Obama: Do Not Criticize Me. Ever.
This is a shot of the scene in Phoenix yesterday afternoon when Gov. Jan Brewer greeted President Barack Obama as he stepped off Air Force One.
She handed him a handwritten letter that led to an "intense" discussion for a few minutes. The pool report explains that President Obama was extremely upset about her treatment of him in her book Scorpions for Breakfast. She did not anticipate being berated and was mildly perturbed by the encounter, which included President Obama walking away from her while she was mid-sentence. Classy!
Jonathan V. Last at the Weekly Standard notes that this is becoming something of a pattern. When Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal greeted the president on the tarmac, he received similar treatment:
I was expecting words of concern about the oil spill, worry about the pending ecological disaster, and words of confidence about how the federal government was here to help. Or perhaps he was going to vent about BP’s slow response. But no, the president was upset about something else. And he wanted to talk about, well, food stamps. Actually, he wanted to talk about a letter that my administration had sent to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack a day earlier.
The letter was rudimentary, bureaucratic, and ordinary. . . . We were simply asking the federal government to authorize food stamps for those who were now unemployed because of the oil spill. Governors regularly make these sorts of requests to the federal government when facing disaster.
But somehow, for some reason, President Obama had personalized this. And he was upset.
There was not a word about the oil spill. He was concerned about looking bad because of the letter. “Careful,” he said to me, “this is going to get bad for everyone.”
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Comments:
Aug '10
Re: Obama: Do Not Criticize Me. Ever.
The Nytimes links to ChasJohnson Little Green Footballs site as their proxy.
I wonder how many of us here used to read that before they jumped the tracks and awry ?
Telling that the MSM lets this one out of the attic on it's site.
Jul '11
Re: Obama: Do Not Criticize Me. Ever.
Just Beautiful! Who needs campaign staffers for ideas when you have Ricochet.
Sep '10
Re: Obama: Do Not Criticize Me. Ever.
Can't we just declare the Republican candidate to be every sane Republican governor and we'll just rotate them in and out of the big chair every couple of months?
Aug '11
Re: Obama: Do Not Criticize Me. Ever.
That's my Governor! Feisty.
By the way, we did have "tarmac" or asphalt terminal parking areas at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, that is until the summer of 1995, I think, when the temperature soared past 120 degrees and the asphalt liquified. Planes were grounded and promply, their landing gear sank into the bituminous muck. Landing areas are now concrete. Mesa-Williams Airport where AF1 landed was a vacant military base at that time (closed in 1993.) It has since been rejuvinated as a commercial airport and in the makeover, received a complete concrete application.
Aug '10
Re: Obama: Do Not Criticize Me. Ever.
Heh.
It's already here, actually.
Edited on January 26, 2012 at 10:37pmMay '10
Re: Obama: Do Not Criticize Me. Ever.
...or the deficit of his character, to complete the analogy of the quote.
May '10
Re: Obama: Do Not Criticize Me. Ever.
DocJay
Just Beautiful! Who needs campaign staffers for ideas when you have Ricochet. · 2 hours ago
Agreed. Peter, can we get Murph to weigh in on the feasibility of this kind of a campaign? Sound more like SuperPAC fodder...
Sep '10
Re: Obama: Do Not Criticize Me. Ever.
Mollie, the photo shows her finger in the president's face and you say he lacks class? Not very welcoming to a president. This was all a staged distraction from her failing administration. Her approval rating is at 42%.
Edited on January 26, 2012 at 10:57pmJul '10
Re: Obama: Do Not Criticize Me. Ever.
There is no requirement to dignify the bumbling ones travels with a gubernatorial reception, or even audience. I'm looking forward to gubernatorial decrees barring Air Force One from state air space. Health and safety reasons.
The Sisyphuses routinely decamp to Colonial Williamsburg and, inevitably, sooner or later, are confronted with General Benedict Arnold of the British taking control of wartime Williamsburg and addressing the assembled outside the House of Burgesses. The usual hoots and caterwauls are addressed by Arnold with the usual threats of summary execution or worse. (You won't find THAT at Kings Dominion or the Disney parks!) This is where the little Sisyphuses are taught to show their backs to preening tyrants demanding their due. (The better to load and prep your firearms.)
Edited on January 26, 2012 at 11:12pmJul '10
Re: Obama: Do Not Criticize Me. Ever.
Lt Colonel Don: Mollie, the photo shows her finger in the president's face and you say he lacks class? Not very welcoming to a president. This was all a staged distraction from her failing administration. Her approval rating is at 42%. · 16 minutes ago
Edited 15 minutes ago
It raised her approval level here. Bumbling Barry wants to pop off the plane and pick a fight with the governor? Let him. He just gave his last State of the Union speech and the gold courses of Arizona will not miss him.
Edited on January 26, 2012 at 11:17pmMay '10
Re: Obama: Do Not Criticize Me. Ever.
Sisyphus: There is no requirement to dignify the bumbling ones travels with a gubernatorial reception, or even audience. I'm looking forward to gubernatorial decrees barring Air Force One from state air space. Health and safety reasons.
The Sisyphuses routinely decamp to Colonial Williamsburg and, inevitably, sooner or later, are confronted with General Benedict Arnold of the British taking control of wartime Williamsburg and addressing the assembled outside the House of Burgesses. The usual hoots and caterwauls are addressed by Arnold with the usual threats of summary execution or worse. (You won't find THAT at Kings Dominion or the Disney parks!) This is where the little Sisyphuses are taught to show their backs to preening tyrants demanding their due. (The better to load and prep your firearms.) · 16 minutes ago
Edited 6 minutes ago
And here I would have thought the little ones were Sisyphi.
Feb '11
Re: Obama: Do Not Criticize Me. Ever.
This article is currently linked on Real Clear Politics' main page. Way to go, Mollie!
Dec '10
Re: Obama: Do Not Criticize Me. Ever.
... the pushback on the tarmac heard around the world ...
Jul '10
Re: Obama: Do Not Criticize Me. Ever.
Lt Colonel Don: Mollie, the photo shows her finger in the president's face and you say he lacks class? . · 2 hours ago
Edited 2 hours ago
Class? Barry is suing Her state. Yes, Barry lacks class.
Dec '10
Re: Obama: Do Not Criticize Me. Ever.
I have always loved Governor Brewer, and I hope one day she will run for the Big Chair.
But this photograph bothers me. As much as I like seeing someone dress down and not be intimidated by a petulant Barack Obama.......I am very troubled by the lack of respect for the POTUS that the photograph seems to illustrate.
I think she owes the POTUS a public apology. Talk me down from the ledge.
Aug '10
Re: Obama: Do Not Criticize Me. Ever.
In the photo, the president has the governor's letter in his hand. That means, by both accounts, the president has already expressed his displeasure about the way he was portrayed in the governor's book. This action by the president, in my view, was inappropriate in terms of time and place. Therefore, the governor was justified in getting her dander up. When that occurs, people point fingers. The president's physical action may have been nothing more than tilting his head condescendingly and touching the governor's elbow, but that doesn't mean he wasn't the party at fault. Can anyone imagine GWB, GHWB, or Reagan doing such a thing? I can't. Can anyone imagine Bill Clinton doing such a thing? I can. Of course, this will be spun as a racial thing. Journalists and other Democrats will ask whether the governor would have pointed her finger "in the face" of the president if he were white.
May '10
Re: Obama: Do Not Criticize Me. Ever.
Was that Breuer's VP audition? She's was already in my Top Five...
Aug '10
Re: Obama: Do Not Criticize Me. Ever.
Lt Colonel Don: Mollie, the photo shows her finger in the president's face and you say he lacks class? Not very welcoming to a president. This was all a staged distraction from her failing administration. Her approval rating is at 42%. · 18 hours ago
Edited 18 hours ago
If one has decent depth perception, one can discern from the photo that the governor's finger was not in the face of the president but rather pointing somewhere around his left shoulder. Just sayin'.
Nov '10
Re: Obama: Do Not Criticize Me. Ever.
Is it just me, or his hand reaching into her vest pocket? I hope she keeps her credit cards somewhere else.
Nov '10
Re: Obama: Do Not Criticize Me. Ever.
Jimmy Carter
Class? Barry is suing Her state. Yes, Barry lacks class. · 23 hours ago
I hope someone, somewhere, is carefully cataloguing and archiving information about all the BHO lawsuits geared to either silencing critics or crippling political opponents. Such a library might be very useful in, oh, about 6 months.