Barack Obama: ‘She’s America’s best-looking law chief by far... it’s true! Come on!’

Obama in sexism storm over his lavish praise for california attorney general
David Gardner5 April 2013

Barack Obama was today caught up in a sexism row after calling California’s female chief law officer the best-looking attorney general in America.

Both liberal and conservative commentators took issue with the American president’s remark, made at a fundraising event in San Francisco.

Mr Obama lavished compliments on Kamala Harris, saying: “She’s brilliant and she’s dedicated, she’s 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 — it’s true! Come on!”

The remark quickly ignited a firestorm of criticism. Twitter users blasted the quip as “awkward”, “disgraceful” and “disrespectful”.

“Obama’s comment about Kamala Harris is disgraceful and really terrible for workplace equality,” wrote Jonathan Chait of New York magazine.

“On what planet in [Obama’s] mind did he think that sounded like the right thing to say?” added Rebecca Traister, writer for The New York Times Magazine and Salon.

Mr Obama’s supporters argued that he and Miss Harris, 48, are good friends and that it shouldn’t be considered a crime to compliment a women on her obvious good looks.

“The fact that this has in some way become a story about his overall respect of women (or lack thereof) is a slap in the face to the first lady, the first daughters, and every other woman who appreciates a compliment that extends far beyond appearance from the president or any other man,” Angela Rye, a Democratic political consultant, told the Politico media group.

Michelle Obama has not commented on the controversy, but the first lady made a slip-up of her own in a television interview yesterday when she accidentally called herself a single mother.

She was discussing healthy foods and how the demands of raising a family can leave little time for nutritious

cooking, when she said: “Believe me, as a busy single mother… or I shouldn’t say single — as a busy mother.”

Explaining, she added: “Sometimes, you know when you’ve got the husband who’s president it can feel a little single. But he’s there.”

Miss Harris’s mother emigrated to the US from Chennai in southern India, and her father is Jamaican-American.

She is California’s first female attorney general and also the first African-American or Asian-American to hold the post.

Little is known about her romantic situation since her relationship with the former mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown, ended in the late Nineties. There were no pictures of President Obama and Miss Harris together at yesterday’s event, which was a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee held at the home of John Goldman, the heir to the Levi Strauss clothing fortune.

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