Whenever an intelligent, thoughtful person speaks on a complicated and politically-charged matter, that person’s comments can possibly be misconstrued by people who are not very smart, who have a political axe to grind, or who simply don’t grasp the issue very well.
Obama was about as diplomatic and sensitive as he could possibly have been on this matter. Had he simply said “no comment” to the question, plenty of people would have been on his case about that, too. Including, i’m willing to bet, some of the same people who are now ragging on him for saying something.
I guess it would have been more diplomatic of him to simply say that the kid shouldn’t have been wearing a hoodie if he didn’t want to get shot. :rolleyes:
Duly acknowledged. However, there’s no evidence that has been made public so far that exonerates the killer in any way, and a fair amount that is, anecdotally anyway, damning. Luckily for all, I’m neither on a jury nor the leader of the free world*.
Since it’s being discussed nationally and the Justice Department is looking into this, I don’t think it qualifies as a local issue at this point.
You can’t credibly criticize a guy because you misunderstood what he said. The fact that people misconstrued his comments doesn’t mean he misspoke or shouldn’t have made them - it means some people were not paying attention and others were looking for ways to misconstrue them (Gingrich). Neither reflects poorly on Obama.
There was nothing odd or strange about what he said. It was very straightforward.
Politically it is not just a local issue. The actual issue itself is a Stanford Florida, Seminole County issue. The Justice Department is looking into it strictly for political reasons at this point since the prosecutor at the local level hasn’t even made a final determination . I understand that with every other political candidate weighing in he had to address it. I guess my point is I would like it if politics would be kept out of criminal proceedings and that the federal government would stay out of local issues. I know neither will ever happen.
Probably. If hate crime charges are brought, it’d be a different issue (although I understand that’s not likely).
The Justice Department is involved because people are interested in this on a national leve, so you might as well say you wish people would only pay attention to federal cases. You’re correct that this will never happen, and I don’t think there’s a problem with other levels of government getting involved when local authorities botch things.
When you’re president, you need to be extremely cautious when commenting on ongoing criminal investigations or trials. Remember the fuss when Nixon let it slip that he thought Charles Manson was guilty. His comments were just the right tone- he wasn’t trying to imply that he thought that Zimmerman was or was not guilty. We can speculate all we want, we’re not president. As far as Trayvon looking like he could have been his son, that’s an honest reaction from a guy who’s the right age to be his father. Trayvon could have been any of our sons.
Sometimes you just have to not make everything a partisan issue. Obama made some very reasonable, cautious, yet heartfelt comments. I think he struck just the right note, just like Reagan (a president I loathed) did after the Challenger accident.
I admit I don’t know the laws every where. However, here it is not possible to have just a “hate crime”. In order for there to be bias charges there has to be an underlying charge. The bias part bumps up the jail time (see the Ravi/Clymenti case). Are you talking about a federal civil rights case?
No I wish that the feds only pay attention to federal cases. People can be interested in whatever they want to. Without all the information released yet it is my belief that the municipal authorities did not handle this correctly. But the county prosecutor isn’t even done with it. Too soon to know if things are botched at that level since it hasn’t even passed to the level of the state attorney general. But in general the feds don’t have jurisdiction when it comes to local laws.
If those statements were Obama putting his foot in his mouth, then please, keep doing it, because what he said was perfect and encapsulated the situation nicely. I’m sure glad he’s our President instead of the dumbass we had before
Yes. Again, it doesn’t sound likely, but it’s not impossible.
Yes, this was already botched in a huge way. Martin was killed on February 26, and it was not until March 19 that the state of Florida announced that a grand jury would look at the case. That’s the day after the Martin family asked the Justice Department and the FBI to get involved, and it was also on March 19 that the Justice Department said it was investigating. It’s possible all the evidence will be handled correctly and the correct procedures followed now, but it’s absurd that there was no investigation into this case for three weeks. I don’t know if that will affect the final results, but I think saying this was botched is putting it mildly.
You don’t know but you sure are acting like you do. So from now on, know this: Obama WOULD say it if it was a white kid too. He’s just that awesome of a president. Now that you know its not about race, maybe stop bringing it into the conversation? In fact, most people don’t know this but Obama was actually referring to his build when he said that, as any son of his would be a skinny just like him.
There’s nothing odd about empathizing with the parents of a slain child. To say “that could have been my kid” is normal, human, and kind.
And of course if Obama had only mentioned his own children, people might say he was being self-absorbed because his daughters are 13 and 11, and of course that’s totally different from 17, so why would the shooting of a 17-year-old boy make him think about his early teen and preteen daughters? There’s little sensible reason to object to any of this.
That is not exactly correct. The local PD stated they were not going to charge. It then went to the states attorney who makes the actual determination if charges will be brought. From what I have read the “states attorney” is not actually at the state level but is the prosecutor at the county level. He has the power to continue the investigation with their own investigators or just go with what has been done by the locals. It was during this phase that they called for the Feds. No determination had been made to charge or not at the county level. But I’m not sure what jurisdiction the Feds have if no federal laws were broken.
I disagree. There is evidence that anecdotally exonerates him, and evidence that anecdotally inculpates him. Why you would demand rigor for exculpatory evidence but accept speculation for damning evidence is unclear to me.
The police determination is part of the problem: it appears they conducted no investigation before making their decision. They found a lethal shooting of an unarmed man, took the shooter’s word that it was self-defense based on what I assume is their interpretation of the stand your ground law, and went on their way. They did not run a background check on Zimmerman, did not test him for intoxication, and obviously they did not arrest him. It’s patently ridiculous. Later they said they were not aware of any evidence contradicting the self defense claim and then had to admit they had missed the racial slur on the call to the police. You may be right that prosecutors at another level were in position to decide whether or not to bring charges, but there was an evident lack of interest at all levels and it seems the Martin family (and later their supporters) had to do a lot of their own agitating to get anyone to pay attention. That’s simply not right.
As I said in the other thread, when all is said and done and all of the information comes out, I would not be surprised if it is clear that the police department did a shitty job. But I don’t know what a background check would have done. The guy was arrested once for contempt of cop. Checking for intoxication is not standard practice. If he was noticably drunk maybe. Even then they would have to get his permission or a court order.
There is no way to know for sure what would have happened if this wasn’t put under a microscope. Quite possibly it would have been swept under the rug. There is some indication that prosecutors throughout Florida are reluctant to try cases like this after the SYG law was passed. The Martins did what they had to do under the circumstances. No doubt about it. But I really am wondering what the federal government can do. Its not enough that that people think they did a shitty job. The only times I have heard of the FBI stepping in was when there was severe corruption in a police department (like New Orleans) or a federal law has been broken. I’m not trying to be weaslley, I really don’t know. The only time I have dealt with the FBI it has been for things that are clearly in their jurisdiction.
Realistically, what the federal can do is light a fire under everybody’s ass by reminding them that people are watching this case very closely. That’s probably about the extent of what they can do.