Free Republic

IM Global and producers State Street Pictures have launched production in Chicago on “Southside With You,” the romantic dramedy inspired by Barack and Michelle Obama’s first date. The film is focused on the 1989 date when a young Obama — portrayed by Parker Sawyers — was trying to woo lawyer Michelle Robinson (played by Tika Sumpter) on a summer afternoon and evening. The date took place at the Art Institute of Chicago, followed by a screening of Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” and their first kiss outside of an ice cream parlor.

Couple Sasha’s and Malia’s absence with the media’s deafening silence surrounding the girls’ decision to be no-shows, and one can’t help but wonder what can be gleaned from the first daughters’ decision to decline Mom’s Asian Spring Fling proposition. For starters, based on the contemptuous body language and obvious eye-rolls unique to teenagers, it was clear that when Obama pardoned “Cheese” the National Thanksgiving turkey, Sasha and Malia had clearly been coerced into a perfunctory photo op and would rather have been anywhere else. Judging by their disdainful facial expressions, it may have been that the girls realized, among other...