Obama: Flirter-in-Chief

Careful, ladies! Here comes the Flirter-in-Chief, always ready to pay a rakish compliment. He may not be in Bill Clinton’s league but he just can’t resist publicly commenting on a woman’s looks — whether it’s wanted or not, as in the latest case of California Attorney General Kamala Harris.

Obama introduced the 48-year-old Harris to his audience saying, “She is brilliant and she is dedicated and she is tough.” He went on to say, “She also happens to be by far the best-looking attorney general in the country.” Some of the audience laughed and Obama added, “It’s true. Come on.” That’s where the wheels came off. Not because of objections from Harris — a personal friend of the president — but because of the uproar the compliment is said to have generated in the world of social media.

An Apology to a Friend

One Republican critic sarcastically observed that the remark wasn’t funny, but typical for Obama. It was a first-class opportunity to get revenge on Obama for his crushing victory at the polls during the last election, which was due largely to support he received from female voters. From the left, Irin Carmon boxed the president’s ears saying, “This is hardly the first time Obama has been smarmily sexist under the guise of paying a compliment.” In short order, a register of Obama’s sins began circulating. It contains, among other things, Obama’s referring to a female reporter as “sweetie” during a press conference and the compliment he paid to 32-year-old New York Republican Representative Nicole Malliotakis when he said she didn’t look a day over 23.

What’s missing from this inventory of politically incorrect statements that are deemed an outrage are Obama’s many remarks concerning good-looking males, such as his introduction of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan last February when the president remarked, “There he is, the good-looking guy in the front here.”

On Friday, the president phoned Harris to apologize for his offhand remark. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney released a statement saying the president “fully recognizes the challenges women continue to face in the workplace,” adding that he also believes they “should not be judged by their appearance.”

Michelle Obama inadvertently hinted that the president didn’t do his share of household chores when she had to hastily correct a comment in which she mistakenly referred to herself as “a single mother.” She quickly amended that to “or, I shouldn’t say single — as a busy mother, sometimes you know when you’ve got the husband who’s president, it can feel a little single. But he’s there.”