“…so I know whose ass to kick.” – Barack Obama, June 7, 2010
As profanity goes, it is pretty mild. But it is still something of a shock to the ears for many to hear swearing directly from the mouth of the President of the United States, though not to those who have listened to the secret recordings of Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon (“People said my language was bad, but Jesus, you should have heard LBJ,” noted Nixon of his predecessor.)
The words came two weeks ago from President Obama during an interview with the The Today Show’s Matt Lauer concerning the Deepwater Horizion oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Defending his response to the crisis and his consultation of prominent scientists in an effort to better formulate a process to stop the spill and minimize its damage, the President explained:
“I was down there a month ago, before most of these talking heads were even paying attention to the Gulf. A month ago I was meeting with fishermen down there, standing in the rain talking about what a potential crisis this could be. And I don’t sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar, we talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick.”
Obama’s critics, including the cartoonist Michael Ramirez of the Investor’s Business Daily (cartoon above) have pointed out that the comments are beneath the dignity of the chief executive and others have asserted that Obama’s words are nothing more than the scripted phoniness of a weakling to an example of what is curiously referred to as his thuggishness.
CNN”s Fareed Zakaria stepped back to view the broader picture of what it means that the president said these words and what it says about the news media—and by extension–the millions of Americans who consume it. Contrasting the Deepwater Horizon disaster to the Exxon Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska, which occurred in the spring of 1989 during the administration of President George H.W. Bush, Zakaria wrote:
To read and watch the coverage of the Exxon Valdez is to be transported back to a different time. There was no effort to implicate Bush, few calls for him to emote more, no clamor that he magically “do something” to get the awful images off the TV screen. In fact, he never traveled to see the oil spill. This time, the president has canceled a trip to Asia, has held more meetings on this topic than on any other since the review of Afghanistan-Pakistan policy, and speaks almost exclusively about this tragedy. Government officials hold briefings on the topic daily, even when these are simply designed to convey the impression of action. It is government as theater.
Meanwhile, the unemployment numbers are grim, the prospect of contagion from the European debt crisis grows, our allies in Asia are disheartened, the Taliban remains on the offensive and tensions with Iran and North Korea loom. These are issues on which the federal government has specific and unique responsibilities. But what the hell. The president of the United States has now trash-talked against the CEO of BP, is wearing more-casual clothes, and has announced that he intends to “kick ass.” Thank goodness for the free press!
