The last several posts on Robert Reich and Sarah Palin brought to mind one thought: sex appeal.
But before anyone protests the direction of our family-friendly blog, it turns out www.whitehouse.gov is working blue, too.
Speaking with Energy Secy Steven Chu about “new efficiency standards on fluorescent and incandescent lighting” in the federal government, President Obama deployed the s-bomb to jazz things up: “Now I know lightbulbs may not seem sexy….”
Depends on what you’re into, I suppose. But when I saw the word “sexy” in a presidential transcript, I thought it’s likely to be a rare occurrence.
Not wanting to do much research, I wrote off the 18th and 19th centuries. Calvin Coolidge was likely silent on the matter, too. And despite his being known as Tricky Dick, I don’t think anyone got a sexy vibe from President Nixon.
Looking for sex references in the Clinton years just feels like a long walk down a bad street. So I went to the more abstemious Bush Administration for confirmation that “sexy” isn’t generally part of the presidential lexicon.
It’s not. But Dick Cheney (indeed!) did use the term pretty frequently in 2004 — all in reference to John Edwards (not the brightest bulb in the bunch, as it turns out).
The stump joke went like this: “But everybody said John Edwards got picked for the job because he was good looking, charming, sexy, and had great hair. And I said, how do you think I got the job?” (Hey-oh!)
President Bush also picked up the theme — just once, according to the archives: “After all, People Magazine once named John Edwards the ’sexiest politician.’ One of my administration’s great goals for a new term is to get Dick Cheney on that list. In the meantime, I value the Vice President’s experience in government, his expertise in national security, and his sound judgment.”
(My, the tables really were turned in 2008.)
President Obama’s sexy reference this week was actually his second, the first coming in February (the month of love) at the end of the Fiscal Responsibility Summit.
This could be a fun new habit. If the president is this comfortable talking S-E-X, he’s bound to arou…
Nevermind.
