President Obama made a campaign trip to Arizona where he traded sharp words with the state’s Republican Gov. Jan Brewer. The two have no love lost and have publically traded barbs periodically over the last two years, but tensions between the two ideological poles were so high yesterday that the pair could not even get off the tarmac before arguments erupted.
Obama was greeted by Brewer after his plane touched down in Phoenix. Brewer claims that the president was upset by her book, in which Brewer calls Obama “patronizing.” Brewer said Obama told her that he didn’t feel the book “treated him cordially.” At one point, Brewer wagged her finger at Obama.
The president’s Justice Department which is still adjudicating a law suit (along with Mexico) against the state’s controversial anti-immigration law, S.B. 1070. The last meeting between the two took place in the summer of 2010, and the private encounter was described as “very cordial” at the time, but Brewer’s recollection of the meeting in her book, “Scorpions for Breakfast” was far less complimentary.
The president has been described by Brewer in the past as “very thin skinned.” Brewer’s description of this event could well fit with what we know of the president’s character – he famously scolded a local reporter after he thought the cameras were turned off after being asked why he thought he was so unpopular in Texas.
Even Obama’s campaign guru and David Axelrod penned a memo to Obama early in his presidency describing the challenge of now having to face sustained criticism for the first time in his political career.
“At the risk of triggering the very reaction that concerns me, I don’t know if you are Muhammad Ali or Floyd Patterson when it comes to taking a punch. You care far too much what is written and said about you. … When the largely irrelevant Alan Keyes attacked you, you flinched,” read Axelrod’s memo.
If this exchange between her and Obama truly did occur as Brewer describes, it is no surprise. This reaction is entirely within the bounds of what we understand to be the president’s character.
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