This Is Probably Why Obama and Arizona Governor Jan Brewer Exchanged Words in Phoenix
We don't really know what was said during Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and President Obama's tarmac finger-pointing run-in in Phoenix yesterday, other than that the president took umbrage with his portrayal Brewer's book Scorpions for Breakfast. "He was a little disturbed about my book," Brewer told reporters yesterday. The Governor said that Obama "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."
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Apparently this isn't the first time Brewer felt the president didn't listen to her. AZ Central and the AP both point to a June 2010 meeting between Brewer and Obama which one White House official says was cordial. Brewer described the meeting in her book a bit differently:
It was as though President Obama thought he would lecture me and I would learn at his knee. He was patronizing. He understood that we were "frustrated" he said--heck yes, we were frustrated!--but he didn't seem interested in knowing why. Then it dawned on me: He's treating me like the cop he had over for a beer after he badmouthed the Cambridge police, I thought. He thinks he can humor me and then get rid of me.
I listened to ten minutes of this. Finally the president's lecture ended and it was my turn.
Unfortunately we don't have a copy of Scorpions on hand, but the "lecturing" does pop up again when Brewer writes about a 2011 White House meeting on illegal immigration which she wasn't a part of:
I told the press I considered it a "snub" that I wasn't invited. Not that I was so eager to return to the Obama White House to be lectured again--been there, done that.
That's just one instance, but it does seem like Brewer really wants to make it known that she's isn't fond of the way Obama speaks to her. According to an Amazon search, "Obama" is mentioned at least 75 times over the book's 240 pages. "I would never disrespect a president," Brewer said yesterday. "I would certainly never disrespect the office of the president... I don't know when that photo was snapped."
