Okay. I think Jay-Z is literally calling in favors from The White House in return for his campaign efforts at this point. A scant few days after Press Secretary Jay Carney was forced to address the lyrics of "Open Letter" practically bar-by-bar, the President his damn self commented on the song and Hov's assertion that he had "White House clearance" in an interview with Savannah Guthrie on this morning's Today show. Of course, he addressed it basically just to point out that he doesn't have time to address this kind of stuff, ie he has more pressing matters to attend to than personally approving travel visas for even the the most Hovian of rappers:
"I wasn’t familiar that they were taking the trip. My understanding is I think they went through a group that organizes these educational trips down to Cuba. You know, this is not something the White House was involved with. We’ve got better things to do."
Still even that is enough to make me think that POTUS and Jay hatched this whole plan the last time they were standing underneath the giant owl in Bohemian Grove (Jay-Z's never even attended Bohemian Grove, you say? Sure you're right. The first rule of Giant Owl Club is that you don't talk about Giant Owl Club).
On the other hand, could all be a silly misunderstanding. As has been pointed out in the comments on this very site; Jay obviously did have to get some kind of secret service clearance for his various campaign appearances with Barry O, so perhaps that was a brag on his general security rating, not in specifically in relation to the Cuba trip. Meanwhile as Fader Mag quite rightly points out Carney's theory that Jay threw in the reference because 'Treasury' (the department that handles visas) is too hard to rhyme with has been resoundingly debunked by none other than El-P:
“treasury. pleasure me. feathery. weather we. better be. pleather T. severe the.”
You don't even want Black Thought or Common to start debunking shit. But the point is: We are discussing this. This is the world we live in. Watch the Today interview below which BY THE WAY also discusses Gun Control, the bombings at the Boston Marathon and other, you know, news (now if we get could just get them up to speed on Jazzy Jeff's activities...)
