Is "jackass" presidential?

So Kanye pulled a little something at the VMAs that I know you've all heard about.
But it turned into a media ethics question when President Obama and a pool of reporters got involved.
Here's a roundup story of what happened.
Here's the actual audio.
Here's Moran's tweet.
So what's the upshot here? Was it ethical for Moran to tweet this? Can the president ever expect to be off the record? Is "jackass" a term not in keeping with the civility required of the office? We just pummeled a congressman for saying, "You lie." What about "jackass"? Or was this an accurate and precise description worthy of circulation? Does the venue matter?
(Incidentally, this is a pretty funny parody linking the two.)