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JAP69 — Sun, 09 May 2010 18:01:43 GMT

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Original Blog Entry: New Obama book airs private flares of temper

truesee — Sun, 09 May 2010 05:28:03 GMT

New Obama book by Newsweek senior editor Jonathan Alter airs private flares of temper

David Saltonstall

DAILY NEWS SENIOR CORRESPONDENT

Originally Published:Saturday, May 8th 2010, 1:32 AM

Updated: Saturday, May 8th 2010, 1:32 AM

Souza/Getty

President Obama talks with Gen. Stanley McChrystal in Oct. 2009, the same month he got a historic 'presidential dressing down' according to 'The Promise: President Obama, Year One.'

President Obama may cultivate an image as the unflappable Mr. Cool, but he can get hot under the collar too, according to a new book.

In The Promise: President Obama, Year One, by Newsweek senior editor Jonathan Alter, the author recounts a series of private blow-ups - including a particularly fiery one involving the nation's top military brass.

A presidential dressing down unlike any in the United States in more than half a century, is how Alter describes the October 2009 eruption.

The background: Gen. Stanley McChrystal had just given a speech in London in which he publicly rejected proposals to turn the tide in Afghanistan with more drone missiles and special forces, a strategy backed mainly by Vice President Biden.

The President viewed McChrystal's comments as a bald attempt to back him into a Pentagon-backed plan more reliant on troop buildups - and he soon ripped into top commanders for what he considered insubordination.

In an Oval Office showdown, Obama told Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. David Petraeus that he was exceedingly unhappy with the Pentagon's conduct, Alter reported, adding that its leaks to the press were disrespectful of the process.

This was a cold and bracing meeting, an attendee said of the encounter, where Obama demanded to know here and now if the Pentagon would be onboard with any presidential strategy.

It apparently worked: Petraeus later described himself as chagrined, and both he and Gates swore loyalty to the President. Obama eventually supported a troop buildup.

The Promise, due out from Simon Schuster on May 18, has other, steamier moments - including one starring French First Lady Carla Bruni a one-time supermodel.

Alter recounts how Bruni once bragged to First Lady Michelle Obama how she and French President Nicholas Sarkozy kept a head of state waiting while they had sex.

Bruni wanted to know if, like the Sarkozys, Michelle and the President had ever kept anyone waiting that way, Alter writes, offering no source. Michelle laughed nervously and said no.

But it's often the flashes of anger, not amour, that shine through Alter's tome, including:

Asked during the 2008 campaign what accounted for a drop-off in his Jewish support, Obama snipped to a radio reporter off-air, It's the f------ Clintons. Later, as Obama mulled appointing Hillary Clinton his Secretary of State, he cracked, Hillary still has some anger issues with me.

When he found that his Justice Department lawyers were relying on Bush-era logic he disagreed with, Obama once exclaimed angrily, What the f---? This is not the way I like to make decisions.

When the President learned that Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley was mocking Republican opponent - and eventual victor - Scott Brown for shaking voters' hands in the cold outside Fenway Park, he knew his presidency would soon be in trouble.

No! No! You're making that up! he shouted at aide David Axel, grabbing him by the shirt. That can't be right.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2010/05/08/2010-05-08_new_obama_book_by_newsweek_senior_editor_jonathan_alter_airs_private_flares_of_t.html#ixzz0nP9Q43P7

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