By Halimah Abdullah
The real and virtual women in President Barack Obama and GOP presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney's lives took center stage this week as politicos puzzled over faux pas aplenty. Obama's college exes dished on what it was like to date the playa-turned-commander-in-chief. Meanwhile, Obama administration advisor and Massachusetts Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren had a bit of trouble explaining exactly how, beyond high cheekbones, she could fairly consider herself "Native American,” as she once claimed. A web-based woman named "Julia" did a digital number on the GOP competition by depicting how oh so fabulous her life is under Obama administration policies. And Ann Romney showed she too knows a bit of about fabulousness when she donned a $1k T-shirt.
"Who run the world?" "Girls." It's time for this week's political roundup.
He's not a playa, he just had a lot of crushes
Before he became POTUS, Barack Obama was quite the lover boy. This according to a new biography of the president due out next month "Barack Obama: The Story" by Washington Post reporter David Maraniss.
His letter-filled courtship of Alex McNear was the stuff of a period drama.
In the book, Maraniss wrote that McNear described a night at an Italian restaurant in New York, when the couple "sat and talked and ate and drank wine. Or at least I drank wine. I think he drank something stronger. It was one of those dark, old Italian restaurants that don't exist in New York anymore. It was the kind of place where they leave you alone. I remember thinking how happy I felt just talking to him, that I could talk to him for hours."
Of one of the exes, Genevieve Cook, Obama wrote in his own memoir "Dream of My Father", "Her voiced sounded like a windchime." Later when the lovers parted she wrote of him "I was not the person that brought infatuation. (That lithe, bubbly, strong black lady is waiting somewhere!)"
The high cheekbone connection?
Former Obama administration advisor and Massachusetts Senate contender Elizabeth Warren created quite the ruckus this week when media outlets reported she once listed herself as Native American in legal industry guides.
Her rationale?
"...my pappaw, had high cheekbones, like all of the Indians do..."
Cue record scratching.
Now in fairness, Warren does have a great, great, great grandmother who is listed on marital records as Cherokee. However, it takes a lot more than high cheekbones -- which Warren herself admits somehow skipped her -- to register as a member of a Native American tribe.
The Life of Julia
No, that's not the title of a Judy Blume book. It's a new interactive graphic the Obama campaign says shows how much better off women are under the president's policies-both passed and proposed.
The campaign invites potential voters (read: the 51 percent of voters who have a double X chromosome) to "take a look at how President Obama's policies help one woman over her lifetime -- and how Mitt Romney's would change her story"
For example, Julia, who at age 25 inexplicably goes from being a brunette to a redhead "is one of millions of women across the country who know she'll always be able to stand up for her right to equal pay."
The Republican National Committee fought back with Tweets and comments on Tumblr about Julia being "bummed" because "her share of the national debt went up $16, 345 under Obama" and because "Julia, about to graduate, can't find a job in the Obama economy."
Oh yeah, and apparently at age 31, Julia decided her natural hair color is better after all.
Ann knows how to swag
A G-note.
That's roughly how much Ann Romney, wife of GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney, spent on the silk T-shirt she wore earlier this week on CBS' "This Morning." The pricey garment had tongues wagging because it was the latest in a series of Mrs. Romney's displays of wealth that, in this slowly recovering economy, just might not sit well with people who buy their T-shirts off the two-for-one rack.
Now about that big yellow bird smack in the middle of the shirt...we're just not going to even go there.
Political contributor Halimah Abdullah is the site's woman in Washington.
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