Did Gov. Jan Brewer pick a fight with President Obama to sell books?

The subject of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and her finger-wagging tiff with President Obama is still burning up the Internet. Just go to Twitter and type in “Jan Brewer” – the tweets will pile up faster than you can read them. It’s as if she’s suddenly become as Web-popular as Ron Paul.

So here’s the obvious question: Did she intend to have some sort of confrontation there Wednesday in front of the cameras at the Phoenix airport? We think probably not – in politics, as in life, happenstance usually explains more incidents than does conspiracy. But whatever her plan, Governor Brewer has benefited from Waggate in at least one respect: She’s selling a lot more books.

That’s right. Her memoir “Scorpions for Breakfast” was published last November to generally underwhelming sales. Earlier this week, Amazon listed it as the 285,685th bestselling book in America. By way of comparison, Newt Gingrich’s Civil War novel, “The Battle of the Crater,” is currently No. 39,967.

But for a conservative Republican political author, there’s nothing like an appearance with Greta Van Susteren on Fox News Channel in which your book title gets mentioned. On Amazon’s bestseller list, “Breakfast with Scorpions” on Friday was ... eighth! That’s an unbelievable jump. In terms of political bookmanship, that puts Brewer up there with Sarah Palin and “Going Rogue.”

Sarah Palin wrote the forward to “Breakfast with Scorpions,” by the way. In it she calls Brewer a “down-to-earth mom committed to public service and principled leadership.” So Brewer is definitely a member of Ms. Palin’s "mama grizzly" club. Also, Brewer herself in the book calls New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie “incomparable,” so maybe she’s one of those conservatives who is still hoping he jumps into the presidential race.

Anyway, jealous authors of books critical of Obama policies are already pleading online with the White House to pass along a copy to the president, so he’ll get peeved and argue in public with them, too. Next stop: Swiss bank account!

As to the letter Brewer handed Mr. Obama, which was the MacGuffin that got the tiff started, the Arizona governor belatedly decided to release its contents. It’s not exactly combative, in terms of political rhetoric: “We both love this great country, but we fundamentally disagree on how to best make America grow and prosper once again,” Brewer wrote.

As for Obama himself, he told ABC News Thursday that the incident was “a classic example of things getting blown out of proportion.” After reporters peppered him with questions on the subject, White House spokesman Jan Carney went further, saying, “I really assume you guys have more important issues to cover than this.”