Obama and I Defend Women's Rights

Is the president allowed to compliment a female politician, who happens to be a close friend, for her looks, or is that sexist? A few days ago, they tried to create a scandal, but no great outrage was expressed. Maybe the U.S. isn’t as prudish and driven by political correctness as we often think it is.

It sounded as though Obama had decided that the risk wasn’t great enough to throw away such a good line as he spoke to a Democratic Party audience in San Francisco last week. He said, “You have to be careful to, first of all, say she is brilliant and she is dedicated and she is tough, and she is exactly what you’d want in anybody who is administering the law, and making sure that everybody is getting a fair shake.” He then added, “She also happens to be, by far, the best looking attorney general in the country.”

Kamala Harris is one of the rising stars in the Democratic Party on the U.S. West Coast. Currently California’s attorney general, there is talk of higher office in the future and perhaps someday becoming the state’s governor, serving on the U.S. Supreme Court or as U.S. attorney general. She was given a prominent speaking spot at the Democratic National Convention last September. In her six-minute appearance, she stressed Obama’s record of defending the rights of women and families. Both have several things in common such as a foreign-born black father. Hers came from Jamaica and was a professor of economics at Harvard. Her mother is a cancer specialist from India.

It was only a matter of a few hours after his comment that the first attacks began appearing on the internet: cheap sexism; speculation as to whether the president would say the same about a male politician. But his defenders were equally quick to respond as well, some pointing out that the president had indeed commented publicly about a male politician’s good looks. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney tried to quickly dampen the criticism, announcing that Obama had already telephoned Harris to apologize for his comments saying his intention was not to detract from her professional qualifications. Probably of equal importance was the fact he didn’t want any distractions from his current initiatives: the budget, immigration reform and the gun rights debate.

Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus wrote a Solomon-like opinion piece saying she was torn by what Obama had said, but thought it was a cop out to accuse him of sexism because of it. She acknowledged that appearance naturally plays an enormous role in the lives of female politicians. One is just not supposed to say that aloud – especially not if you’re the president of the United States.