The President Weighs In

Recently Cambridge Massachusetts police confronted a man entering the home of Louis Gates, a prominent scholar in African American studies at Harvard University. The man was entering through the back door. The police were responding to a call by neighbors that someone was attempting to break in to the Gates' home. According to the Cambridge police the man became beligerent and was arrested. To be fair, the police did at that time know that the man was actually Louis Gates, the owner of the home. Mr. Gates charged that the arrest was racially motivated. The President weighed in saying the police "acted stupidly" and then pointed out that Hispanics and African Americans are stopped more often than white people. It would be easy for me to say the president "acted stupidly" because weighing in on a situation where the race card is being played sounds stupid to me; however, that's not what really gets my gander up in this case. My real problem with the whole affair is after all the facts come out, it's looking like the Cambridge Police acted appropriately for the situation and the only possible racist is one Mr. Gates and the only thing the president has to say while backpeddling is, "I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sgt. Crowley specifically." It's not that you gave "an impression" Mr. President, it's that you did malign them. There can be no other impression or interpretation of the phrase "acted stupidly" particularly when you follow it up with support for Mr. Gates accusation that the arrest was racially motivated by weighing in with your own belief that Hispanics and blacks are stopped more often than whites. Interestingly enough there was also a black officer who was present for the confrontation between Sgt. Crowley and Mr. Gates and that officer fully supports the actions of Sgt. Crowley and the arrest of Mr. Gates. I think it's time for the President to stop backpeddling and just apologize. My real advice is to just not get involved in things like this until all the facts are known.