The same day headlines nationwide touted a new level of nastiness in the presidential campaign rhetoric, Obama staffers and traveling press pushed aside the stories of Biden gaffes and Romney rebounds for some talk about what really matters - beer and deep fried Oreos.
In his annual visit to the Iowa State Fair on Monday, the president seemed at ease, joking with supporters and enjoying a cold one. The stop was a major focal point of his three-day Iowa bus trip.
"Four more beers!" one audience member yelled at an afternoon campaign event the next day in Waterloo, Iowa, prompting the president to recall a scene from the day before.
The president replied, "At the State Fair, instead of saying 'four more years,' they were saying, 'four more beers.' So I bought him four more beers. Told him he had to register to vote, though, to get one of the beers."
But campaign staffers outdid the president Monday night at the fair, imbibing some Buds while partaking in the event's notorious bevy of fried snacks.
"Last night at the fair, a combination of David Axelrod, David Plouffe, myself, Jon Favreau, Alyssa Mastromonaco, and Eugene Kang probably ate half a dozen turkey legs, a dozen fried Oreos, four fried Snickers, fried Twinkies, fried ho-hos," traveling campaign press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Tuesday morning.
"We really did it up at the fair. We're all still functioning today. The fried Oreos, I think, is a group favorite," she added.
"Jen left out that they had a few beers, too," White House spokesman Jay Carney quipped, to which Psaki replied, "We did. We're all above 21."
But it was not the staffer swigs that caught headlines Tuesday but rather the admission that the Obama campaign bus comes fully stocked with a special brew made right at the White House.
The White House beer was first revealed last year when it was served to visitors during both a Super Bowl event and one celebrating St. Patrick's Day. But after a year under the radar, the home brew made resurfaced on Tuesday in a coffee house in Iowa.
After the owner of Iowa's Coffee Connection asked the president about the libation, Obama proceeded to give him a bottle of the home brew as a gift.
Upon hearing of the exchange, Carney was bombarded by questions from the press - "Who's the beer master?" "Is it light? Heavy?" Even "Does the Treasury Department know about this [interstate commerce]?"
Although Carney - who admitted when he's handed a beer he "just drinks it" and doesn't ask questions - could not answer many of the reporter queries, he told the information-thirsty crowd of reporters that as far as he knew, there was both a light and dark variety of beers brewed at the house of the president.
"Any other distilleries in the White House we don't know about?" one reporter joked, to which Carney replied, "There's a lot going on behind the trees on the South Lawn."
Needless to say, this is probably not the last we will hear about the presidential potable and at least this reporter hopes the next time, Obama brings enough for everyone to get a quaff or two.
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