By Michael A. Memoli, Tribune Washington Bureau –
President Barack Obama told Jay Leno Wednesday night that Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock’s comments about pregnancy and rape illustrate why men alone should not be making decisions about women’s issues.
“Rape is rape. It is a crime,” Obama told the “Tonight Show” host in an interview that was set to air Wednesday evening, according to an account from a pool reporter traveling with the president. “These various distinctions about rape don’t make too much sense to me.”
Mourdock, a “tea party” Republican who defeated incumbent Sen. Richard G. Lugar in the primary this year, is in a tight race that could help decide control of the Senate.
On Tuesday night, Mourdock said during a debate with his opponent, Democratic Rep. Joe Donnelly, that if a pregnancy results from rape it is “something that God intended to happen.” That set off a new firestorm in a campaign year in which both presidential candidates are courting the women’s vote.
Romney has appeared in an ad supporting Mourdock’s candidacy. Obama’s campaign has called on the former Massachusetts governor to repudiate Mourdock’s remarks. A Romney spokeswoman has said the candidate disagrees with Mourdock, but Romney himself has not addressed the issue.
Also in the “Tonight Show” interview, Obama made light of Donald Trump’s much-hyped offer to donate $5 million to charity if the president released his passport application and college records. The real estate mogul also has championed the “birther” movement, contending that Obama cannot be president because he was born in Kenya. Actually, the president was born in Hawaii.
On Leno, Obama joked that Trump’s beef dates back to when he and Trump grew up together in Kenya.
“We had constant run-ins on the soccer field,” Obama said. “He wasn’t very good and resented it. When we finally moved to America, I thought it would be over.”
Obama made time to come to Los Angeles to chat with Leno during a marathon tour of battleground states that began in Florida after the final presidential debate on Monday. In addition to campaigning, he’s maximizing his free media exposure with the Leno interview, another with NBC’s Brian Williams, and a half-hour MTV special Friday. First lady Michelle Obama will appear on the “Jimmy Kimmel” show on Thursday.
In response to a question from Leno’s audience, Obama joked that trick-or-treaters who come to the White House next week can expect candy, but children from the key swing state of Ohio can expect extra large Hershey bars.
What is with the republican party supporting all these teab***ers. Rape is rape, racism is racism. How can the republican party let these people take controll? Rape is God’s will, Colin Powell is voting for Obama because he is black, the president is a retard, I don’t care about 47% of the people. These are all words spoken from prominate republican teab***ers. Wake up republicans. You have given the american taliban a platform from which they can take control of the US. This quote is so true “not all republicans are racists but all racists are republican”. We must rid our country and the republican party of the teab***ers.
There are plenty of racists who are democrats. They voted for Obama only because he was black.
Katie you need to learn the definition of racist.
Racism and racial discrimination are often used to describe discrimination on an ethnic or cultural basis, independent of whether these differences are described as racial. According to the United Nations convention, there is no distinction between the terms racial discrimination and ethnic discrimination, and superiority based on racial differentiation is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust and dangerous, and that there is no justification for racial discrimination, in theory or in practice, anywhere.
In politics, racism is commonly located on the far right due to the far right’s common association with nativism, racism, and xenophobia. In history, racism has been a major part of the political and ideological underpinning of genocides such as The Holocaust, but also in colonial contexts such as the rubber booms in South America and the Congo, and in the European conquest of the Americas and colonization of Africa, Asia and Australia. It was also a driving force behind the transatlantic slave trade, and behind states based on racial segregation such as the USA in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and South Africa under apartheid.[9] Practices and ideologies of racism are universally condemned by the United Nations in the Declaration of Human Rights.
An african american voting for an other african american is not racist. As much as your narrow mind wants it to be does not make it so.
So why is a white voting for another white racist? And I was primarily talking about whites voting for Obama only because he is black. They didn’t want to be seen as racist because they didn’t vote for a black candidate. I always thought you should vote for the candidate that best matches your political views. I have wanted Romney to be president since he turned the Olympics around from bankrupt to profitable in 2002. And yes, I did attend those Olympics in Utah. He has always been a moderate Republican.
I would think the whites you are talking about voted for Obama because they were undecided and thought it was the right thing to do. Not because they are racists.
I’m glad Obama has so much time to yuck it up on all the talk shows. Maybe after he gets his ass handed to him in the election he can host his own TV sit-com.
your so called “yuck it up” is called campaigning. Mitt is afraid to campaign this way because you have to be able to think on your feet. Plus he has the personallity of a rat. He wouldn’t come off very good. It is a great way to reach potential votes and it doesn’t cost any money. Only plass mitten will go is on faux news. My guess is they give him the questions up front.
You got it, Happyguy. Romney would come across as someone with absolutely NO sense of humor and no ability to ad-lib. He just isn’t likeable (except maybe to the super-wealthy). I don’t think Letterman or Leno even WANT Romney on their shows!
And to all of you who think it’s not important to be likeable if you’re the POTUS, sorry, but you’re wrong. We need our president to be effective AND likeable. President Obama is BOTH.
I have close friends who met Pres. Obama and toured Air Force One. They said he had zero personality and didn’t even try to be friendly to them. They were very disappointed at the exchange. And then there are the parents of one of the SEALs who died in Libya. They said he never looked them in the eye and it was like shaking hands with a dead fish. The real Obama is the one of the first debate. Disengaged.
They were after Romney for his income tax records. You would think Obama could come up with a college diploma.
Trump needs to get a life this issue has been put to rest. Obama has done a decent job if a person considers mess Bush put this country in. The republicans will lose this years election because they wont stand up to fruits like Mourdock.
Even Letterman admonished Obama for lying in the last debate.
While we all know Romney is a flat out liar.
Oh that’s right….Planned Parenthood really does cover mamograms. 😉