I'm sorry Mr. President, but you were the one acting "stupidly" after first admitting you weren't present and didn't have all the facts regarding the arrest of you're friend, Henry Gates, then claiming the police acted stupidly. That, in of itself, was a display of bad judgement on your part. The fire storm it kindled is much worse.First, this is how I see it had it been my own circumstance. If a neighbor noticed anything untoward on my property, I would want them to call the police. I would want the police to respond in a timely manner and approach the intruder with caution - especially if I was the one being mistaken as such!
If asked for identification, I would gladly show it. I would not mouth off to the officer no matter what color he/she was. Nor if it were a black officer, or Hispanic, or Asian would I think him/her racist if I did mouth off and was arrested because of my conduct.
But that's me. I'm not a high falutin Harvard professor with a chip on my shoulder and an over estimation of my recognizability!
That's where it should have stopped. Obama didn't have his teleprompters handy and ended up with his foot in his mouth. Gates mouthed off and got arrested for it. End of story.
I wish. What began with a good deed turned sour by bad behavior has been blown into a full scale racial incident. I am so disgusted with the news coverage of this. Since it's been on the news 24/7 since it happened it's impossible to escape. Why is the media trying so hard to make it into something it wasn't? Anchors are pushing the racial profiling angle. I haven't seen Jesse Jackson yet. That may be an issue of timing on my part, but the oh, so solemn Al Sharpton is weighing in anywhere he can.
Police officers from around the country are being interviewed. Black police officers. They have, to a man, supported the officer involved, yet I've heard more than one anchor state, in effect,"Oh well, he is a cop!"
We are never going to conquer racism or even control it if every time a white officer arrests a badly behaving black or vice versa.
Obama should either apologize to the officer for an inappropriate comment or just shut up. Defending his comment is just fomenting the controversy. I'd not like to think it is by design but if this continues to simmer with the President, or his spokespeople, in the middle of it I will do more than begin to wonder.
10 comments:
Obama did apologize. But that's not newsworthy.
Under duress.
Well this story took the health care mess off the front page.
Obama seems to suffer from a serious case of knee-jerk-itis. A precursor to foot-in-mouth syndrome.
They say, a bunch of theys jumping to his defense. They say he should have addressed this issue, but his wording was unfortunate. I say, Why? This thing happens everyday. I don't think he should be stirring up a pot that with the right emphasis could boil over. Then what. Rodney King all over again. He needs to stick to his job and his job is not to get involved in domestic things unless it threatens the country. Seems he may be the only threat so far. In my humble opinion of which I'm entitled.
The police had already seen his ID and then decided to arrest him, anyway, because he got pissed off at them. Frankly, I don't think this is a case of racism. I think it's a case of a cop with a hair trigger temper, who should have immediately apologized to the professor and left. Instead, he decided to teach him a lesson, but had to make him go out on his porch before he could legally handcuff him on a false accusation of creating a "public" disturbance. So, that's what he did. There is no law against mouthing off to the police.
And, while I'm at it, yes, I think Obama was ill-advised to say anything, but he jumped both to conclusions, and to the defense of his friend.
One more thing, and I'll shut up. I don't care if she was in her 80s. How come his neighbor didn't seem to know that a black man lived next door? And, why did she tell the police she saw two black men? As Bill Maher said on Real Time tonight, when's the last time you saw a burglar trying to break into a house carrying suitcases?
Are you sure the 80 year old saw the suit cases? Do you know how acute she is mentally? How good is her eyesight?
I've never seen a burglar trying to break into a house, but suit cases would not be out of the question as a way to walk back out.
Well! I got folks from both sides of the issue coming out on this. That's good. There's not much of interest when one side always dominates.
Obama has not apologized. Even the most liberal of press stories admit that he stopped short of an apology. Frankly, that is basically irrelevant. He is the President of the U.S. He is supposed to be thoughtful enough to think before he speaks. I find these incidents sadly revealing.
Anonymous, GW suffered hoof in mouth disease from the get go. When did he apologize for it?
Anyone can have a bad day and not always "think through" what they have to say to anyone, politicians on down to us peons.
The time you can demand that Obama ought to be thoughtful when the last president sadly wasn't, reveals a whole lot about yourself.
I have to agree with betty on this one. Who cares, Obama has'nt apologized. The cop was stupid.
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