Despite spending years as a confidant and top adviser to Barack Obama, David Axelrod found out in 2012 that his former boss will attack foes and allies alike when he becomes upset.
In his recent memoir, Believer: My Forty Years in Politics, Axelrod recalls a specific incident that occurred during Obama’s reelection bid. Just prior to the first debate between the two presidential nominees, Axelrod wrote that he tried to give Obama some advice but was crassly spurned.
“Motherf—ker’s never happy,” Obama reportedly shot back.
Axelrod noted that Obama then abruptly left the room, leaving him to consider what had just happened.
“That was a first,” he affirmed. “Obama and I had been working together for a decade, through some pretty hairy moments, but he had never before lost his temper in this fashion. He certainly never attacked me so harshly, especially in front of others.”
In retrospect, Axelrod explained Obama’s frustration as a possible reaction to being unprepared for a debate a majority of viewers determined he lost to Mitt Romney.
“My sense was that the president knew he wasn’t ready,” Axelrod wrote. “His mindset, his reluctance to embrace the game, had been wrongheaded from the start, and now it was clearly hurting him.”
As Western Journalism reported, Axelrod alleged in another section of the book that Obama purposefully misled the nation regarding his opposition to gay marriage.
Passages like these from his book have not been the only public statements Axelrod has made about Obama in recent days. He has received flack for his statement that there “hasn’t been a major scandal” during the Obama administration.