PHOENIX — Normally politicians greet one another with pleasantries, even if they don’t particularly like each other. Not so Wednesday with President Barack Obama and Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who met Air Force One when it touched down outside of Phoenix.
It was clear from the moment they greeted one another on the tarmac that this wouldn’t me your typical grip and grin. At one point, she was pointing her finger at him, and at another, they were talking at the same time, seemingly over each other. Then he appeared to walk away from her while she was still talking.
It started when she handed him a letter and said she was inviting him to meet with her. The president replied that 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,” a senior administration official said.
He was referring to her book, “Scorpions for Breakfast,” which is harshly critical of the president. The pair has clashed sharply on immigration policy, with the Obama administration suing Arizona to block its enforcement measure. In the book, she described an Oval Office meeting, and claimed he was lecturing and patronizing, something the White House says is not true.
After her encounter with Obama, the governor, flustered, explained what happened.
“He was a little disturbed about my book,” she told reporters. “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.”
Asked what aspect of the book disturbed him, the governor said, “That 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.”
According to the East Valley Tribune’s account of the book, Brewer wrote that she was insulted during a 2010 meeting with the president at the White House.
“It was though President Obama thought he could lecture me, and I would learn at his knee,” she wrote, calling his tone “patronizing.”
The local news report noted that, immediately after the meeting, Brewer offered a different description of the meeting. On emerging from the White House, she said she had “a very cordial discussion of what’s taking place in Arizona and dealing with the security of our border and illegal immigration into the state of Arizona and into America.”