Off the Record: today and the internet

[L.Jane]

So the other day after the VMA's President Obama called Kayne a Jacka$$ for what he did to Swift. He asked that it be kept off the record, but due to someone twittering or facebooking and someone leaking the recording its all over the news. This brings up several debates....

1. What do you think of Obama for saying this?

2. Is anything private now with the mass media/internet.

My thoughts? Persoanally I enjoyed listening to Obama's comments. I thought it made him seem personable and someone I could sit in a room and talk to.
As for the lack of privacy. The world seems to becoming more and more big brother with cameras everywhere. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Edit: Here is a news link if you have no idea what I am talking about: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,3179288.story

[scrub-jay]

I agree with you. I thought his comments were, well, spot on. The Kayne West/Taylor Swift fiasco. I didn't even see it, but the fallout was everywhere online.

But as a public official, one must assume that anything said anywhere, to anyone might be used against them. It is the sad truth these days. I was not offended by his comments, they were true in this case. But he probably should have been more careful with his words.

[Rapunzel]

I have two thoughts on this:

1) He has to be "presidential" 24/7. Those comments are really not appropriate for a president to make (even if I agree with them).

2) The media needs to back off. He will slip up from time to time (like this) and obviously "off the record" stuff like this is NOT for the presses. It is, to some extent, an invasion of his privacy.

So, on the one hand I think he needs to expect that he really has NO privacy. And, on the other hand I think the media needs to give him some privacy! Clear as mud?

[L.Jane]

Yes, clear as mud! I agree. It important for him to be a role model, but its impossible for him to be perfect all the time. That's just exhausting. Plus, it wouldn't give us anything to debate on.

[MarissaNicole]

I think it is really crappy for any reporter to agree to be off the record and then release the contents of that conversation. A lot of people rely on a reporters word when they say off the record.

[DCJenn]

I agree with Rapunzel (see, it DOES happen!)

I think he needs to be aware that he's always being monitored. But, I think if he's watching the Chicago White Sox and they've done something stupid, I think he should be allowed to say "come on ump, are you blind?" without worrying about whether Lighthouse for the Blind will be protesting.

and, honestly, we're not talking about Richard Nixon or even Bill Clinton. There's a time and a place for real investigative journalism and tweeting that the President called a rockstar a jackass because he was in fact acting like an jackass, is NOT real journalism.

I would love for us to return some level of decorum to the way we get the news. I think the genie is out of the bottle but come ON.

Do we really need tweets about this? I certainly don't.

Jenn

[Rapunzel]

Oh, Sweety, look at the gun thing you just posted. You and I are on a roll tonight!

[DCJenn]

Can someone please go check direction of the rotation of the earth this evening?

J.

[Rapunzel]

The temp has dropped in hell, I mean Texas - it might freeze.

[DCJenn]

62 tonight! Maybe that's it. (and for you people in the northern climes, we really don't get much colder than that for most of 'winter')

Jenn

I agree with Rapunzel (see, it DOES happen!)

LOL! Me too! Between this AND my dad apologizing, I swear the earth is going to switch direction. My friend promised to watch the news to see if hell froze over.

[GrayMatterWife]

I think his statement was accurate.

And I think he said it with the hope that it would "get out," regardless of his later-made follow-up, "hey, this is off the record." But I think I am a cynic. I don't believe this guy says ANYTHING off the cuff or without a motive.

I think that because Obama's allies have made sure that his Presidency is all about race, all the time ("He's postracial, so vote for him!" but "if you disagree with him, you're a racist!"), he's now backed into a corner. He's tied himself to race, which now places him in the position of having to address anything racial. So he weirdly feels the need to distance himself from behavior of Mr. West, because Mr. West's behavior seemed vaguely racial--a black man belittling a white woman on stage.

Um, Obama... No one thought that you "understood" or sympathized with Mr. West as a black man, or that you had any other impression of Mr. West than what everybody else thought: the guy's a jackass. No one even THOUGHT of you related to this incident until you injected yourself into it. It's like the mess with the Connecticut police officer and the Harvard professor. Why are you commenting on this? It doesn't involve you. Just because you're black doesn't mean that we need your impression.

You are an educated, sophisticated guy--you are nothing like Mr. West and no one would have ever thought you endorsed his behavior. There's no need for you to clarify this or to lower the Office by noting your thoughts in a vulgarity. Why he gave this even a passing comment is beyond me.

Why he gave this even a passing comment is beyond me.

'cause he's human, and 'cause Kanye was acting like a jackass.

I don't buy the whole "if you disagree w/Obama you're racist". It's just as stupid as the "if you disagree with GWB you're unpatriotic."

[L.Jane]

In the recording I heard on the radio, the journalist asked him something like, "are your girls as mad about what happened to Taylor Swift as mine?" Thats when the conversation started and he made that comment. Unless he asked the reporter to bring it up, he didn't start the conversation. Now if he said that due trying to distance himself from West, I have no idea.

[L.Jane]

Here's a link to the conversation: http://www.opposingviews.com/article...west-a-jackass