In an interview with Diane Sawyer set to air tonight, the president unsurprisingly downplayed the tarmac tiff with Arizona Republican Gov. Jan Brewer that equally unsurprisingly led to a boost in sales for her book. WaPo reports:

The president smiled when Sawyer brought up the photo taken during the exchange and Brewer’s comments in follow-up interviews that Obama was “tense” and “thin-skinned.”

“What I’ve discovered is I think it’s always good publicity for a Republican if they’re in an argument with me, but this was really not a big deal,” Obama said.

Obama said he was not “tense” in the exchange, which reportedly began when Obama criticized passages about him in Brewer’s book “Scorpions for Breakfast.”

“You know Diane, I am usually accused of not being intense enough, too relaxed,” Obama said.

Note the expression of concern on Diane Sawyer’s face, her apparent desire to correct any misimpression of Mr. Obama. She gives him at least three opportunities to say no, in fact, he wasn’t tense. Diane Sawyer shows by her moderation of GOP debates and her gentle questioning of Obama that she’s all too happy to help him cast himself in the best light possible.

Lucky Obama. Not all of us have the luxury of going on national TV to pretend we weren’t insecure when we were. Still, it’s not enough for O that most of the media is in his pocket. Michelle Malkin reminds us that the president has long wished he could make conservative criticism disappear entirely:

You know those “petty grievances” of “Washington politics” that Obama has long condemned? Now it can be told: He knows whereof he squawks.

As New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor’s new book, “The Obamas,” reveals, the president and his inner circle spent even more time carping about conservative influence on public opinion. “He wanted the media to be more of a referee; to put unfair Republican charges to rest,” Kantor discovered. “He could brush off the wildest, most baseless attacks themselves, he told (senior adviser and Chicago pal) Valerie Jarrett, along with (campaign finance bundler and treasurer) Marty Nesbitt and (bundler and finance mogul) John Rogers, at lunch in the little dining room next to the Oval Office.”

But what “galled him,” the book observed, “was when they gained mainstream credibility despite distortions of truth.” …

How long before we see a FLOTUS tarmac tantrum? We did get two divas for the price of one. As longtime observers of the royal Obamas have long observed: Mr. and Mrs. Cranky Pants’ problem has never been the color of their skin. It’s the thinness.