Media

Obama’s “Jackass” Remark: The President Gets No Slack

By Michael Scherer | @michaelscherer | September 15, 2009 | +

TMZ.com has acquired audio of President Obama calling Kanye West a “jackass” before an interview with CNBC. Though the exchange was off the record, it was reported via Twitter by ABC News, which later apologized. It’s actually a fun listen, in part because as soon as Obama utters the word “jackass,” he knows he has opened himself up, and begins asking those around him not to report it. All in good fun. My transcript of the exchange follows:

QUESTION: Were your girls as hacked off as mine were that Kanye gave Taylor Swift the Joe Wilson treatment?

OBAMA: I thought that was really inappropriate, you know. It was like, she’s getting an award. What are you butting in? I hear you. I agree with you.

ROBERT GIBBS: John, does that count as the first question?

OBAMA: The young lady seems like a perfectly nice person. She’s getting her award. What’s he doing up there?

QUESTION: Why would he even do that?

OBAMA: He’s a jackass. (Laughter.) Now all this stuff. . .

UNKNOWN: That’s what Pink said.

OBAMA: I’m assuming all this stuff. . . Where’s the pool?. . . C’mon guys. Cut the president some slack. I’ve got a lot of other stuff on my plate. Yeah. Because I remember last time there was the fly thing. That was the highlight of a. . .

QUESTION: Now that worked out well for you. You were a ninja.

OBAMA: Except PETA.

Of course this is one of those scandals where there is lots of smoke, and not much fire. Beyond the ABC News mistake, Obama was just telling it like it was. Even Kanye West seems to agree that he was acting like a jackass.

Related Topics: kanye west, tmz, Barack Obama, Media

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  • spob

    But he couldn’t figure out that Gates was being a jackass . . . .

  • deconstructiva

    …props to the Pres. for his honest feelings, but if this was off the record, why report this? Now no one will speak to you at parties and poetry readings if there’s the fear of being quoted.

  • rustyreturns

    Takes one to know one!

  • http://twitter.com/michaelscherer Michael Scherer

    Two reasons: Reporters like me honor all confidentiality agreements they are party to. I was never a party to this off-the-record agreement. Secondly, the material is now in the public domain. Also, it is harmless fun. Like I said, Obama was accurately describing Kanye’s behavior.

  • conversets

    STFU, Jerkoff.

  • spob

    Lighten up, Francis.

  • pierogielunaire

    Seems like “Is Kanye West a jackass?” Is worthy of a Quick Vote over at the CNN home page. See, what you can do, Michael. Who knows, maybe Obama will get another poll bounce out of this very short but well-received speech.

  • sacredh

    Is this a Sista Soulja moment?

  • sacredh

    MS: A photo of the transgression would make an excellent “1000 Words” thread. I think we could hit at least 100 comments and most of them rude. Think about it. I’m talking street cred.

  • dunedweller

    Considering there’s a popular TV show called Jackass, where people (i guess celebrities in some circles?) do stupid things to themselves and each other, the designation seems appropriate on or off the record.

  • trifecta55

    Michael, the important question is why black politicians are continually asked about black people behaving badly.
    Last year before he passed, Russert asked both Obama and Colin Powell to denounce Harry Belafonte. Now Obama gets asked about Kanye West.
    .
    Was Bush ever required to answer for every time Gary Busey acted up? That is said somewhat in jest, but seriously, what is the deal with “you people” in the media and the latent racism in always asking black politicians about blacks like they have to speak for them all.
    .
    It’s the same manner of thinking that gets Al Sharpton on tv as the “black representative”. It’s bs.

  • spob
  • darius3

    Nah. If Obama had given a speech where he publicly repudiated Kanye’s behavior, then that would’ve been a “Sister Souljah moment”. This was just an offhand, off-the-record comment that got “accidentally” leaked by Moran.

  • sacredh

    The comment and not the circumstance is going to get the airplay.

  • jcapan

    “The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything. Except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands.”

    Oscar Wilde

  • mccainfluffer

    I hope you’re being sarcastic referring to this whole thing as a “scandal.”

  • gysgt213

    We are all “jackasses” today! Or is this not a moment to stand together?

  • 53_3

    Spoob:
    We all know how hard you guys have worked to avoid such linkages. It’s too bad that your tireless activism for the rights of Black Americans has been so, well, um, uh, questioned. Same with your peers.
    .
    So here is a much better approach to the likes of you:
    .
    How about this instead, spoobie?
    .
    http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/09/15/congressman-says-some-people-arent-worth-peeing-on/

  • gysgt213

    HA HA! Tell em Rusty.

  • 53_3

    Sit, rusty sit!
    .
    No bone for you tonight. Bad boy! Bad!

  • 53_3

    Micheal is still in the wee-wee. He hasn’t grown up yet. As soon as this house-of-cards crumbles, Mikey is going to claim that he never did anything to anyone and how dare you for accusing him.
    .
    In the meantime, the march to responsibility continues.
    .
    Keep breathing that Southern Strategy ozone, mikey-poo.
    .
    (emphasis on last syllable)

  • Kevin Lyda

    It’s odd. I heard this rumor that some physician group came out in favor of the public option. And yet no word about it here.

    But at least the jackass comment was covered. That will have a huge affect on people’s lives. Much more than the health care debate. Or discussions about our two wars. Or stories about unemployment. Or the various issues with CRE and other construction/lending issues.

    No, the jackass story is much more important for a TIME reporter to cover and respond to comments on. That’s key. That’s news we can use.

    As an aside, any idea why newspapers and news magazines are suffering such huge losses? Total mystery to me. Can anyone figure it out? It’s almost like their readers have decided such publications are filled with worthless fluff and aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. What could cause such a silly reaction?

  • rustyreturns

    You are absolutely right…….well left…..well heck gysgt213, maybe it IS “Change we can believe in”
    .

  • Kevin Lyda

    Also, I’d like to repeat an earlier question, why was Obama even asked about Kayne’s outburst? Does every black public figure have to apologize for the misbehavior of any black celebrity? Is this some heretofore unwritten job title?

    Eventually folks might start to think that’s pretty racist. So either you folks will stop adding such job titles *or* you’ll add such job titles to non-black public figures. Suddenly Hillary Clinton will have to answer for Brittney Spears and Paris Hilton’s transgressions. Gordon Brown will have to apologize for Russell Brand and Hugh Grant. John Bohner will have to apologize for Nick Nolte and Sean Penn?

    Maybe you guys can have a little tick off box in your notebooks for, “Do you support/condemn [newsmaker of your ethnic group] for doing [bad thing]?”

    Of course it would just be easier if black public figures just began all speeches or interviews by condemning some other black people who did something dumb. That would save you the effort of asking. Really, in the end it’s not that US reporters are a bunch of racist morons, it’s that black public figures are too lazy to do the right thing. Typical – that sort are all lazy and unethical.

  • conversets
  • gysgt213

    “Does every black public figure have to apologize for the misbehavior of any black celebrity? Is this some heretofore unwritten job title?”
    .
    Kevin-I think Obama made a huge blunder firing our usual spokesmen, Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton. Maybe he will reconsider at some point and let those 2 speak for all black Americans on every issue in the media again. God I miss the good ole days.
    .
    Sarcasm alert to media. Not all black people attend meetings were we discuss what opinion we will collectively have on any issue.

  • shepherdwong

    Jackass.

  • rose83

    What’s sad is this will probably help Obama. An innocuous utterly unremarkable comment may end up doing more to persuade people of his anti-Nazi-Communist credentials than a well-crafted and sincerely delivered speech, or, you know, their own common sense.
    .
    Probably going too far to trash Serena Williams though.

  • apollyon07
  • apollyon07

    I mean, speaking of people denouncing others.

  • James, Los Angeles

    Michael,
    serious question if you are still awake on protocols of journalistic practice.

    Okay, so a pooler is bound to put everything in the pool report that she intends to write about. Presumably she doesn’t put off-the-record stuff in the pool report, right? Or does she, specifying it is off-the-record? And then the other journos in the pool are bound not to write stuff that’s off-the-record, presumably. Because why would a pooler be bound by an off-the-record agreement, while the pool recipients aren’t bound by it. Am I correct so far?

    So, let’s move to audio/video feed. Who is bound by an off-the-record agreement with audio-video feed? Presumably the interviewer who made the off-the-record agreement is bound by the promise, yes? Who else is bound by the agreement? No one else is bound by it? Then why have an agreement like that? That’s putting the hard-working pooler at a disadvantage, right? (I’m not arguing against off-the-record, I am asking what the protocol is in your profession.)

    I get that you aren’t bound by it because it is now in the public domain. But if it weren’t, what is your responsibility to the off-the-record agreement. Only if you are in the pool? How does that work? If you are *in* the pool, you are bound by the agreement, but if you aren’t, and someone slips you the offending video, you can run with it?

    (NOTE: not *you* personally, *you* broadly, reporters.)

  • Kevin Lyda

    It’s terrible that the violence in the abortion debate is now being returned by pro-choice supporters. Political debate is how this should be done. The answer to decades of violence, murder and intimidation by the far right is NOT reciprocal violence. It’s wrong and obviously should be condemned.

    Those of us who believe in choice have the moral high ground in this debate; violence only drags us down to the level of those who would have the government dictate health care decisions for women.

  • pafro

    So what I can’t figure out is in 2001, we were attacked by a terrorist who was mailing letters with Anthrax in them. ABC News reported that anonymous Bush Administration officials told them that they had linked the particular type of Anthrax processing to Saddam’s Iraq.
    Of course this was all a lie. Even though the journalistic protocol is that if someone lies to you anonymously, you blow their cover, ABC News, to this day, has refused to finger the lying liar. Yet they will totally breach protocol and report something the president asked them not to disclose.
    Why is non-disclosure granted to a Bush official trying to lie us into war, but not to a black president? This stinks.

  • http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=26918 Balloon Juice » Blog Archive » Comment of the day

    [...] From Swampland commenter Kevin Lyda on ObamaKanyeJackAssGate: [...]

  • emptysuit

    I’m with Obama..this time. Obama can express his thoughts, there’s nothing wrong with that. He was not making a speech to a group, this was off the record, small chitchat. The problem falls in the hands of these twitters walking around like an open book. Still it funny to hear a president call someone a ‘jackass’.

    http://emptysuit.wordpress.com/

  • http://charliekennedy.wordpress.com charliekennedy

    why is always the same 5 knuckleheads arguing with each other at the swampland comments? Don’t any of you donkeys have jobs?

  • michaelfury

    Why is the President concerned with celebrity scandal but not the implications of this research, copies of which his advisors have received?

    http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2009/04/11/the-rest-is-silence/

  • Matt

    Why the heck is this even considered a controversy beyond the increasingly conservative agenda of ABC? Where is the controversy here? That the president used slightly unsavory language? Maybe, since we all know George W. Bush never cursed in the White House…

    This is idiotic, and ABC News is also a collective jackass…

    http://www.political-buzz.com/

  • 5kirby

    It is only when we stop dwelling on the past of who did what to who and erase the color thing and have comments like ” this human person did this to that human person” we will all live in harmony. But that would not be “news”

  • 53_3

    I’m in agreement with Kevin. Let the far right stand alone in their bent for terrorism.

  • georgiac

    And yet . . . Jake Tapper ALWAYS gets a question at news conferences–why??

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