"It belittles the office of the presidency and shows that [he] has little understanding of the political process, the role of the constitutional institutions, much less basic politeness."
U.S. Rep. Jeff Landry, R-Grandstanding, is taking some heat even from his allies on the right after firing off a press release Wednesday morning bragging about his refusal to attend a meeting with President Barack Obama to discuss the budget impasse clogging the aisle in Congress.
Landry says in the statement released by his office that he - demagoguery alert! - didn't "intend to spend my morning being lectured to by a president whose failed policies have put our children and grandchildren in a huge burden of debt" and that he wasn't interest in "going to the White House to negotiate with myself."
The Times-Picayune reported the story Wednesday, quoting Norm Ornstein of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, who pursed his lips at Landry's posturing: "It is more than a little arrogant," Ornstein told the Times-Pic. "It belittles the office of the presidency and shows that Landry has little understanding of the political process, the role of the constitutional institutions, much less basic politeness."
The right-leaning Louisiana Hayride website also caught on to the story, characterizing Landry's refusal to show his face at the meeting, to which about 200 House Republicans attended including the other five Louisiana GOP members, as "off message" and "rude."