President Obama was overheard referring to Kanye West as a “jackass,” while waiting to begin an interview with John Harwood of CNBC,  referring to West’s latest kleptomaniacal microphone-heist at the MTV Video Music Awards.

Story from AP (Courtesy of Yahoo! News):

ABC News says it was wrong for its employees to tweet that Obama had called West a “jackass” for the rapper’s treatment of country singer Taylor Swift. The network said some of its employees had overheard a conversation between the president and CNBC’s John Harwood and didn’t realize it was considered off the record.

…

“I thought that was really inappropriate,” Obama says. “What are you butting in (for)? … The young lady seems like a perfectly nice person. She’s getting her award. What’s he doing up there?”

A questioner chimes in, “Why would he do it?”

“He’s a jackass,” Obama replies, which is met with laughter from several people.

The president seems to quickly realize he may have gone too far, and jovially appeals to those assembled that the remark be kept private. “Come on guys,” he says. “Cut the president some slack. I’ve got a lot of other stuff on my plate.”

E-mails shot around among ABC employees about Obama’s comments, said Jeffrey Schneider, ABC News spokesman. Before anything was reported on ABC’s air or Web site, at least three network employees took to Twitter to spread the news.

President Obama’s democratic pawns must be concerned, but Obama’s ranking just shot up exponentially in my book.  I don’t care if healthcare costs $20 trillion a month, so long as Obama keeps calling out intractable celebrities.

Hell, he could even start his own blog, where he’d just chime in every now and then with an obvious insult or contrived rant.  He could give it an odd-yet-catchy name and attract young readers… wait a minute.   Oh shit.  Forget I said that last part.