Jan Brewer vs. Obama: Is the president 'thin-skinned'?

President Obama is confronted by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) after landing in Phoenix Wednesday.

(Image credit: YouTube)

last updated 8 January 2015

The video: After disembarking from Air Force One in Phoenix on Wednesday, President Obama got into what appeared to be a heated exchange with Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R). As Brewer greeted Obama, photographers watched from across the tarmac, at one point snapping a photo of Brewer shaking her finger in Obama's face. (See the image at right and in a video below.) A White House aide said the disagreement started when Obama told Brewer that she had inaccurately described a cordial meeting with him in her recent book, Scorpions for Breakfast. In the passage, Brewer said Obama had "lectured" her about her state's controversial immigration crackdown. "The book is true," Brewer said later. "He's very thin-skinned." For his part, Obama told ABC News that the whole episode was "blown out of proportion." In the end, he said, "it's always good publicity for a Republican if they're in an argument with me. But this was really not a big deal."

The reaction: Brewer, who made the media rounds after this encounter, will get the last laugh, says Allahpundit at Hot Air. Now, she gets to "dump on [Obama] again and advertise her book, sales of which are now bound to skyrocket." Actually, Brewer's a fool to draw attention to her obnoxious behavior, says Mistermix at Balloon Juice. She reportedly asked Obama for another meeting, and he quite reasonably pointed out that the last time they met in "the Oval Office, Brewer lied about it in her book." She couldn't have tarnished her state's already dodgy reputation any more if she'd demanded Obama's "birth certificate and driver's license." Whatever happened, this was no spontaneous dust-up, says Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo. Brewer obviously "wanted to get in his face." See for yourself how the airport greeting went: