In more than 20 political speeches in recent weeks, President Obama has rolled out the car anecdote -- you know, the one in which Republicans drive the economy into a ditch, the Democrats work to get it out, and now the GOP wants the keys back.

And in each of those 20 or so speeches, Obama mentions ... Slurpees. Here he is Sunday in Philadelphia:

And every once in a while, we'd look up at the Republicans. They were -- they had driven into the ditch, but they had gotten out and they were kind of taking a break, fanning themselves and sipping on a Slurpee, watching us do all the work.

Now, somebody has stuck up for the venerable Slurpee, the flavored crushed-ice drink available at local 7-Elevens.

Mark Knoller of CBS News writes that Obama is trying to make Slurpees "the beverage of choice of obstructionist Republicans," but there's no evidence for it. Mark writes:

Though I've asked a number of times, I can't get an answer from the White House yet on how and why the president came to portray top Republicans as Slurpee sippers. Sen. (Mitch) McConnell's spokesman Don Stewart says he's never seen his boss anywhere near a Slurpee. And House GOP spokesman Michael Steel calls Pres Obama's Slurpee references "bizarre." What do the folks at 7-Eleven, Inc. think about the repeated presidential references to their exclusive frozen drink? "We don't have a comment on this," said a corporate spokesman curtly and bluntly.

(Posted by David Jackson)