Photo Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images; Johnny Nunez/WireImage
Say what you will about President Barack Obama, but you can't accuse him of flip-flopping on Kanye West! Three years ago, in a moment of candor that he believed was off-the-record, Obama called the rapper a "jackass." And recently, when a reporter for The Atlantic asked Obama for his opinion on Kanye, the president stuck to his guns!
"He is a jackass," Obama replied with a wink, "but he's talented."
So which hip-hop artist does Obama prefer? None other than Kanye's Watch the Throne partner Jay-Z. (He and wife Beyonce have been guests at the White House on several occasions.) But even though he prefers Hova to Ye, Obama says he has mad respect for Kanye (just, um, not in those words).
"I like Kanye," Obama told the reporter. "He's a Chicago guy. Smart. He's very talented."
The President made his first off-the-cuff remark about Kanye after the rapper interrupted Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV VMAs.
"The young lady seems like a perfectly nice person, she's getting her award... he's a jackass," Obama said while taping an interview with Nightline. That quote was never supposed to air, but after it was tweeted by a reporter, there was no taking it back. (Watch the video below.)
Poor Kanye -- he may be a jackass, but we know that he takes these things personally. But he should be flattered by the attention. After all, he's probably the first musician in history to be dissed by two sitting presidents!
