Tales from the Trail

Official Obama family portrait is in, Bo is not

Tabassum Zakaria

Oct 23, 2009 13:14 EDT

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.”