Chip Reid: Not on John Kerry's Yacht, But on the Ball About the Issues

CBS News’s Chief White House Correspondent Chip Reid was not, as he joked, calling Imus from Senator John Kerry’s yacht this morning. He was, however, cashing in on Kerry catching flack for not paying Massachusetts taxes on a yacht he docks in Rhode Island.

“He’s a good man,” Reid said of Kerry. “But when somebody’s down in politics, you’ve got to hit him.”

Having proven once again why we like him so much, Reid went on to surmise that President Obama’s interview on “The View” tomorrow would be mostly a cakewalk.

“He’s going to get grilled on things like, ‘Do you really walk Bo?’ and ‘Who picks up his poop?’” said Reid. “I hope they engage him in the kind of conversations that we have such a hard time getting him to talk about—things like race, like the Shirley Sherrod thing last week that he completely avoided.”

He thinks “The View” co-hosts will inevitably bring up the issue of Sherrod being fired from her post at the Department of Agriculture after a misleading video clip made it seem like she had made racist comments in a speech, when she had actually done the opposite.

“He always has smart things to say about race, but he avoids it because he doesn’t want to distract from all the other things he wants to deal with,” said Reid, who has no problem Obama going on a so-called frivolous program like “The View.”

“As somebody who wants to hear from the President as much as possible, on as many topics as possible, and as in depth as possible, I think you’re going to get an interesting discussion here on issues,” he said.

Since Obama will appear just about anywhere, Imus predicted he’d wind up in a hot tub with Snooki and The Situation before season two of “Jersey Shore” was over. Which might be less humiliating than, say, BP not paying out the $20 billion it promised to Gulf Coast residents.

“It’s worth it to BP not to have their name constantly trashed by the President of the United States,” Reid said when asked what leverage Obama has if BP doesn’t pay up. “If they are ponying up $20 billion and they get commended by the White House and millions of columnists across the nation for doing it, that’s more good publicity than they could possibly pay for themselves.”

As for this year’s midterm elections, Reid told Imus one theory floating around Washington is that the best thing for Obama in 2012 would be to lose the House in 2010 because it gives him a foil to blame for gridlock and whatever else goes wrong.

“But they are working pretty aggressively to hold on to the House,” Reid said about the Obama administration. But he pointed out that not every Democrat wants Obama to campaign for them. “There are a lot of places he can’t go.”

Presumably, John Kerry’s yacht would be one of those places. Luckily Reid has no such restrictions. 

-Julie Kanfer