Obama: Brewer chat "not a big deal"
GLENDALE, Ariz. - Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer says she meant no disrespect when she pointed a finger at President Obama during an intense discussion on an airport tarmac. But the Republican governor says the Democratic president showed disrespect for her by abruptly ending their conversation.
Obama, in an interview Thursday with ABC News, said it's "a classic example of things getting blown out of proportion."
The brief encounter — out of earshot of observers but captured on camera — was a highly visible demonstration of the verbal and legal skirmishing that has regularly occurred between Brewer and Obama's administration over illegal immigration and other issues.
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Airport arrivals for presidents normally involve mere pleasantries between those involved, but Brewer and Obama have a history. And part of that history is what apparently got things going, according to accounts provided by Brewer and the White House.
Brewer said that during their talk, she invited Obama to visit Arizona to hear about her administration's achievements and to visit the U.S.-Mexico border, which has been a point of friction between the two because of illegal immigration issue.
Obama then said Brewer's recently published book mischaracterized a 2010 White House meeting between them.
CBS News chief White House correspondent Norah O'Donnell reports it was the body language from their chat which got tongues in Washington wagging.Brewer got right to the point - pointing her finger at the president on the airport tarmac during their exchange.
"I will say that a picture is what it is," Brewer added. "I must say, I was not hostile. I was trying to be very, very gracious. I respect the office of the president, and I would never be disrespectful in that manner."
However, O'Donnell says Brewer took a different tack during an appearance on Fox News' "On the Record" with Greta van Susteren, saying she couldn't understand why Obama was surprised by her book, and calling him "very thin-skinned."
Brewer said in an interview Thursday, at another Phoenix-area airport, that she talks a lot with her hands and that her pointing a finger at Obama during their conversation wasn't disrespectful.
She said she was grateful for the visit and intended to talk to him about the state's accomplishments. But she said she was "taken aback by his comments" when he said he wasn't happy with how her book described their White House meeting.
Immediately after the meeting, Brewer had said it was cordial, but her book said Obama lectured Brewer in the Oval Office and that she felt he was condescending toward her.
"It is what it is. I proceeded to say that to him, and he chose to walk away from me," she said Thursday.
Asked whether she regarded that as disrespectful, she replied: "Well, I would never have walked away from anybody having a conversation. And, of course, that is what it is. It is disrespectful for me."
Their relationship covers disagreements on "most of his policies," she said. "That doesn't mean we can't be cordial to one another."
The encounter was notable because it was rare case of an unscripted and tense moment between the president and a public official in view of reporters.
"I think it's always good publicity for a Republican if they're in an argument with me," Obama said in the ABC interview. "But this was really not a big deal. She wanted to give me a letter, asking for a meeting. And I said, `We'd be happy to meet."'
White House press secretary Jay Carney chided reporters Thursday, saying the encounter with Brewer was getting too much attention from the press corps. The media coverage was overshadowing Obama's message of the day on energy.
Carney was questioned about Brewer's statement that Obama cut her short by walking away.
"I really assume you guys have more important issues to cover than this," Carney said.
Brewer is among the Republican governors who oppose the federal health care overhaul, but the illegal immigration issue has been a particular sore point between Obama and Brewer.
The U.S. Justice Department has challenged Arizona's controversial 2010 immigration enforcement law in court, while the administration and Brewer are at odds over whether the federal government has done enough to secure the U.S.-Mexico border.
On Thursday, Brewer drew support from callers to conservative-oriented talk shows, but the incident left others in the state shaking their heads.
The Arizona Republic, the state's largest newspaper, editorialized that the image of Brewer wagging a scolding finger at the visiting president "now pretty much defines this state's relationship with Washington, D.C., to the world."
Bruce Merrill, a longtime Arizona pollster and a professor emeritus at Arizona State University, said there are two sides to the encounter, so it's hard to fully analyze what happened and why.
But the incident follows past incidents in which Arizona for a time balked at declaring a state holiday to honor Martin Luther King Jr., and Arizona State University refused to award Obama an honorary degree, Merrill noted.
"It reinforces the image of Arizona being kind of a cowboy state that doesn't show a lot of respect," he said of the airport encounter.
The two mayors who stood next to Brewer during the airport encounter were not available for interviews Thursday, their offices said.
"He doesn't want to get involved," said Melissa Randazzo, spokeswoman for Mesa Mayor Scott Smith, a Republican.
Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton's office said his schedule had no time for an interview. Stanton is a Democrat.
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occupy_cbs: "Thanks for proving my point wild man of your completely IRRATIONAL economic thoughts, since raising the DEBT LIMIT covers PAST DEBT, not future DEBT, and much of that is from the $4+ Trillion in LOST REVENUE from the bush tax cuts!"
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sirmarion-2009: "trying to keep blaming Bush for Obama's policies to wastefully spend money."
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Sorry, but your reading comprehension problem has surfaced yet again, since the $4+ Trillion in lost revenue from 10 years of the bush tax cuts has nothing to do with "spending," but LOST REVENUE.
The federal budget will never be balanced until both sides of the equation are addressed........PERIOD!
Just like Bruce Bartlett has been saying, "Tax Cuts And 'Starving The Beast,' is the most pernicious fiscal doctrine in history."
Until neoliberal republicans can finally admit to their very failed "supply side economic" policies, we cannot be fiscally responsible!
Yep....and not only ugly, but butt ugly along with the "in your face pugnaciousness," only reserved for disrespectful republican ho's.
Kansas Joe
I mean isn't it time to grow up and dump these radical free market freaks for good?
It is going to be a long 4 years for you.
Mayor Scott Smith of Mesa, Ariz., declined to say exactly what he heard Obama and Brewer talk about during their now-infamous tiff next to Air Force One.
But the mayor said he was standing right next to the governor when the exchange took place and Obama didn't seem to be in any kind of hurry to leave.
"There was no sense that he was running to or from anything," Smith told TPM. In fact, he said, the president stayed and had a pleasant conversation with Smith, who's a Republican, and Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton, a Democrat.
It was "just the four of us," Smith said. "Mayor Stanton and I had a decent talk with him."