AZ Gov. Brewer Angrily Lectures President Obama
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s book Scorpions for Breakfast is an exemplar of the right wing genre; i.e., incredibly disrespectful of the office of the Presidency. And yesterday, when he arrived in Arizona, President Obama let Brewer know that he wasn’t pleased with it: Jan Brewer: Obama ‘didn’t feel I treated him cordially’.
This AP picture says it all: the classic rude, angry wingnut stance, with bonus pointing finger. (Wingnut bloggers, of course, are cheering Brewer’s disgraceful behavior.)
President Obama, alighting from the stairs of Air Force One in Phoenix this afternoon, was greeted by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, who handed him an envelope and the two exchanged what appeared to be some heated sentiments. At one point, she pointed her finger at him. …
“I said to him that I have all the respect in the world for the office of the president. The book is what the book is. I asked him if he read the book. He said he read the excerpt,” she said, according to a pool report. “He didn’t feel that I had treated him cordially. I said I was sorry he felt that way but I didn’t get my sentence finished. Anyway, we’re glad he’s here. I’ll regroup.” …
A White House official confirmed the invitation and described the encounter in more bureaucratic terms: “The President said he’d be glad to meet with her again, but did note that after their last meeting, a cordial discussion in the Oval Office, the governor inaccurately described the meeting in her book. The President looks forward to continuing taking steps to help Arizona’s economy grow.” …
The passage in Brewer’s book that the president was apparently referring to recounts a meeting at the White House when they discussed border security and immigration.
“It was [as] though President Obama thought he could lecture me, and I would learn at his knee,” she wrote, according to Capitol Media Services. “He thinks he can humor me and then get rid of me.”
After this incident, Gov. Brewer went on right wing talk radio and called the President “thin-skinned,” then repeated the smear to the national wingnut audience on Fox News.
“He brought up my book. And he was a little tense. I asked him if he read my book, ‘Scorpions for Breakfast’ and he said he read the excerpt and he didn’t think that I was very cordial,” Brewer told radio host Mike Broomhead on KFYI radio. “He was somewhat thin-skinned and a little tense to say the least. I was trying to be very calm.”
“The book is factual, the book is true,” Brewer repeated on Fox’s Greta Van Susteren show. “I don’t know why he was surprised by my book but he evidently is and he’s very thin-skinned in regards to it.”
One of the people in the photo above does look calm, but it’s not Brewer.
Gov. Brewer actually went even farther than this; talking to reporters, she said she “felt a little bit threatened.” Good grief.
Here’s video of the Arizona governor exploiting the right wing red meat potential of her close encounter with a black President to the fullest: