The Blog @ Spolitics

Another One Under the Bus…Scarlett Johansson

Senator Barack Obama sure does have a habit of tossing his supporters under the bus.  His latest victim is actress Scarlett Johansson who campaigns for the presidential candidate.  In an article in Politico, Johansson described exchanging emails with Obama:

His replies have been thoughtful, she said, more than a brief line or two; on the ABC debate, he responded that the questioning was “difficult” and he was being pounded on “one silly question after another.” 

Johansson is somewhat shocked that he keeps up their back-and-forth correspondence. “You’d imagine that someone like the senator who is constantly traveling and constantly ‘on’ — how can he return these personal e-mails?” she asks. “But he does, and in his off-time I know he also calls people who have donated the minimum to thank them. Nobody sees it, nobody talks about it, but it’s incredible.” She adds, “I feel like I’m supporting someone, and having a personal dialogue with them, and it’s amazing.”

When asked about it, Obama responded in such a way that the actress came off looking dishonest if not delusional:

But speaking to reporters aboard his campaign plane, Obama said the actress doesn’t have his personal email address. “She sent one email to Reggie, who forwarded it to me,” Obama said, referring to his 26-year-old personal assistant, Reggie Love. “I write saying, ‘thank you Scarlett for doing what you do,’ and suddenly we have this email relationship.”

Perhaps Johansson was just telling a well-intentioned lie to show Obama as more engaged with his supporters than he actually is.  But Obama’s response also stinks of parsing.  He said she didn’t have his “personal” email address, but what about a work of campaign address?  And if he responded, she would have that email address going forward.  It seems he’s not being totally forthcoming and would prefer to just snark it off.   

One likely explanation that wouldn’t require anyone to be a liar or insane is that Obama has a staffer who has access to certain email accounts and answers emails for him.  Johansson could have written to a campaign email address or his senate email account and the staffer responded on Obama’s behalf.  But if that were the case, Obama would have known about the practice which would mean that rather than explain the situation and reveal the charade, he let Scarlett look the fool and end up as roadkill on Obama Way.