Jindal: Brewer, Obama confrontation 'brought back memories'

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) said that the recent confrontation between President Obama and Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) "brought back memories" of a similar exchange he and the president shared during the BP oil spill nearly two years ago.

Brewer said that Obama was "disturbed" by the way she described a previous meeting in her recently published book, and said at one point the president walked away from her mid-sentence. An image of Brewer pointing her finger at the president quickly became front-page material as cable news commentators dissected the incident.

Obama later dismissed the incident as overblown political theatrics.

"It’s always good publicity for a Republican if they’re in an argument with me,” Obama said during an interview with ABC News. “I think this is a classic example of things getting blown out of proportion.”

But Jindal suggested that the president was capable of tarmac theatrics of his own, pointing to a widely reported confrontation with Obama shortly after the dramatic BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Obama, clearly upset, pulled Jindal aside after exiting Air Force One in a moment Jindal described as "obviously staged."

"Here was the strange thing — I didn't mind him being angry. I thought he'd be angry about the oil spill, the lack of resources, I thought he'd get down there and say, 'Look governor, we're going to do everything we can to work together.' Instead, he was mad that he was going to look bad," Jindal said during an interview on Fox News.

The Louisiana governor went on to insinuate that Obama was more concerned about the political optics of the crisis than containing the spill.

"I was amazed by two things: one, that he was mad about the wrong things, and secondly that he was so thin-skinned. It was clearly a media stunt … I wanted him to be president of the country and come down here and lead and instead he was playing political theatrics," Jindal said.

Jindal, who had been Rick Perry's most prominent supporter during the Texas governor's now-aborted run for the GOP nomination, also said he would not be endorsing again until Obama's eventual challenger was decided.

"I'm staying out of the primary," Jindal said.

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