That from the Washington Post as they cover the recent public exchange between Obama and Arizona Governor Jan Brewer:

President Obama’s raw exchange with the governor of Arizona on an airport tarmac this week did more than overshadow his carefully stage-managed road trip to trumpet his State of the Union goals.

The discussion revealed a testy side of the president’s personality that is at odds with his public image as “no-drama Obama,” reviving criticism that he is unwilling to be second-guessed — or to even entertain another point of view.

Shortly after stepping off Air Force One on Wednesday in Phoenix, Obama challenged Gov. Jan Brewer (R) over characterizations she made of him in a recent book. His reaction, coming one day after he used his State of the Union address to call for a renewed spirit of political bipartisanship amid the nation’s economic woes, has exposed him to accusations that he is not interested in working with Republicans.

Brewer, whose “Scorpions for Breakfast” faults Obama for pandering to Hispanic voters in his immigration policy, said the president mentioned the book, unprompted, after she invited him to meet with her to discuss “Arizona’s comeback.”

“He was somewhat thin-skinned and a little tense to say the least,” Brewer told Phoenix radio station KFYI on Thursday. “I went there with good intentions . . . talking about Arizona and how I could give some assistance to him.”

White House press secretary Jay Carney scoffed at the notion that a deeper meaning was to be gleaned from the brief exchange, calling it “political theater.” And Obama told ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer in an interview that it was a “classic example of things getting blown out of proportion.”

Denying that he was “tense” during the encounter, as Brewer described, Obama said, laughing, that he is “usually accused of not being intense enough.”

“I think it’s always good publicity for a Republican if they’re in an argument with me. But this was really not a big deal,” he said.

According to Carney, the president told Brewer that her description in the book of a meeting they had in 2010 in the Oval Office “was not accurate.”

At the time, Brewer had told reporters that her meeting with Obama was “cordial,” but in the book she described him as “patronizing” and said he lectured her.

Over the past year, as his relations with congressional Republicans have soured, Obama has tried to cast the GOP as rigid ideologues whose allegiance to tea party conservatives has nearly caused financial catastrophe — first when House Speaker John A. Boehner (Ohio) “walked away” from Obama’s “grand bargain” offer during summer debt ceiling negotiations and again when Republicans grudgingly adopted the president’s proposed extension of a payroll tax cut at the 11th hour.

But Republicans have painted a different picture. During the debt-ceiling fight, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Va.) told reporters that the president snapped at him in a negotiating session, saying “Don’t call my bluff” and abruptly walking out.

Republicans have more recently cast Obama’s “We can’t wait” campaign of taking executive action without congressional approval as evidence that he has chosen to ignore lawmakers. They characterized his appointment of Richard Cordray to head a financial consumer watchdog agency, even though the Senate rejected the nomination, as the act of an imperial president intent on imposing his will.

At the same time, White House officials have pushed back hard against two recent books — one about Obama’s economic advisers and the other about the president and first lady Michelle Obama’s relationship — that portray an insular administration.

On Thursday, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Obama’s 2008 presidential rival, suggested that Obama’s reaction to Brewer revealed a well-known “prickly personality.”

Despite the President being the person who walked away from Jan Brewer while she was still speaking, she's the disrespecter.

And, obviously, a racist to boot.

Weak.

Seriously freakin' weak.

And when your argument is weak...

UPDATE:  Tom Elia sent along this pic which I think best illustrates the shallowness of those who continue to defend this President. 

Of course, they can at least lay claim to being young, impressionable, starry-eyed idol worshippers.  What the hell is the excuse for everybody else?

Michael Sean Winters:

I come at this issue as a liberal and a Democrat and as someone who, until yesterday, generally supported the President, as someone who saw in his vision of America a greater concern for each other, a less mean-spirited culture, someone who could, and did, remind the nation that we are our brothers’ keeper, that liberalism has a long vocation in this country of promoting freedom and protecting the interests of the average person against the combined power of the rich, and that we should learn how to disagree without being disagreeable. I defended the University of Notre Dame for honoring this man, and my heart was warmed when President Obama said at Notre Dame: “we must find a way to reconcile our ever-shrinking world with its ever-growing diversity -- diversity of thought, diversity of culture, and diversity of belief. In short, we must find a way to live together as one human family.”

To borrow from Emile Zola: J’Accuse!

I accuse you, Mr. President, of dishonoring your own vision by this shameful decision.

I accuse you, Mr. President, of failing to live out the respect for diversity that you so properly and beautifully proclaimed as a cardinal virtue at Notre Dame. Or, are we to believe that diversity is only to be lauded when it advances the interests of those with whom we agree? That’s not diversity. That’s misuse of a noble principle for ignoble ends.

I accuse you, Mr. President, of betraying philosophic liberalism, which began, lest we forget, as a defense of the rights of conscience. As Catholics, we need to be honest and admit that, three hundred years ago, the defense of conscience was not high on the agenda of Holy Mother Church. But, we Catholics learned to embrace the idea that the coercion of conscience is a violation of human dignity. This is a lesson, Mr. President, that you and too many of your fellow liberals have apparently unlearned.

I accuse you, Mr. President, who argued that your experience as a constitutional scholar commended you for the high office you hold, of ignoring the Constitution. Perhaps you were busy last week, but the Supreme Court, on a 9-0 vote, said that the First Amendment still means something and that it trumps even desirable governmental objectives when the two come into conflict. Did you miss the concurring opinion, joined by your own most recent appointment to the court, Justice Kagan, which stated:

“Throughout our Nation's history, religious bodies have been the preeminent example of private associations that have ‘act[ed] as critical buffers between the individual and the power of the State.’ Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609, 619 (1984). In a case like the one now before us—where the goal of the civil law in question, the elimination of discrimination against persons with disabilities, is so worthy—it is easy to forget that the autonomy of religious groups, both here in the United States and abroad, has often served as a shield against oppressive civil laws. To safeguard this crucial autonomy, we have long recognized that the Religion Clauses protect a private sphere within which religious bodies are free to govern themselves in accordance with their own beliefs. The Constitution guarantees religious bodies ‘independence from secular control or manipulation—in short, power to decide for themselves, free from state interference, matters of church government as well as those of faith and doctrine.’ Kedroff v. Saint Nicholas Cathedral of Russian Orthodox Church in North America, 344 U.S. 94, 116 (1952).”

Pray, do tell, Mr. President, what part of that paragraph did you consider when making this decision? Or, do you like having your Justice Department having its hat handed to it at the Supreme Court?

I accuse you, Mr. President, as leader of the Democratic Party, the primary vehicle for historic political liberalism in this country, of risking all the many achievements of political liberalism, from environmental protection to Social Security to Medicare and Medicaid, by committing a politically stupid act. Do you really think your friends at Planned Parenthood and NARAL were going to support the candidacy of Mr. Romney or Mr. Gingrich? How does this decision affect the prospects of Democrats winning back the House in districts like Pennsylvania’s Third or Ohio’s First or Virginia’s Fifth districts? How do your chances look today among Catholic swing voters in Scranton and the suburbs of Cincinnati and along the I-4 corridor in Florida? I suppose that there are campaign contributions to consider, but really, sacrificing one’s conscience, or the conscience rights of others, was not worth Wales, was it worth a few extra dollars in your campaign coffers?

I accuse you, Mr. President, of failing to know your history. In 1978, the IRS proposed a rule change affecting the tax exempt status of private Christian schools. The rule would change the way school verified their desegregation policies, putting the burden of proof on the school, not the IRS. By 1978, many of those schools were already desegregated, even though they had first been founded as a means to avoid desegregation of the public schools. But evangelical Christians did not look kindly on the government’s interference in schools they had built themselves and, even though the IRS rescinded the rule change, the original decision was the straw the broke the camel’s back for those who wished to separate themselves from mainstream culture. They formed the Moral Majority, entered that mainstream culture, and helped the Republican Party win the next three presidential elections. You, Mr. President, have struck that same nerve. Catholics built their colleges and universities and hospitals. They did so out of religious conviction and, as often as not, because mainstream institutions did not welcome Catholics. It is one thing to support a policy with which the Catholic Church disagrees but it is quite another to start telling Catholics how to run their own institutions.

Mr. Winters, though I appreciate your coming to your senses now, I wonder where you've been.

I accuse you Mr. Winters of never really checking into this candidate in the first place.

I accuse you Mr. Winters of being someone likely focused more on Obama's skin color than the content of his character or his history as a radical.

I accuse you Mr. Winters of being bamboozled by Obama and his willing accomplices in the media.

I accuse you Mr. Winters of coming to the Obama-is-no-where-near-the-man-we were-told-he-was party way too late.

I accuse you Mr. Winters, and those who were (and still are) as gullible, of putting Obama in a position that allows him to step on Catholic conscience.

Perhaps before you vote again Mr. Winters, in any election, you would look beyond the shallowness that led to your past support of Obama and to your own conscience, that which Obama today desires to crush.

You Mr. Winters, and people like you, brought us to this point.

Your accusations Mr. Winters ring hollow.

Crosspsoted at Wizbang.

By Locutisprime

I respect Bob Dole for his service to this country during WWII, but I have never liked his politics. I didn't like him in 1996 when the GOP closed ranks much as they are doing presently and decided that Dole was the guy to run against Bill Clinton.

The same thinking that orchestrated Bob Dole's loss to Clinton in 1996 is now steering the Romney bus to the same conclusion. And if you listen closely at the end of the interview, you will hear Doles say. "It's Romney's time." 

That is the way the party machine thinks. Damn the realities, it's this guy's time. That was their thinking in 1996. It was Dole's time. Well we see how that worked out didn't we.

H/T to Mark.

It's a little hard to think otherwise at this juncture.  

These are the links up currently at Drudge:

NEWT FLASHBACK 1983: REAGAN RESPONSIBLE FOR NATIONAL 'DECAY'... 

NEWT 1986: 'The Reagan administration has failed, is failing...

NEWT 1988: 'If Bush runs as continuation of Reaganism he will lose'...

VIDEO...

INSIDER: GINGRICH REPEATEDLY INSULTED REAGAN

And then there's this from Politico:

After nearly a week on the defensive, CNN's John King reports tonight that Newt Gingrich'sclaim about offering witnesses to ABC News in his defense — to rebut the network's interview with his second wife, Marianne Gingrich — was not true.

"Tonight, after persistent questioning by our staff, the Gingrich campaign concedes now Speaker Gingrich was wrong — both in his debate answer, and in our interview yesterday," King said on tonight's edition of John King USA. "Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond says the only people the Gingrich campaign offered to ABC were his two daughters from his first marriage."

Not good people.

Not good at all.

Will Mr. Santorum reap the benefit of Newt's apparent derailment?

God only knows.

God's help is needed.

Because an Obama re-election is beginning to look more and more likely from my corner of the world.

Oh how I hope I'm reading the tea leaves wrongly.

Crossposted at Wizbang.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan gets a bit of an education as to this President:

In the wake of Presdent Obama's controversial decision to mandate that religious groups pay for contraceptives for their employees, much of the coverage focused on how the president had disappointed progressive allies by giving religious groups an extra year to comply.

But the decision also had New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, feeling personally betrayed.

"I have to say, there's a sense of personal disappointment," Dolan said Tuesday after he gave a lecture on "Law and the Gospel of Life" at Fordham Law School.

Last November, amid deepening tensions between the bishops and the administration over the pending contraception mandate and other issues, Obama invited Dolan to the Oval Office, where the two men shared what Dolan called a productive and "extraordinarily friendly" meeting.

"The president seemed very earnest, he said he considered the protection of conscience sacred, that he didn't want anything his administration would do to impede the work of the church that he claimed he held in high regard," Dolan recalled on Tuesday. "So I did leave a little buoyant."

That optimism ended last Friday, however, when Obama phoned Dolan to tell him that he was not expanding the conscience exemption to include religious institutions — such as Catholic hospitals, universities and social service agencies. In a bid to appease critics like Dolan, the White House gave church organizations an extra year to find a way to comply with the mandate that all health insurance plans provide free contraceptive coverage.

"I had to share with him that I was terribly let down, disappointed and disturbed, and it seemed the news he had given me was difficult to square with the confidence I had felt in November," Dolan said.

I have tremendous respect for Archbishop Dolan.

I hope he uses this as a teachable moment.

What?!  Obama as hypocrite-in-chief?  If you think as much you must be a racist:

A day after he called for an end to perpetual political confrontation, President Barack Obama and his deputies publicly snubbed Arizona’s Republican governor when she welcomed him at the Pheonix airport.

Gov. Jan Brewer met him at first stop of his five-state campaign swing with a hand-written letter asking him to visit the state’s southern border, which is a hotbed of illegal immigration and drug trafficking.

But Obama suddenly turned cold, claiming that her Nov. 2011 book mischaracterized their previous White House meeting in June 2010. He then quickly walked away.

Shortly after, Obama’s press aides released a statement claiming Obama said she “inaccurately described the meeting.” The three-sentence statement ended curtly, saying that “the President looks forward to continuing taking steps to help Arizona’s economy grow.”

...

Obama visited Arizona as part of his re-election campaign. His campaign officials say he may be able to win the state in 2012 because of the state’s growing Hispanic population.

The president’s decision to snub Brewer may help him spur Hispanic support, partly because Brewer championed the state’s immigration reform law. In 2010, polls showed the law was supported by more than 70 percent of Arizonans, but only by a quarter of Hispanics.

Since then, the law has been loudly slammed by Obama’s lawyers at the Department of Justice and their allied Hispanic ethnic lobbies, immigration law groups, and various progressive groups.

Obama’s curt treatment of Brewer came the day after he used his State of the Union speech to call for a reduction in partisan rancor.

Better government can’t “happen unless we also lower the temperature in this town.” he declared. “We need to end the notion that the two parties must be locked in a perpetual campaign of mutual destruction; that politics is about clinging to rigid ideologies instead of building consensus around common-sense ideas.”

Brewer’s book is titled “Scorpions for Breakfast: My Fight Against Special Interests, Liberal Media, and Cynical Politicos to Secure America’s Border.”

In the book, she described Obama as patronizing during their 2010 meeting when she asked for his help in curbing illegal immigration. His reaction, she wrote, “was though President Obama thought he could lecture me, and I would learn at his knee.”

At the airport, Obama said he “didn’t feel that I had treated him cordially. I said I was sorry he felt that way but I didn’t get my sentence finished” before he walked away, Brewer said.

“He was a little thin-skinned,” Brewer said during an later interview on a local radio station, News/Talk 92.3 KTAR. “I was a bit taken aback by his stance and his attitude” on the tarmac, she said, adding that Obama walked away from her “[as] I was trying to make a point that I thought that my book was right and correct.”

Let there be no mistake.

A reduction in partisan rancor means agree with Obama.  Period.

He is The Won... until November.

UPDATE:  As if on cue, the race-baiters appear.  This from a guy named Stephen over at Wizbang:

Damn uppity negro. Who does he think he is, lecturing a white woman...

Yeah, I guess to bigots like her a conversation with a black man would feel foreign.

Did she ask him for his papers?

Predicted.

Then again, it's like predicting water to be wet.

By Locutisprime