Publicly supporting a personal friend of his looks bad, when he’s the President of the US. The fact that he acknowledged his bias doesn’t make it any better, any more than saying “I don’t mean to offend you, but …” means that no offence can be given.
Because he’s the first African-American president.
He had to answer.
If I were black, I would have been very disappointed if the President punted the question.
As it is, I’m quite happy he’s pointing out the state or race relations in the country and not trying to pretend that racism doesn’t exist.
We need to have this conversation.
Because he was asked the question, and dodging it is a coward’s tactic. Not a fatally bad one, if you don’t make a habit of it, but if you’re trying to bring transparancy to the presidency refusing to answer questions isn’t exaclty step one.
Seriously. The problem here isn’t that he commented on the situation. The problem isn’t even that he used the question as a springboard to point out that racism is still a problem in police actions. The problem is that he called something a cop did in the line of duty “stupid”. If he hadn’t done that, we would be having this discussion.
What about this incident has anything to do with race? I’m not seeing it.
A very classy statement by Obama about the issue just now. I am always impressed by his ability to defuse a difficult situation. As for his initial statement, I think it was correct on his merits though politically not very wise. That it was blown so ridiculously out of proportion does not reflect well on US political culture but was completely predictable.
White cop, black man arrested.
Now, that doesn’t mean that racism had anything to do with the actual arrest - and Obama quite explicitly didn’t say it did. However, this is more than suffucient as a springboard to launch a comment on the subject of race relations, since clearly some people think racism may have had something to do with it.
Read post 196. Twenty years without a complaint. I never saw a cop post that he had a bad day and a citizen suffered because of it. Cops rarely admit making mistakes . It would be a sign of weakness.
Officer Crowley made one.
And Obama did that entirely without a teleprompter, too. 
These facts are in dispute. The officer says he DID provide his information, and that he went outside to communicate on his radio, and that said Gates could talk outside IF he wanted to.
What is “screaming”, anyway? Who is entitled to make that call? Did someone phone in a complaint? If not, doesn’t that mean that the cop decided, on his own authority, that the “screaming” involved reached some legal threshold?
I really don’t like that part about “I’m going outside, so if you want to rag on me some more, you’ll have to follow me.” Sounds too much like challenging, raising the stakes. If he knew that being outside would change the situation, shouldn’t he be obligated to advise?
“Sir, within your own home you have some rights and privileges that don’t extend out of your own home, sir. But, sir, if you follow me outside and continue ‘screaming’, I will be obliged to arrest you. Sir.”
It’s not cowardly to admit that you don’t know enough about it to comment. It’s in fact stupid to make comments about it even when you admitted that you don’t know everything about it.
From the cop’s point of view, it has nothing to do with race relations. It has everything to do with a professional victim who thinks he can abuse a cop just because he can cry ‘racism’ at the top of his lungs. Heck, Obama’s campaign used it in his campaigns to great effect - why shouldn’t his buddy?
That’s a step in the right direction. He slandered an upstanding public servant, he needs to put that right with a personal apology.
Bravo to President Obama for being the bigger man and stepping up this afternoon. I bet that what really happened was two alpha dogs fighting for their own authority and it quickly became a pissing contest. Gates taking the position that its my house and get the hell out while the cop figuring I am the power and you do what I say. Sounds like nobody was in the right or wrong here and everybody needs to take a step back like Obama just did and try for some understanding of the other guys position.
He regrets inflaming the situation. He has not apologized to the Cop, nor do I think he should. In my view Obama rightfully clarified his view that the arrest was a stupid action and that intelligent, upstanding people are perfectly capable of committing stupid actions. Conflating stupid action to stupid cop is the fault of others. Obama stand by his opinion that the Cop overreacted.
Obama is taking the stance that both Gates and Crowley should have. He’s admitting he said something that did nothing to help the situation so he regrets that. That’s what a mature person does. Neither Crowley nor Gates come even close to that level of maturity or clue-fulness.
You can, of course, substantiate these charges, without the advantage of telepathy? Proof, for instance, the Mr. Gates shouted “racism!” at the top of his lungs. Proof that Obama leveraged racism to his advantage (!!!) during the election. Proof that you are entirely familiar with the cop’s point of view. He spoke to you, did he? Gates too, apparently, must have called you right away to scream about racism.
Don’t be modest, tell us how you know so much hidden from us mortals.
Oh, and of course, proof that Mr. Gates is a “professional victim”, whatever the bleeding fuck that is!
It was the right thing for Obama to say. He knows that he shouldn’t have gotten involved and is rightly backing down. I don’t think he needs to apologize to the police man at all. He shouldn’t have gotten involved with the matter at all so that’s that. I think this will all blow over soon enough but I think he has hurt Obama with moderates. The Obama nuts who think he walks on water will remain unconvinced but it’ll leave a bad taste with a lot of people.
A bat taste that will be forgotten in about a month or so.
I’m curious to hear the police tapes.
Yup. So all Obama fans, please come forth and have your thesaurus handy and come up with the obligatory praises. Nevermind that he was stupid to have inflamed the situation as you so state. Nope. That doesn’t matter. Nevermind that in his initial response, only the cop and “race relations” got mention - his friend was faultless. Yes, please do so until you feel the tingle run up your legs.
I also think it’s childish and hypocritical of the cop and cop union to steadfastly state that no apology will be issued to Gates, but when Obama calls the arrest stupid, they all cry and demand an apology from Obama.
Now that’s stupid.
Uh, no. Obama specifically states that he feels Gates overreacted too.