Obama: Kanye West a ‘Jackass’
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James Joyner | Tuesday, September 15, 2009 |
The big buzz on the blogs this morning is that ABC’s Terry Moran — best known as the brother of RWNH’s Rick — Tweeted “Pres. Obama just called Kanye West a “jackass” for his outburst at VMAs when Taylor Swift won. Now THAT’S presidential.”
The Tweet in question was soon removed with ABC providing this explanation to Politico:
In the process of reporting on remarks by President Obama that were made during a CNBC interview, ABC News employees prematurely tweeted a portion of those remarks that turned out to be from an off-the-record portion of the interview. This was done before our editorial process had been completed. That was wrong. We apologize to the White House and CNBC and are taking steps to ensure that it will not happen again.
This, methinks, is the classic win-win. Obama gets the credit for saying what everyone’s thinking and yet can’t be criticized for being “unpresidential” because the unpopular media broke his confidence in reporting it.
UPDATE: Via Taegan Goddard, I see that TMZ has the audio.
Someone asks if the president’s daughters were “as hacked off as mine were that Kanye gave Taylor Swift the Joe Wilson treatment” at the MTV awards. Obama says, “I thought that was inappropriate,” and then adds, “he’s a jackass.”
What’s interesting to me is that it sure seems as if Obama made it “off the record” after the fact, saying “cut the president some slack here, I’ve got a lot on my plate.” And, by my lights, it’s perfectly reasonable of him to ask and fine if the press acquiesces. I think it’s better for all concerned if high ranking officials feel that they can relax a bit and not be “gotcha’d” for minor slips. On the other hand, once Moran decided to go public here — which he had every right to do if in fact he hadn’t agreed this was OTR beforehand — ABC shouldn’t have had him delete the tweet afterwards.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.
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Heh. Even Ace O'Spades was favorably impressed:
[T]his is the second thing Obama has done or said today I am in complete agreement with. Frankly, it scares me a bit.
I don't know what the first thing was (don't read Mr. O'Spades regularly), but that he's scared is comforting.
If calling Kanye West a jackass is unpresidential, I don't want to be presidential.
"This, methinks, is the classic win-win. Obama gets the credit for saying what everyone’s thinking and yet can’t be criticized for being “unpresidential” because the unpopular media broke his confidence in reporting it."
Yeah, but no more free Kanye tickets.
ace is pleased with the Presidentially-ordered hit on Somali terrorists yesterday.
Who could blame Obama, after this uncalled for outburst: The Remix.
....but what about the civility?.....
This makes the remix funnier:
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/09/14/kanye-interrupts-oba.html
Oh, sorry, I was second with the remix.
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