By: Joe Strupp Parade's Father's Day issue, which includes President Barack Obama's third appearance as a writer for the magazine, was not originally planned that way.
Editors had initially had a story about Bob Woodruff written by his wife, Lee, for the June 21 cover. But when Obama's office called less than a week before deadline asking if he could write for Father's Day, Editor Janice Kaplan says they couldn't say no.
"It came out of David Axelrod's office," Kaplan recalled. She said the magazine closes each issue two and-a-half weeks before it is distributed. That meant the June 21 issue had a deadline of Wed., June 3.
Kaplan said the president's request came in six days before, on Thurs., May 28. She told his office that the piece had to be in within two days. "We said we would need the story by Saturday," she said, adding that he made the deadline. "It wasn't a panic once we knew and we had the story ready to go."
Two weeks before his inauguration, Obama wrote a letter to his daughters, Malia and Sasha, in the magazine, while both he and fellow candidate John McCain wrote about patriotism in July 2008.
In the latest
article, Obama recalls growing up without a father, reflects on being a father, and calls on other fathers to "step up" and take responsibility for their children.
"In many ways, I came to understand the importance of fatherhood through its absence-both in my life and in the lives of others," the president writes, in part. "I came to understand that the hole a man leaves when he abandons his responsibility to his children is one that no government can fill. We can do everything possible to provide good jobs and good schools and safe streets for our kids, but it will never be enough to fully make up the difference."
Kaplan said the Woodruff piece will run in the future, likely in the July 12 issue: "We called Bob and Lee to tell them they had been bumped by the president, they could not have been more gracious."
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