DaytonDailyNews.com

Cluck. Cluck. Cluck.

That's chicken talk, a lot nicer than the barnyard name U.S. House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-West Chester Twp., used this week to describe Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

According to the Miami Student, the newspaper at Miami University in Oxford, Boehner criticized Obama's practice of voting "present" rather than "yes" or "no" while in the Illinois Senate.

"In Congress, we have a red button, a green button and a yellow button, all right. Green means 'yes,' red means 'no' and yellow means you're a chicken s***," said Boehner.

"And the last thing we need in the White House, in the oval office, behind that big desk, is some chicken who wants to push the yellow button."

The Miami University newspaper reported that Boehner made the comments on Wednesday, Oct. 29, at the Brick Street Bar and Grill in Oxford while stumping for Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain.

Don Seymour Jr., a spokesman for Boehner, explained it this way in an e-mail: "Boehner's point was that Barack Obama consistently avoided making tough decisions and taking tough votes, and voters need to know that. You can't take a pass on a tough issue when you're president of the United States."

Tom Reynolds, Obama campaign spokesman, had this e-mail response: "It's sad that John McCain and his supporters are closing their campaign with increasingly angry, desperate, false attacks instead of offering up a single thing John McCain would do differently on the economy than George Bush."

Political scientist Larry Sabato from the University of Virginia said Boehner was out of bounds.

"That's completely inappropriate and rude, far beneath a congressional leader," Sabato said. "The individual he is describing with an obscenity may be the next president with whom he will have to work. Politicians often wonder why they are held in such disrepute. Here's a prime example. We expect more from elementary students."

According to the Web site FactCheck.org, Obama voted "present" 129 times in his eight years in the Illinois Senate, a little more than 3 percent of his total votes. Both McCain in the general election campaign and Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries have criticized Obama for the "present" votes.

In Illinois, state lawmakers commonly vote that way on a variety of issues for technical, legal or strategic reasons, The Associated Press has reported. It can be a way to duck a difficult issue, but that's difficult to prove, the AP story said.