Shirtless images of Obama in Hawaii cause a stir online

“FIT FOR OFFICE: Buff Bam is Hawaii hunk,” the New York Post gushed on its cover Tuesday above a photo of the future president strolling without a shirt in the state where he was born. On the Internet, the Drudge Report called him “President Beefcake,” while TMZ said the president-elect is “still humble enough to do laundry — ON HIS ABS!”

Abs is American slang describing a ribbed midsection.

The photos were distributed by Bauer-Griffin, a photo agency more typically found on the corners of Hollywood. Photographer Chris Behnke simply strolled along the beach to get the shot, said agency co-owner Frank Griffin.

Obama “wasn’t hiding. He was completely out in the open,” Griffin said. “We didn’t by any stretch of the imagination expect to get the images we got.”

Members of the press corps traveling with Obama have been careful to respect his privacy. A spokesman traveling with Obama in Hawaii did not have immediate comment.

Griffin said he does not expect his agency to stake out Washington on a regular basis, but added that Obama is “now the world’s biggest celebrity, just after Angelina and Brad. I guess they’re neck and neck right now.”

And should people really be surprised?

When John F. Kennedy was pictured shirtless, there were media accounts fretting about the threshold we had crossed as a country, said David Greenberg, a professor at Rutgers University who is working on a history of political language used to mold public opinion.

“There was John F. Kennedy by the beach, shirt off, this young, glamorous president,” Greenberg said. “So in a way this is 48 years old now that we’re having this.”

“It was kind of an erosion of what had been boundaries of formality between the president and the public,” Greenberg said. “We’ve had ‘boxers and briefs’ (a young questioner asked Clinton which kind of underwear he wears) and a real acquaintanceship with a personal side, an uninhibited side, an unclothed side of the president.”

Combine that with an increasing hunger for celebrity photos and a chiseled presidential body, and Obama becomes an obvious target for paparazzi. Apparently the Obama Girl (Obama fan) who was all the rage on the Internet during the early stages of his campaign, isn’t the only one with a crush.

“Comments have been 95 percent positive, everything from ‘helllooo president’ to a 65-year-old lady who said she had to wait this long to find a president who she finds attractive,” Griffin said.

Earlier on his vacation, Obama was cranky as reporters snapped pictures through a chain-link fence and bushes, asking “OK, guys. Come on. ... How many shots do you need?”

But such personal shots — dropping the girls off at school, hitting the gym, practicing his golf swing — also serve to humanize the president. Greenberg can see why Obama might allow the beach photos to be taken.

“I’m sure if he didn’t do it on purpose, he’s not exactly crying in his coffee about it,” he said. “I don’t see any downside.”

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