Today, we took a much-needed break from the Internets and went down to the Museum of Science & Industry here in Chicago to see the White House model they have on display through February: it’s a to-scale miniature, with cutaways into most of the rooms. Apparently, the Zeif Family, who made and maintains this model, travels to the White House in each administration, measures any changes that were made, and recreates the interior of the White House to exacting detail. They’ve been doing this since the Kennedy Administration.
What disturbs us is that, if the model is really exact in all details, the actual White House is chock full of crazy currently.
In the Zeif model, the East and West wings of the White House are plastered with propaganda. Inside all the offices, there are GIANT photos of the current First Family, the likes of which we’d expect to see in Pyongyang or the old presidential palaces in Baghdad, before the Husseins were ousted. They aren’t even particularly good pictures — like things cut out of People magazine or some other propaganda piece run on the Utopias.
It’s just strange that the Zeifs took the time to recreate everything else in such painstaking detail, but then plaster the interior of the East and West wings (but not the original White House itself), with giant images of Dr. Utopia and his “fashion icon” wife. Unless the REAL East and West wings really are covered in this garbage.
The miniature computer screens in the offices are all functional, and play tiny propaganda reels praising the Utopias. The White House cinema, located in the collonade between the White House and the East Wing, also plays a DVD promoting the glory of all things Utopia.
It’s really very strange.
The model is amazing. Being able to see the exact layout of all the rooms in the White House, and how the two additional wings are connected to everything made all that we read about the White House make a lot more sense.
But, the Utopian propaganda is just laid on SO THICK.
People continue to work overtime selling the current occupants as “the greatest First Family we have ever had”, as if the people selling this snake oil have something to prove. “See, we’re not RAAACIST! We love the Utopias! We put their pictures everywhere! See!”
If ever either Dr. Utopia or his wife do anything to warrant such praise and affection, we guarantee you that we will sing their praises from the mountain tops.
We are WAITING for the two of them to do something to earn all of the fawning and propaganda.
It’s been a year now, and despite winning a Nobel Prize and doing their level best to tank the US economy and drive us all into socialism, the Utopias haven’t done much more than squander millions on lavish parties and expensive travel to wherever their hearts desire.
That’s not praise-worthy in our books.
Looking at the model of the White House here in Chicago, seeing Bo, the dog Dr. Utopia named after his own initials, given to him by the Kennedys, playing in one of the gardens, we couldn’t help thinking about how great it will be to see a tiny snow machine racing around in miniature in 2013, with maybe a tiny husky pup from Alaska as the new First Dog.
We doubt the Zeifs will plaster the interiors of their model with giant photos of the Palins…but, in truth, the Palins would never want them to.
The model might be tiny, but we know full well whose egos are so large as to demand this constant fawning.
Mercifully, we only have three more years of this nonsense to go.

January 21, 2010 at 10:46 pm
Gross. I hope they have hardwood floors so when people wretch upon seeing the giant pictures it is easy to clean up.
January 21, 2010 at 11:05 pm
THAT’S why the dog is named Bo? Somehow I missed hearing that…
Boo and hiss to exquisite miniature work devoted to the Obamas. I make miniatures myself and if I were this good, I sure as hell wouldn’t use my talents on them.
January 22, 2010 at 8:15 am
Allegedly, it was to honor both Bo Diddley and Michelle’s father….he liked the first and he was also nicknamed same, or something like that.
January 21, 2010 at 11:11 pm
It seems to me that a lot of people weren’t proud of their country until Barack became President. It’s as if his election validated our country, instead of the other way around.
January 21, 2010 at 11:12 pm
I think they had this model at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis. It was fascinating and I have a bunch of pictures of it – but it did not have the Christmas decorations that this one seems to have. I was more “summery” with roses in the garden, etc.
I’m wondering if the real WH hasn’t been remade in the image of The One and Mrs. Wookie. Wouldn’t put it past them.
January 21, 2010 at 11:41 pm
Dear me, these people are truly in love with themselves!
I didn’t know that was the reason the dog was called “Bo”. How fitting!
January 21, 2010 at 11:45 pm
“Claire McCaskill — wakes up every morning as Claire McCaskill”
I actually laughed out loud at this one.
The “BO” thing is more than my brain can stand. I didn’t know that. Come on, can’t the DOG even have his own name? Kee-ryst.
January 22, 2010 at 10:37 am
Well, LBJ (another winner of a president) insisted that everyone in his family be an LBJ, including wife (Lady Bird), children (Linda Bird, Luci Baines) and dog Little Beagle Johnson.
January 21, 2010 at 11:46 pm
No matter how you cut it, this is pathetic. If there truly are pictures of the first family hung everywhere, that’s sick. If that’s not the case and the Zeif’s felt compelled to embellish in this way, that’s sick.
January 21, 2010 at 11:54 pm
Thank you so much for posting this! When I was younger, I used to go to a summer program at Northwestern University and we would ALWAYS go to the Museum of Science and Industry. (Anyone with kids should definitely not miss this while in Chicago…it’s fabulous!) My favorite part (besides the old-fashioned ice cream shop, of course) was the dollhouse miniatures! I never got to see the White House, though. How long have they been doing that? Do they only do it in the wintertime?
As much as I’m not a fan of the O’s, you’re making me want to take a road-trip. I haven’t been back to Chicago since… November ’98 (WOW…that long, really?), but it’s still my favorite city.
January 22, 2010 at 12:00 am
Me too!!! One of my favorite childhood memories was going down to see Colleen Moore’s miniature houses down there. I think I will go down to see this travesty.
January 22, 2010 at 1:16 am
Speaking of museums, I know past First Ladies like Jacquie Kennedy and Nancy Reagan have had some of their more ‘important’ gowns passed on to the Smithsonian or their husband’s libraries.
I wonder if Me-me-chelle will ‘donate’ anything from her wardrobe.
Does the WWF have a museum? How about Crayola? Goodyear?
January 22, 2010 at 2:30 pm
OMG. I forget about that. That means that that tampoon gown will be memorialized.
January 22, 2010 at 4:02 am
I was expecting to read about red velvet curtains and plastic on the furniture!Architectural Digest did a story a few years ago about Laura Bush’s redecorating the WH living quarters.The rooms were beautifully done and very befitting of the Presidency. I don’t imagine that it looks anything like that anymore!And sending Winston Churchill’s bust back to England!!!What’s up with that?? The Empress has no(good)clothes and they have no class!
January 22, 2010 at 8:13 am
Barry and Michelle left the red velvet back on Greenwood Avenue in Chicago. (Honest. They did.)
People Mag. Aug, 2008
There clearly hasn’t been much time for decorating since Barack and Michelle Obama, flush with cash from his best-selling memoirs, paid off their student loans and bought the house for $1.65 million in 2005. Since then, Barack has moved from the Illinois senate to Capitol Hill and launched his presidential bid. Michelle juggled her job as a hospital executive with two kids and no nanny until January, when she took leave to support her husband’s candidacy. Was this what the couple, both Harvard-trained lawyers, envisioned when they married in 1992? “Whooo-boy! No. To me, life was you get married, you have kids, you buy a home,” says Michelle, the daughter of a Chicago city worker and stay-at-home mom. “I thought Barack would be a partner at a law firm or maybe teach or work in the community. We’d watch our kids go to college and go to their weddings and take care of the grandkids and that was it.” And now? She shrugs, eyes wide. “Who knows?”
Whatever the future may hold, the Obamas want a life of stability and daily routine for their girls, something that Barack, who was abandoned by his Kenyan father at the age of 2, missed as he shuttled between his mom, who moved to Indonesia, and grandparents, who lived in Honolulu. “Our childhood was constant moving and adventure but little stability,” says Obama’s half sister Maya Soetoro-Ng, 38. “Barack wants for his girls a rootedness and community that he didn’t have.”
As the family poses for photographs on the living room couch, the women of the family gang up on the lone male. Michelle pokes at Barack’s thinning hair, prompting him to retort, “Well, Sasha has no teeth.” At which point Malia, without skipping a beat, shoots back, “But what about your head?” “Nice comeback,” says Michelle. After a click of the shutter, Sasha reprimands her father: “You weren’t smiling!” Barack rolls his eyes and smiles. “They are just sweet,” he says afterward. “They make me happy.”
The girls may be irreverent, but they are also well mannered, slipping off their shoes before climbing on the velvet sofa. “There are downstairs rules,” Michelle says later, like no shoes on the furniture. But in the girls’ third-floor playroom the couch doubles as a trampoline. “So there are different rules in different parts of the house,” Michelle continues.
January 22, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Thanks a lot, Jo. /s
Now I have to go take a shower. Ewwww.
January 22, 2010 at 7:36 am
I refuse to refer to that poor dog as Bo. His original name was Charlie, and that’s what I call him.
They didn’t like the name “Charlie.” It wasn’t “presidential” enough, I guess. So they renamed him (confusing for the dog) and gave him that stupid Bo name.
Nope. I am not participating. His name is Charlie.
January 22, 2010 at 7:41 am
Reading the description of how the Zeif family now finds the White House, makes me wonder…when things reaaly, really get ‘bad’ for The Won…how many tell all stories coming gushing (not leaking) out.
All those parties; all those clothes. A lot of little somebodies had to work (tirelessly) to make that all happen. And those folks (the frontline worker bees) could come back to sting with stories of what they saw/heard.
The free fall from grace is just starting.
January 22, 2010 at 7:54 am
Where is the White House miniature? Like others stated here I am familiar with the Colleen Moore doll house, but not the White House. Should say I was there last Spring, and they have made many additions and improvements since I was last there, so maybe I just missed it (or maybe it was under “reconstruction”.
January 22, 2010 at 8:14 am
What I am talking about was in the basement, and I think you have used the correct description. I couldn’t think of it last night.
January 22, 2010 at 10:27 am
I just looked it up. Tribune article says it is there as a temporary exhibit, and moves to the Reagan Library after Feb 15, and will be there for 2 years.
I would love to see it, but don’t plan to be in Chicago before then. Oh well.
January 22, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Several years ago there was a WH miniature exhibit here in Chicago at Navy Pier. This was way before the Obamas took over and I am not sure if the Clintons or Bushes were in office. There were NO pictures of anyone I can assure you, just replicas of all the rooms in beautiful detail. Also in the room outside the WH model was a regular sized table with replicas of china settings used during various adminsitrations and table settings which were lovely that some presidents had used. It was a tasteful exhibit and no pictures or magazines were glued to any of the rooms. This sounds awful and I wouldn’t waste my time going down to the MSI to see this garbage. P.S. I am waiting fot the Obamas to somehow change the name of the WHITE house. I am sure that name is something they hate and furiously trying to figure out how to change the name to GREEN house or RED house or BLACK house or Obama house.
NOTE: HillBuzz, it seems none of my comments for the last few days have been appearing. I think your system is overloaded and overworked. I am disappointed that nothing has come through for the last two days.
January 22, 2010 at 2:31 pm
at least they haven’t painted the digs purple. Yet.
January 24, 2010 at 4:40 pm
The family who made and continues to update this 1/12 scale replica is Zweifel, not Zeif. They do indeed update the model for each new administration. Sometimes they also display rooms from previous administrations, usually the Oval Office, so people can see how the decor changes from President to President.
I saw the display twice. I think the first time was during the George H.W. Bush administration, when it was on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, DC. The second time I saw it was during the Clinton administration, when it was on display at the Carter Library in Atlanta during the 1996 Olympics. The details of each room and the exterior are painstakingly reproduced, right down to exact scaled down hand-carved furniture, so that it is just like the real White House. In fact, each President since they started (under Ford, I believe) has invited them in to take measurements, photos, sketches, etc. so they can get every detail exactly right.
If the model shows tacky Stalin-esque portraiture, then you can be assured that is what is in the real White House.
Nonetheless, I highly recommend seeing the model if it’s ever on display near you. Just try to ignore all the Obama self-worship and enjoy the outstanding craftsmanship. It is truly a remarkable work of art.
February 3, 2010 at 12:31 am
A small correction. He did not “win” a Nobel Prize. He was BESTOWED one based on him not being George W. Bush.