Book: Cranky Obama Didn’t Want To Pose With Combat Troops

Remember how President George W. Bush would spend hours talking to soldiers, comforting their families, and privately sobbing in their presence? Those days are as much a part of history as seven percent unemployment. In his book The Operators, Michael Hastings describes our current commander-in-chief’s desire not to bother himself with the men and women who put their lives on the line for this country every single day. During a visit to a still-raging Baghdad, Obama gave a speech. (Surprise!) Then Hastings describes the scene:

After the talk, out of earshot from the soldiers and diplomats, he starts to complain. He starts to act very un-Obamalike, according to a U.S. embassy official who helped organize the trip in Baghdad.

He’s asked to go out to take a few more pictures with soldiers and embassy staffers. He’s asked to sign copies of his book. “He didn’t want to take pictures with any more soldiers; he was complaining about it,” a State Department official tells me. “Look, I was excited to meet him. I wanted to like him. Let’s just say the scales fell from my eyes after I did. These are people over here who’ve been fighting the war, or working every day for the war effort, and he didn’t want to take fucking pictures with them?”

Yes, that’s pretty much the size of it. But don’t question his patriotism….

(H/T: BuzzFeed.)