Academic

Obama and Kanye

By Tung Yin

I don't get why this is a big deal at all (other than the part about journalistic standards). . . .

A recap of the alleged controversy: during the MTV Music Video Awards, 19-year-old country star Taylor Swift won the award for the best female video for her song, "You Belong to Me."  Swift got up to accept the award and started to give her speech, which talked about how surprised and pleased she was to win the award, given that she's a country singer.  (I gather that country stars don't do well in this category.)  Rapper Kanye West then got on the stage, took the microphone from Swift, and started blathering on about how Beyonce had made the best video of the year.  Swift was stunned and unclear about what to do when West handed the mic back to her.  The audience booed West.  Later, when Beyonce won for the best video of the year, she graciously invited Swift up to the stage to finish her acceptance speech.

Yesterday, while getting ready for a CNBC interview, President Obama was bantering with the interviewer, and the subject turned to whether his daughters were bothered by West's actions:

"I thought that was really inappropriate," Obama says. "What are you butting in (for)? ... The young lady seems like a perfectly nice person. She's getting her award. What's he doing up there?"

A questioner chimes in, "Why would he do it?"

"He's a jackass," Obama replies, which is met with laughter from several people.

The president seems to quickly realize he may have gone too far, and jovially appeals to those assembled that the remark be kept private. "Come on guys," he says. "Cut the president some slack. I've got a lot of other stuff on my plate."

This was a news feed shared between ABC and CNBC, and an ABC reporter "tweeted" about the President's remark.

I don't get the fuss about what Obama had to say.  It seems pretty hard to dispute that West acted like a jackass in ruining Taylor Swift's moment.  I suppose one could quibble over the difference between "being" a jackass and "acting like" one, but is that it?  I mean, in the first link above, you'll see that even West admits he was "rude."  Is it that we don't expect Presidents to use "jackass" instead of "rude"?

Full post as published by The Yin Blog on September 16, 2009 (boomark / email).