Getting Started

As the inauguration whirlwind gets started, there are many photos on the newswire of Malia “on assignment.”

Perhaps it’s natural, creative and a big relief, actually, that Malia would buffer the constant focus on her by documenting instead.

It also reinforces the idea (as much as the reality, however true it is) that the Obamas are just like us.

(image: Alex Brandon/AP. caption: President-elect Barack Obama, with his wife Michelle Obama, shakes hands upon his arrival, as his daughter Malia Obama, 10, takes a picture, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2009, at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, before the start of his inaugural whistle stop train trip to Washington.)