Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer got to the point with President Obama in Mesa, Ariz., on Wednesday. Brewer said �?he was a little disturbed about my book,’ in which she described the President as lecturing her during a visit to the White House. 
 
 The best part of the already-famous tarmac moment between Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and President Barack Obama Wednesday is that even though everyone in the free world by now has seen the picture of Brewer pointing her finger at him, none of us knows what they actually said. 
 
 What a refreshing, liberating and utterly glorious thing that is. 
 
 For two reasons. 
 
 First, it proves that even in this age of enhanced surveillance, pervasive media and smartphones that film every mundane moment in every mundane life, a few things can remain private. 
 
 Second, it reminds us how much more fun it is when we can all fill in the blanks. 
 
 Listen to any commentary show on TV or radio today, or any conversation in the supermarket, and that’s what we’re already doing with the Brewer-Obama exchange. 
 
 Since we don’t have an audio or video record, just that one pervasive still photo and a few other routine stills, it’s like one of those “write your own caption” contests. 
 
 What exactly is Brewer saying to Obama in the most striking public finger-point since Bill Clinton faced the camera and said he did not have sex with that woman? 
 
 Doug Luzader of Fox News summarized the logical speculation nicely Thursday morning when he stressed that we don’t know what they said, but that “it looks like she’s giving him the business.” 
 
 Luzader’s colleagues, unsurprisingly, aren’t leaving it at that. Dawn had barely broken Thursday when it became clear that Brewer may have vaulted past Michelle Bachmann and even the immortal Sarah Palin as the new pinup gal for conservatives all across America. 
 
 What Sean Hannity and Newt Gingrich could only do figuratively the past three years, Brewer did literally. She gestured at Obama the way one gestures at a misbehaving child who is now being ordered to explain exactly what he thinks he’s doing. 
 
 From the other side, of course, the same image is being framed as disrespect. While Obama seems to be leaning forward and perhaps touching Brewer’s arm, a sign of cordiality, she’s rudely sticking her finger in his face. 
 
 Doing that to the President, the argument goes, shows the lack of basic manners and civility that’s eroding our national sense of decency and preventing any substantive conversation. 
 
 From the summary reports we’ve heard, the disagreeable part of the conversation between Brewer and Obama concerned a book in which she said he had treated her condescendingly during a meeting at the White House. 
 
 He apparently questioned the characterization. 
 
 What we lack is the context. Exactly who said what first, and in what tone, went unrecorded. 
 
 She says he was annoyed and that she told him sorry, that’s how she felt. 
 
 The White House says she invited him for a conversation and that he expressed concern it could be mischaracterized again. 
 
 Both sides tried to downplay the idea this was some sort of major verbal food fight. Reporters close enough to get some sense of the encounter said that while it was animated, it stopped short of a full-throttle throwdown. 
 
 That has not prevented professional and civilian commentators everywhere from blowing it up into one. 
 
 Which brings us back to the beauty of an unrecorded moment. We can project any words we want, spin it in any direction that suits us. 
 
 We love to write our own captions. It’s so old-school. Maybe we should kill the cameras more often. ||||| McCain: Brewer fight shows Obama’s ‘prickly personality’ 
 
 By Daniel Strauss - 
 
 Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) seemed unsurprised by President Obama’s reported tense exchange with Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R). 
 
 “Apparently Bobby Jindal, the [Republican] governor of Louisiana, had a similar exchange with the president,” McCain said Thursday morning on Fox Business Network. 
 
 “It is very well-known [that Obama] has a prickly personality, and I think it has been displayed in both of those cases. Jan Brewer is very concerned about the security on our border. I think it’s a very legitimate concern.” 
 
 Obama got into an argument on the tarmac with Brewer after Air Force One landed in Arizona on Wednesday. The argument centered around Brewer’s characterization of an earlier White House meeting with Obama in her book “Scorpions for Breakfast.” She wrote that the president “lectured” her at that meeting. 
 
 The White House noted that Brewer had described the discussion as “cordial” when she spoke to reporters immediately after the meeting. 
 
 “The president said he’d be glad to meet with her again, but did note that after their last meeting, a cordial discussion in the Oval Office, the governor inaccurately described the meeting in her book,” the White House said in a statement. “The president looks forward to continuing taking steps to help Arizona’s economy grow.” ||||| Page 2 of 2 
 
 At the time, Brewer described the conversation as cordial, but in the book she calls the president “patronizing” and said “he lectured me.” “We sat down and started with some chitchat,” she writes. “But after a few minutes, the president’s tone got serious – and condescending.” 
 
 You can see what’s going on here. Brewer has taken the presidential meeting and found a way to extract not just a vague importance-boost from it, but money. The formula is simple. Meet with the president. Then run it through a culture war blender, creating an outrage-vignette (elitist Obama condescends to the heartland). Finally, monetize the vignette by using it to grab attention and sell books. Brewer has now done this twice, the first time with her book, and now on the tarmac. Was the confrontation planned? I have no idea. It almost doesn’t matter: benefits accrue either way, and she’s not shy about reaping them. She showed up on Fox later on to chat up the incident. 
 
 You have to think this will have some success: how often do the Obamas let their guard down? Only, it seems, when someone says something unflattering about them in a book. As I write this, her Amazon ranking is #177. Not Bill O’Reilly territory, but not bad. (Late update: Mediaite says this translates to a 150,000% increase in sales.) 
 
 There are several trends at work here. The first is the rise of conservative book publishing, which sells lots and lots of books, driven partly by the echo-chamber effect of conservative media. The second – driven partly by the first – is the decline of political decorum. Politicians have always demonized opponents, but face-to-face meetings have usually demanded good manners, not least because a personal spat between politicians was embarrassing to all involved. No longer. Now spats are good for business. Finally, there’s the social media effect: once a meeting with the president was a staid, private affair. Now, at minimum, it can be humblebragged. 
 
 This is depressing, because it suggests there is little to be gained from a president sitting down with his political opponents, because the incentives – political and now, economic – that any such encounter will be used against him are continually rising. 
 
 Later update: A local mayor also on the tarmac casts doubt on Brewer’s account of the exchange. And Obama says it was blown out of proportion. But book sales are brisk. 
 
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– John McCain thinks President Obama's tarmac spat with Arizona's Jan Brewer is proof that he's got a "prickly personality." He told Fox today that Obama got into a similar tiff with Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, notes the Hill. "It is very well-known (that Obama) has a prickly personality, and I think it has been displayed in both of those cases.” At Forbes, John McQuaid says the encounter could pay off for Brewer because in these days of declining political decorum, "spats are good for business." Indeed, sales of Brewer's book, Scorpions for Breakfast, already are doing better, notes Mediaite. According to Amazon's stats, it's the second-fastest mover on the charts in the last 24 hours. It was ranked at No. 56 about 2pm EST, up from 177 when McQuaid wrote his Forbes post this morning. At the Daily News, David Hinckley loves that there's no video of the encounter, a rarity these days, which makes it kind of fun to "fill in the blanks."