There was a big brouhaha earlier this week over an apparently testy exchange between President Obama and Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona on the airport tarmac in Phoenix. According to The Washington Post:
“Shortly after stepping off Air Force One on Wednesday in Phoenix, Obama challenged Gov. Jan Brewer (R) over characterizations she made of him in a recent book. His reaction, coming one day after he used his State of the Union address to call for a renewed spirit of political bipartisanship amid the nation’s economic woes, has exposed him to accusations that he is not interested in working with Republicans.
Brewer, whose ‘Scorpions for Breakfast’ faults Obama for pandering to Hispanic voters in his immigration policy, said the president mentioned the book, unprompted, after she invited him to meet with her to discuss ‘Arizona’s comeback.’”
Bizarre. The President was in Arizona to talk up his State of the Union address, and when he meets the governor of Arizona he almost immediately brings up something in a book she wrote that he thought was unfavorable to him. Interestingly, Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, didn’t try to deny that the President raised the question of her book to Governor Brewer, though he said it was just a matter of the President telling Governor Brewer that her description of a White House meeting was “not accurate”.
In either case, with unemployment at 8.5% and the economy just barely growing, you would think that the President would have more important things to worry about than what a governor wrote about him in a book.
But this actually seems to fit a bit of a pattern. Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana has said that, when President Obama visited Louisiana in 2010 after the big Gulf oil spill, Obama challenged him, once again on the airport tarmac, about a letter Governor Jindal had sent to the President asking for food stamps for people who had become unemployed. Jindal wrote:
“President Obama had personalized this. And he was upset. There was not a word about the oil spill. He was concerned about looking bad because of the letter.”
Once again, wouldn’t you think a President would have more important things to worry about this kind of thing? Can you imagine Ronald Reagan doing something like this? Can you imagine Abraham Lincoln doing this?
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