¢¢

My 2 cents (clever title, doncha think?):

Obama made the biggest, most horrifically horrible rhetorical error ever in the history of human language blah blah blah.

What he said (re California AG Kamala Harris):

"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.

“She also happens to be by far the best-looking attorney general in the country -- Kamala Harris is here. (Applause.) It's true. Come on. (Laughter.)

And she is a great friend and has just been a great supporter for many, many years.”

No, he didn't make a huge error - OK he did kinda, but the fuck up wasn't about saying Harris is attractive.  The remark does give an UberFemme like Joan Walsh a chance to smack the Prez which of course makes her think she gains some credibility by being a scold, and lets her put down a marker as Not An Obama-bot (this is correlative to Hippie-Punching).  But Obama's mistake was that he publicly acknowledged that Politics is very much about Sales and Marketing.  While you need to be selling a product or a service or some kind of content, packaging counts.

There are exceptions of course, but you don't really get anywhere just on brains and talent and hard work.  Not when it comes to the Beauty Pageant that American politics has become in the age of Visual Media.