Eva Longoria Parker and Jimmy Smits; and Aventura at White House concert)

The fragile consensus in favor of healthcare reform may be coming apart.

With the Senate Finance Committee due to vote on its reform bill Tuesday, the insurance industry’s trade group released an analysis saying the measure would drive up costs by thousands of dollars over the next decade.

The White House quickly fired back.

“This is a self-serving analysis from the insurance industry, one of the major opponents of health insurance reform,” spokesman Reid Cherlin said.

“It comes on the eve of a vote that will reduce the industry’s profits. It is hard to take it seriously,” he said.

The analysis commissioned by America’s Health Insurance Plans says insurance premiums under the Finance Committee plan would rise even faster than if the United States did nothing to reform its $2.5 trillion healthcare system, the costliest in the world.

The report, produced by PricewaterhouseCoopers, said the average insurance premium for a family of four is $12,300 today and would rise to $21,900 by 2019 if nothing is done.

If measures in the Senate Finance Committee bill become law, the cost of premiums for the same family would rise to $25,900, the analysis says.

The reason for the higher costs is that the mandate for purchasing insurance is too weak and many young, healthy people will decide not to buy insurance, the analysis says.

Plus, the cost of the taxes on high-cost insurance plans and on some sectors of the health care industry would be passed directly on to the consumer, it says.

“The overall impact of these provisions will be to increase the cost of private insurance coverage for individuals, families and businesses above what these costs would be in the absence of reform,” the analysis says.

A spokesman for Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus rejected the analysis, calling it “a health insurance company hatchet job, plain and simple.”

“This report is untrue, disingenuous and bought and paid for by the same health insurance companies that have been gouging too many consumers for too long,” said Baucus spokesman Scott Mulhauser.

Groups fighting for healthcare reform also reacted angrily.

“This is a transparent attempt by the health insurance industry to sabotage reform,” said Richard Kirsch of the Health Care for America Now.

“They’re out to protect their money and their power and they’ll go to any lengths — including circulating fake information — to stop real change,” he said.

But Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell cautioned against rejecting the analysis out of hand.

“Higher premiums, higher taxes, and more government — that’s not reform,” he said, calling the plan a “$1 trillion experiment that cuts Medicare, raises taxes and premiums and threatens the healthcare options that millions of Americans enjoy.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young (Max Baucus after a healthcare reform meeting Sept. 14); Reuters/Richard Clement (Baucus, Senator Jim Bunning discuss healthcare amendments Oct. 1)

A cloudless sky made a perfect backdrop for a stargazing
party at the White House on Wednesday night. But instead of parading on a red carpet, VIP guests made their way around the South Lawn where earlier in the day astronomers set up telescopes in preparation for the party.

President Barack Obama hosted 150 local middle school students, teachers and astronomers to scan the sky. But first, Obama said there were a “few other stars out tonight,” introducing former astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Sally Ride, and Mae Jemison.

For the president, the event might have been a break from the pressing issues of the day, but he was still working on his political agenda. Obama introduced two students — one who discovered a supernova and another who found a pulsar — and he made a pitch for his education plan.

“If they can discover something great, so can any of you other students here tonight. All you need is a passion for science,” Obama said to the youngsters. “That is why we are working to reinvigorate math and science in schools,” he added.

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Photo Credit: Reuters/Jim Young

If it walks like a stimulus and quacks like a stimulus, is it a stimulus?

That’s the question being thrown at White House spokesman Robert Gibbs this week. And he has so far refused to bite.

In yesterday’s White House media briefing, “stimulus” came up five times, but never once uttered by Gibbs.

His responses were “recovery plan” and “safety-net policies.”

On Monday, a reporter asked about programs included in the first economic stimulus package that may be considered for extension such as homebuyer tax credit and jobless benefits.

“Why is that not a stealth second stimulus?” a reporter asked.

“I appreciate the connotation,” Gibbs replied.

What would Gibbs call such extensions then?

“Extensions,” he replied.

OK then…

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Photo Credit: Reuters/Jim Young (Gibbs at media briefing in September), Reuters/Sebastien Pirlet (duck walks on ice in Antwerp)

OK, so President Barack Obama’s lightning jaunt to Copenhagen last week was less than successful. Even with Oprah along, the Cheerleader-in-Chief couldn’t clinch the deal for Chicago to host the 2016 Olympics. It happens.

But now that he knows the way to Denmark, might the American president consider arguing the U.S. case at international climate meetings in Copenhagen in December? The White House said he might, if other heads of state showed up.

“Right now you’ve got a meeting that’s set up for a level not at the head of state level,” presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters on Air Force One last week. “If it got switched, we would certainly look at coming.”

Those climate talks might need a bit of a boost from the United States. White House climate czarina Carol Browner has said it’s unlikely Obama will be able to sign any U.S. legislation to curb climate change before the December meeting. And that sets up a familiar Catch-22: if there’s no U.S. law in place before Copenhagen climate talks, can the United States commit to anything? And if there IS a U.S. law in place, does the United States have the flexibility to maneuver in these international negotiations?

Climate negotiators already know the answer to the first part of that conundrum; they agreed to the Kyoto Protocol without backing from the U.S. Congress and came home to find no support for this 1997 carbon-capping deal. The United States is still the only industrialized nation not to ratify it.

After the Olympic disappointment — Chicago was the first city of the final four to be cut from the running; Rio won — is Obama’s presence something that U.S. climate negotiators actually want? The global environmental community cheered his election last year after eight years of the George W. Bush administration, but he may not be the rock star on climate that he was then.

And let’s just face it: arriving at climate change talks aboard a fuel hog like Air Force One could send a mixed message — unless the White House commits to offsetting the big plane’s emissions by investing in windmills or tree-planting in a friendly developing country.

So today’s question: would an Obama visit to the Copenhagen climate talks help or hurt the chances for a global deal? Let us know what you think.

Photo credits: REUTERS/Chaiwat Subprasom (demonstration against Barack Obama and other world leaders outside UN climate change talks in Bangkok, Oct 5, 2009)

REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton (Obama shakes U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon after addressing a U.N. summit on climate change, Sept 22, 2009)

It’s more than a year away, but the White House is already making clear that President Barack Obama will not be on the sidelines of the 2010 elections.

Just about everything that happens in political Washington next year will have an eye toward November 2010 when all the seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, one-third of the Senate and some state governorships will be up for grabs.

Republicans will be hoping to break the Democratic triple crown in Washington — control of the House, Senate and White House (of course the White House is taken until 2012).

The White House today let it be known that Obama will be very involved in the elections next year in rallying support for Democrats. The 2010 elections will also be seen as a referendum on Obama’s policies.

“I think the president will be an active participant in the elections in 2010,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said. “I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.”

(Remember reports that the White House was urging the New York governor not to run)

“I think we have a significant interest in how they turn out. I think the president will put, a long way before that, put our best case forward in 2010, and support candidates that share his vision for long-term sustainable economic growth,” Gibbs said.

A column by Richard Cohen in today’s Washington Post says Obama is still in presidential candidate mode and has yet to shift into presidential gear.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young (Obama at rally for Senator Creigh Deeds who is running for Virginia governor)

It’s never a good sign when you’re an adviser to the president and have to put out a statement of apology for yourself.

It’s even worse when your not-exactly household name starts bubbling up in the blogosphere and it has nothing to do with getting out White House talking points.

That’s the pickle that Obama’s “green jobs” adviser, Van Jones, has landed in. The White House promoter of clean energy finds his past not-so-clean language calling Republicans “a–holes” unearthed. (in all fairness he also calls himself by that word, and he made the remark a month before being appointed to the White House Council.)

If that’s not enough in the current politically tense environment (think healthcare), his signature on a 2004 petition that basically says the Bush administration “may have deliberately” allowed 9/11 to happen has come to light (he’s number 46, actor Ed Asner is number 2).

“If I have offended anyone with statements I made in the past, I apologize,” Van Jones says in a statement. “As for the petition that was circulated today, I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever.”

Notice he doesn’t say he didn’t sign the “911 Truth Statement.”

Friday evenings before long holiday weekends are notorious for government announcements that the administration would prefer buried.

So there will be a lookout for anything on Van Jones. Some blogs are already asking when he’s going to resign.

UPDATE: Republican Congressman Mike Pence from Indiana says Jones should resign or be fired because “his extremist views and coarse rhetoric have no place in this administration or the public debate.”

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, asked earlier today whether Obama still has confidence in Jones, replied: “he continues to work in the administration” and referred reporters to Jones’ statement. (Our read: Not exactly a ringing endorsement.)

What do you think, are these offenses to resign by?

UPDATE 2: Van Jones resigned over the weekend.

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Photo Credit: Reuters/Danish Ishmail (variety of pickles displayed in Srinagar, Kashmir)

Barack Obama seems to have taken personally Sarah Palin’s accusations that his administration wants to set up “death panels” for the elderly.

At a town hall meeting in Grand Junction, Colorado on Saturday the president got personal — citing his own grandmother, who died shortly before he was elected last year — when refuting charges by the former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential nominee about his healthcare reform plans.

“I just lost my grandmother last year.  I know what it’s like to watch somebody you love, who’s aging, deteriorate, and have to struggle with that,” Obama told the crowd.

“So the notion that somehow I ran for public office, or members of Congress are in this so that they can go around pulling the plug on grandma?  I mean, when you start making arguments like that, that’s simply dishonest,” he said.

The issue stemmed from a provision in a House of Representatives bill that would have provided government funding for optional counseling on end-of-life care issues such as hospice.

Palin, who has spoken out against Obama’s reform plans, and other critics referred to the process as “death panels.”

Obama, who has refuted the rumor before but is struggling to gain support for his overall healthcare reform agenda, said enough was enough.

“We’ve got enough stuff to deal with without having these kinds of arguments,” he said, without mentioning Palin by name.

Reuters photo by Larry Downing (Obama in Grand Junction, Colorado) 

Talk about being in good company.

President Barack Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, considered the highest U.S. civilian honor, to 16 people on Wednesday including a celebrated scientist, the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court, a gay rights pioneer, and a top leader against apartheid in South Africa.

“There are many honors and privileges bestowed on the occupant of this house, but few mean as much to me as the chance to award America’s highest civilian medal to the recipients that are here today,” Obama said during a ceremony at the White House.

“This is a chance for me — and for the United States of America — to say thank you to some of the finest citizens of this country, and of all countries,” he said.

Honorees included scientist Stephen Hawking, former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, deceased gay rights campaigner Harvey Milk, and Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu of South Africa.

The honorees were not invited to speak during the ceremony, but one slipped in a few words anyway. Dr. Joseph Medicine Crow - High Bird, wearing a headdress of brightly colored feathers that created a challenge for the president in draping the medal around his neck, moved over to the microphones to declare the he was deeply honored. Obama, smiling, gently maneuvered him away from the podium and back towards his seat.

Other awardees included breast cancer activist Nancy G. Brinker; doctor to the homeless Pedro Jose “Joe” Greer, Jr.; sports star and former Republican vice presidential nominee Jack Kemp, now deceased; healthcare advocate and longtime Senate statesman Edward Kennedy, who was represented by his daughter; tennis great Billie Jean King; civil rights activist Reverend Joseph Lowery; acclaimed actor Sidney Poitier; actress and dancer Chita Rivera; former president of Ireland, Mary Robinson; cancer scientist Dr. Janet Davison Rowley; and microcredit pioneer Muhammad Yunus.

Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Obama presents Medal of Freedom)