ANN ARBOR, Mich. ? President Barack Obama?s three-day trip won?t be remembered for his talk here on rising college tuition costs. Or for his flogging of clean energy proposals in Nevada and manufacturing tax breaks in Iowa.
No, the enduring image of his tour through five key states this week will be Obama confronting Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer over months-old insults from her book, his dismissive mien facing down her French-manicured fingertip.
Continue ReadingIt was a tarmac tiff that lasted no more than a minute but encapsulated the president?s mood of the moment: fed up with the GOP.
His policy-heavy talks this week weren?t the stuff of campaign stump speeches. He didn?t level any broadsides. But his veiled attacks from Arizona to Colorado served as opening arguments for the 2012 election year and a campaign playing out on a split screen of Republican debates and stage-managed White House events.
And they revealed a president increasingly impatient with the ?theater,? as one aide put it, served by his Republican opposition ? whether it?s in Congress, on the campaign trail or on a tarmac in Phoenix.
?What I?ve discovered is I think it?s always good publicity for a Republican if they?re in an argument with me,? Obama said, laughing and aloof, during an ABC News interview about the Brewer incident. ?But this was really not a big deal.?
Obama seemed to sense that Brewer wanted to use him as a prop. She gave him a handwritten letter inviting him to the border, replicating a similar move by Gov. Rick Perry in 2010 to confront Obama on immigration, which blew up into a mini-firestorm. But after Brewer skewered Obama in her book ?Scorpions for Breakfast,? describing him as ?condescending? during their last meeting, he essentially asked why he would put himself in that position again.
It was a rare moment of semi-public defiance by a president who is more often accused of being too passive. But this past week illustrated why Obama no longer feels the need to show Republicans the deference he once did.
The economy picked up steam in the last quarter. He authorized another successful Navy SEALs rescue mission on foreign soil. A new NBC News/WSJ poll showed Obama?s favorability numbers climb, while his leading Republican challengers, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, bloodied each other up and saw their negative ratings rise. Obama?s State of the Union speech was generally well received.
?He?s certainly in a very good mood,? White House press secretary Jay Carney said Friday. ?When you?re president, that makes for a good week.?
Fresh off his trip Friday afternoon, Obama received a token of appreciation from House Democrats, whose frustrations with the president have faded as he has turned more combative with Republicans. At their retreat in Cambridge, Md., Democrats gave Obama a recording of themselves singing Al Green?s ?Let?s Stay Together,? mimicking Obama?s performance a week ago at a fundraiser that has come to symbolize his increasing confidence.
Obama is back in the fold.
?I believe in you guys,? Obama said. ?You guys have had my back through some very tough times. I?m going to have your back, as well.?
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