Politico had this story in the entire Kanye West-Taylor Swift issue:  off-the-record, Obama called West a jackass.  Perhaps after a summer of strife, this is Obama’s way of uniting us over something we can all agree upon.

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Nothing has been confirmed by the White House, but this is reportedly how it all went down:  CNBC was interviewing Obama.  During the moments that are supposed to be “off the record”–remember Newt Gingrich’s mother and Connie Chung–the Swift-West business came up. Perhaps in a moment of unguarded candor, Obama called West a ‘jackass’.

Is this Obama’s Sister Souljah moment?  Maybe, because Terry Moran at ABC News tweeted it!  This caused an uproar, and ABC had to release this statement:

In the process of reporting on remarks by President Obama that were made during a CNBC interview, ABC News employees prematurely tweeted a portion of those remarks that turned out to be from an off-the-record portion of the interview. This was done before our editorial process had been completed. That was wrong. We apologize to the White House and CNBC and are taking steps to ensure that it will not happen again.

Still unclear:  how did ABC News have access to off-the-record remarks in a CNBC interview?

File this under “calling a spade a spade” – which hurts to say, because I have always loved Kanye; my Wikipedia portrait of him (above) is in my top ten favorites.  His music had a deep impact on me in 2006.

But my stomach turned as I watched Taylor Swift have her moment taken away from her.  It was…just horrible to witness.

Dammit Kanye!  Why do you make it so difficult to love you?

Never mind that Cheney had eight years to do something as logical in a time of two wars as repeal the Defense Department ban on gays in the military.  In trying to cement his “Sister Souljah moment“, Cheney is out-and-about all gung-ho for the gays:

Cheney said:

“I think that freedom means freedom for everyone,” replied the former V.P. “As many of you know, one of my daughters is gay and it is something we have lived with for a long time in our family. I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish. Any kind of arrangement they wish. The question of whether or not there ought to be a federal statute to protect this, I don’t support. I do believe that the historically the way marriage has been regulated is at the state level. It has always been a state issue and I think that is the way it ought to be handled, on a state-by-state basis. … But I don’t have any problem with that. People ought to get a shot at that.”

Gays are perplexed by this surprise voice seemingly supportive in the midst of a national movement.  But with friends like these…  Nobody gay gives two hoots for Mary Cheney; she is, effectively, our version of a Jew for Jesus.