Kanye: Obama not as connected as Jews

American pop rapper and frequent foot-in-mouther Kanye West was recorded recently defending US President Barack Obama by saying he doesn’t have the same kinds of connections Jews have.

West, an outspoken and outsize media and music personality, was being interviewed on a New York radio station on Monday when he explained that he and Obama, who are both black, weren’t as well networked as your average Shlomo Greenberg from West Rogers Park.

“Let me tell you something about George [W.] Bush and oil money and Obama and no money,” he said. “People want to say Obama can’t make these moves or he’s not executing. That’s because he ain’t got those connections. Black people don’t have the same level of connections as Jewish people. Black people don’t have the same connection as oil people.”

The stirring defense of Obama came despite the fact that the president has been quoted twice before calling West “a jackass.”

There was no immediate response from West.

The rapper is no stranger to controversy, though he has mostly steered clear of offending Jews, instead saving much of his folksy vitriol for former presidents and country singers.

In 2005, West came under fire for telling a national audience that then-president Bush “doesn’t care about black people.” Four years later, he once again garnered controversy by hopping onstage at the MTV Video Music Awards to interrupt a Taylor Swift acceptance speech.

West’s comments put him in esteemed company with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, David Duke and Miley Cyrus, who recently told an interviewer that pop culture was driven by out-of-touch 70-year-old Jewish men who sit behind desks all day.

Members of the tribe, however, can take solace in the fact that two upstanding Jewish American actors, Seth Rogan and James Franco, recently won over the Internet by parodying a video of Kanye and his baby mama Kim Kardashian.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy6CnyBdF94