Speaking at a fundraiser in a wealthy San Francisco suburb, President Obama praised the looks of California Attorney General Kamala Harris.

“You have to be careful to, first of all, say she is brilliant and she is dedicated and she is tough, and she is exactly what you’d want in anybody who is administering the law, and making sure that everybody is getting a fair shake,” Obama said. “She also happens to be, by far, the best looking attorney general in the country.”

"It’s true! C’mon," he added, to laughter from the crowd.

Obama is in California raising money for the 2014 election cycle. This event raising funds for the Democratic National Committee was a garden party at the home of Levi Strauss-heir John Goldman.

Harris is seen as a potential gubernatorial candidate, although her speech at last summer's Democratic National Convention did not generate much buzz. SCOTUSBlog has named her as a potential Supreme Court justice, while acknowledging that electoral timing might make her an unlikely pick. The daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican-American father, she has been described as "the female Barack Obama."

Obama's White House has been criticized as harboring a "boys' club" atmosphere, and the president has been criticized for comments on women in the past. During the 2008 campaign he called a female reporter "sweetie," and he recently told a 32-year-old Republican lawmaker in New York that she didn’t look a day over 23.