For Obama, Action Is Best Answer to Slights By Fellow Pols

Shrugging off disrespect, Obama gets down to business

As pictures of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer with her finger pointed in the face of President Barack Obama’s surfaced Thursday, a swell of old memories came back which understandably brought into question the earnestness of some pols’ pronounced respect for the office of the presidency.

Who can forget Rep. Joe Wilson’s outburst during the 2009 State of the Union over the question of whether the health care reform bill Obama was pushing would protect illegal immigrants. Obama said it would not. Wilson replied, “You lie!”

"It was spontaneous,” Wilson said. “It was when he stated, as he did, about not covering illegal aliens, when I knew we had those two amendments, and I say that respectfully," Wilson said.

[Also read "Five People President Obama Needs To Check"]

The president’s cool, graceful demeanor strikes some as a liability when it comes to the dirty game of politics.

“I sometimes think of Obama's dispassion as a weakness. But on days like this I believe dispassion is the only way to deal [with] the nonsense,” New York Times Op-Ed columnist Charles Blow said in a tweet Thursday, largely in response to the president’s altercation with Brewer.

But several developments over the past few months indicate that though Obama may not respond directly to what many deem as blatant acts of disrespect, he has been authoritative and even unilateral decisions for what he says he is the good of the country.

Republicans are still questioning the appointment of Richard Cordray as head of the new Consumer Finance Protection Bureau during a brief recess in the senate. Republicans had repeatedly blocked Obama’s veteran appointment, citing the yet unproven agency had too much power.