Both sides win in Brewer-Obama tiff
Arizona governor wins right-wing cred with one wag of her finger, the president wins with people who hate her
By Alex PareeneTopics: Jan Brewer, Arizona, Barack Obama, 2012 Elections, Immigration Reform, Politics News
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer yesterday engineered the creation of a photograph of herself wagging her finger at the president, then went on a brief media tour calling the president “thin-skinned” and promoting her book.
The president took a trip to Arizona ostensibly to do something involving jobs and “innovation,” and immediately upon exiting Air Force Once, President Obama and Gov. Brewer began arguing. The argument took place outside the earshot of reporters, but they saw Brewer wag her finger, Obama and Brewer talk over each other, and Obama walk away from Brewer while she was still speaking (which, seriously: enraging move, right?).
Brewer then went over to the reporters and said the president was mad about her book, “Scorpions for Breakfast,” available now at booksellers everywhere. Drudge soon posted the pool report and the finger-wagging picture. Brewer went on Fox and a local radio show. She posted the picture on her Facebook wall. It was brilliant, really.
Brewer’s story on Fox and at the airport was that the president started it. She gave him an envelope and he yelled at her about something she’s written in her book. (Brewer says the envelope contained an invitation to visit Arizona and meet with her, which … wasn’t Obama in the process of doing that?) But on the radio, she said:
“I asked him if he had read my book, ‘Scorpions for Breakfast.’ And he said that he read an excerpt and he didn’t think that I was very cordial,” Brewer told a conservative radio talk show host in Phoenix. “He was somewhat thin skinned and a little tense to say the least.”
The book passage in question concerns an earlier meeting between Brewer and Obama, which the White House characterizes as “a cordial discussion” that Brewer “inaccurately described.”
The day the meeting in question took place, Brewer herself described it as “very cordial.” But she was apparently just being polite, because a year later, she said:
“I felt a little bit like I was being lectured to, and I was a little kid in a classroom, if you will, and he was this wise professor and I was this little kid, and this little kid knows what the problem is and I felt minimized to say the least.”
(I can understand why Brewer might have felt a bit insecure during her meeting with President Obama, because he is a pretty smart guy and she is an idiot. Obama might not even have understood how insecure he was making her feel, just by having the ability to turn his thoughts into coherent sentences.)
In her book, Brewer described the president as “condescending” and said, again, that he “lectured” her. She is using similar language to describe this encounter. It’s not hard to imagine that it was scripted to go down this way.
Regardless of who started the argument, it’s a net positive for Brewer, which is why she’s blabbing about it. Remember what happened when Joe Wilson yelled “you lie” at Obama? He received a formal rebuke from the House … and raised $2.65 million in less than a month. Jan Brewer is already selling more books. (Maybe she can use that new book revenue to help her state buy back the capital it sold and now wants to buy back at a loss, because Arizona is run almost entirely by idiots.)
Obama is really Brewer’s single best political ally, even if he is an inadvertent one. She is only governor because Obama selected her predecessor, Janet Napolitano, to be his Homeland Security secretary; I highly doubt Republicans would’ve nominated her had it been up to them to pick a candidate. But now she’s a national figure for signing the notorious anti-immigration bill, and the enmity of the White House only increases her conservative cred.
Brewer is too vacant and nuts to have any sort of “for serious” future political career but there is a decent living to be had in being a right-wing folk hero, as even someone as dull as Brewer understands. Michele Bachmann is still in Congress. People even still pay Joe the Plumber to appear places and do things, I am told. Brewer could probably retire off this picture of herself giving our “thin-skinned,” “patronizing,” smarty-pants president what-for.
But as Jonathan Chait writes, the encounter was not actually bad for Obama. He will have come off as pedantic and rude to people already inclined to hate him, but a lot of people are very inclined to hate Jan Brewer. Those people include Latino voters and most literate adults without significant racial resentments. I don’t share Chait’s belief that Obama engineered the tiff for this reason (the White House was too slow to respond to Brewer’s characterization of the conflict, for one thing), but it obviously won’t hurt his chances at boosting Latino voter turnout in Arizona this November.
So in the end, they both win, thanks mostly to how much the political press loves a ginned-up confrontation like this.
Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt." Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene.
Related Stories
More Related Stories
-
The real IRS scandal
-
Krist Novoselic: My plan to fix Congress, curb obstruction
-
RNC Chair: Don't call for impeachment without evidence
-
Power tool industry too powerful to regulate?
-
Will a GOP aide be fired over Benghazi email changes?
-
Is safe fracking possible?
-
How a fight with Rick Santorum made an IRS commissioner
-
Cornel West: "You can get killed out here trying to tell the truth!"
-
Berlusconi's parties featured women dressed as Obama
-
Human Rights Watch: Syrian government practiced torture
-
Allen West lands a gig at Fox News
-
Deficit reduction can't save us
-
ABC's Benghazi problem festers
-
10 ridiculous Christian Right prophesies
-
Obama pledges to end "scourge" of sexual assault in the military
-
Pentagon officials: Drone War on Terror is endless
-
Poll: Mostly Republicans are following IRS, Benghazi scandals
-
Bipartisan House group comes to tentative immigration agreement
-
Report: GOP mischaracterized Benghazi emails
-
Kinsley loves austerity because it is "spinach"
-
Don't blame GOP for Obama's disastrous second term
Featured Slide Shows
The week in 10 pics
close X- Share on Twitter
- Share on Facebook
- Thumbnails
- Fullscreen
- 1 of 11
- Previous
- Next
-
A missing poster hangs on a tree outside the Cleveland home of Amanda Berry Wednesday. Berry and two other women, Michelle Knight and Gina DeJesus, made a daring escape this week after being held captive for more than a decade.
Credit: AP/Tony Dejak -
Elvis Rafael Rodriguez and Emir Yasser Yeje offer their best impression of Eric B. & Rakim. On Thursday, New York prosecutors identified the pair as members of an international gang that robbed $45 million in a matter of hours by hacking into a database of prepaid debit cards and draining ATM machines around the world.
Credit: AP -
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie walks to a podium during the groundbreaking ceremony for the Technology Enhanced Accelerated Learning Center at Essex County Newark Tech in Newark, N.J., Tuesday. Christie made less flattering headlines this week after undergoing a secret stomach surgery to curb his weight.
Credit: AP/Julio Cortez -
Workers stand outside the Tung Hai Sweater Ltd. factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday after a fire broke out in its 11-story building. Eight people were killed in the blaze.
Credit: AP/Ismail Ferdous -
Workers rescue a woman trapped for 17 days in the rubble of a garment factory building in Saver, Bangladesh, Friday. The building's collapse was the worst industrial disaster in the country's history, killing more than 1,000 people.
Credit: AP -
Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford gives his victory speech Tuesday in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., after winning back his old congressional seat in the state's first district.
Credit: AP/Rainier Ehrhardt -
Jodi Arias reacts in Maricopa Country Superior Court Wednesday after being found guilty of first-degree murder in the gruesome killing of her one-time boyfriend, Travis Alexander. Arias has subsequently said she wants the death penalty, claiming she'd "prefer to die sooner than later."
Credit: AP/The Arizona Republic/Rob Schumacher -
Ariel Castro stands for his mug shot Thursday at the Cuyahoga County Corrections Center, where he is being held on $8 million bail. The former bus driver is accused of imprisoning three young women and beating them repeatedly over a period of 10 years.
Credit: AP/Cuyahoga County -
Charles Ramsey addresses the media Monday after helping rescue three women held captive in Cleveland for more than a decade. Ramsey's hero portraiture has been complicated by revelations of his own domestic violence record.
Credit: AP/The Plain Dealer/Scott Shaw -
Michael B. Donley, Secretary of the Air Force, testifies during a Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday. The military branch was rocked this week after its chief sexual assault prevention officer was charged with sexual battery.
Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster -
Recent Slide Shows
-
The week in 10 pics
-
Mobile Entertainment: 9 Amazing Drive-In Movie Theaters Still Standing
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
- Share on Twitter
- Share on Facebook
- Thumbnails
- Fullscreen
- 1 of 11
- Previous
- Next
-
Mobile Entertainment: 9 Amazing Drive-In Movie Theaters Still Standing
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
Netflix's April Fools' Day categories
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
Slideshow: Nerd Obama
Related Videos
Most Read
-
Jaron Lanier: The Internet destroyed the middle class
Scott Timberg
-
When the IRS targeted liberals
Alex Seitz-Wald
-
The man behind Abercrombie & Fitch
Benoit Denizet-Lewis
-
Pat Robertson: Husbands won't cheat if the wife makes the home "wonderful"
Jillian Rayfield
-
White House trolls Republicans over Obamacare hashtag
Jillian Rayfield
-
Revenge, ego and the corruption of Wikipedia
Andrew Leonard
-
Report: Millennials don't like Abercrombie & Fitch
Katie Mcdonough
-
Is Reddit censoring openly racist users?
Fidel Martinez, The Daily Dot
-
Cannes: The 10 hottest movies
Andrew O'Hehir
-
My "truly remarkable" cancer breakthrough
Mary Elizabeth Williams





French President Hollande Signs Marriage Equality Bill
Obama Group Braces For Progressive Backlash Over Keystone
Republican Lawmakers Took IRS Union Campaign Cash
Comments
193 Comments