I know politicians need their photo-ops, but I wish they'd leave children alone. This is a particularly awful use of a child, because she was looked at, unknowingly, as she looked, and eager adults projected their adult notions onto her and imagined her adulating a powerful adult whom she didn't know and couldn't have known.

Everyone, meet 2-year-old Parker Curry. "In the world we live in today, I'm just trying to raise a little girl who has opportunities to see women who look like her doing great things," her mom Jessica told me https://t.co/0gBu6FaHFF pic.twitter.com/FSr6Y8cTXc

— David Mack (@davidmackau) March 2, 2018

The idea that the little girl would be delighted to meet the object of her adulation exists in the minds of adults, with adult agendas. Where is the care for the mind of the child? What did she actually think as she stood in front of the painting? Surely not, I adore Michelle Obama. But the image was susceptible to that interpretation and the girl was appropriated in service of that idea.

Here's the video Michelle Obama's twitter feed tweeted:

Parker, I'm so glad I had the chance to meet you today (and for the dance party)! Keep on dreaming big for yourself...and maybe one day I'll proudly look up at a portrait of you! pic.twitter.com/faUVTsYWun

— Michelle Obama (@MichelleObama) March 6, 2018

I guess that's the mother, in the background, tending to another child, a less politically useful child. The useful child, the cute 2-year-old girl, is not looking at her supposed idol, but staring at what I presume is a television or computer monitor showing her how to dance with the video "Shake It Off."

Rewatching the video, I wonder if Michelle Obama was really into this photo op. I'd like to think her social media expert PR people proposed the idea to her and she resisted.

Leave the little girl alone. She's 2 years old. She doesn't admire me, and anyway, this adulation of me is stupid. It has no content. A little girl paused in front of the painting. She was probably fascinated by the geometric patterns on the skirt, not stunned in the presence of The Great Michelle Obama. The painting doesn't even look like me! Even assuming the 2 year old girl loves me — which, by the way, could only happen if some adult were yammering into her ear about me in a way that couldn't have had anything to do with my accomplishments or my actual worth as a human being — even assuming all that, she could only know that painting was me if someone was insisting That's Michelle Obama. That's Michelle Obama. Remember how I told you about Michelle Obama? That's Michelle Obama! It's horrible! The damned painting doesn't even look like me. Everybody said that! And by the time that kid is old enough to think about anything actually relevant to me as a political figure, as a human being, that kid is going to be snapping Mom, will you shut up about Michelle Obama. I would prefer to be discovered by the new generation in a more natural, organic way. 

But Michelle Obama did the Twitter op, so if anything like that happened, presumably her social media PR people said something like You're overthinking this. It will take 5 minutes. We'll pick the cutest bit of you dancing with her.

I imagine Michelle resisting.

You're going to force this poor kid to dance? With a woman she's never met? In a completely unfamiliar place? With guys with cameras aimed at her?

Oh, yes, I imagine they said. Her mother says she dances automatically every time she sees her favorite video.

Yeah? What video?

"Shake It Off":

Taylor Swift! Her idol is Taylor Swift! Not me? Taylor Swift!!! That's the music in the background of this stupid clip? Taylor Swift?? And that means I have to dance to Taylor Swift? What's the critical race theory on that?

Come on. It will take 5 minutes. People will love it.