Politics and Petty Score Settling

There is a large genre of stories about politicians who keep score of everything, tracking every favor, compliment and slight over a whole career, and read every news story about themselves to find out which reporters are friends and which are enemies. Now there is such a story about Obama and Arizona governor Jan Brewer. Brewer was part of the delegation that greeted Obama at the airport when he arrived in Phoenix this week. They ended up having what observers described as a "heated exchange," with the Governor pointing her finger at the President. According to Brewer, they were talking about her book, Scorpions for Breakfast: My Fight Against Special Interests, Liberal Media, and Cynical Politicos to Secure the Border. In this book she described a conversation she had with Obama in June, 2010, in which, she said, he "lectured" her. Obama remembered, and when she suggested that they meet again to talk about immigration policy, he noted “that after their last meeting, a cordial discussion in the Oval Office, the governor inaccurately described the meeting in her book." She asked him if he had read the book and he said that he had "read the excerpt."

I seems to me that the President should have better things to do, but I guess that is just the kind of person who goes into politics.