Pres. backtracks from "stupid," which was smart

As everyone knows by now, in his Wednesday evening press conference, Pres. Obama had referred to the police acting "stupidly" in the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 

The word "stupid" is like the word "ugly."  It's embarrassing to hear it used in public about another human being.  You say pretty much anything else about somebody, even call them names, but call somebody "stupid" and everybody cringes.  He knew he had to backtrack, which he did--transcript of his remarks on the flip--and which was smart to do. 

The issue had less to do with race than class.  Henry Gates is a Harvard professor.  The policemen who arrested him are working class.  Pres. Obama--he who inquired as to the price of arugula during the Iowa caucuses--is already identified with the so-called "intellectual elite," which is fine.  He's a smart fellow, and, if we've learned nothing else over the past twenty years, we've learned that smart is good in a president.

What he doesn't want to do, politically, is anything which seems disdainful toward the working class.  He knows this, which puts him a leg up on people like Adlai Stevenson, who never did figure this out.

It was smart to call the arresting officer first, showing proper respect to the one offended, and it was smart to bring up that business about the three of them--the officer, Gates, and himself--having a beer together at the White House.  Having a beer together is the working class way of smoking a peace pipe, and makes the President look like a regular guy.

 

I wanted to address you guys directly because over the last day and a half obviously there's been all sorts of controversy around the incident that happened in Cambridge with Professor Gates and the police department there.

I actually just had a conversation with Sergeant Jim Crowley, the officer involved. And I have to tell you that as I said yesterday, my impression of him was that he was a outstanding police officer and a good man, and that was confirmed in the phone conversation -- and I told him that.

And because this has been ratcheting up -- and I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up -- I want to make clear that in my choice of words I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically -- and I could have calibrated those words differently. And I told this to Sergeant Crowley.

I continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Professor Gates out of his home to the station. I also continue to believe, based on what I heard, that Professor Gates probably overreacted as well. My sense is you've got two good people in a circumstance in which neither of them were able to resolve the incident in the way that it should have been resolved and the way they would have liked it to be resolved.

The fact that it has garnered so much attention I think is a testimony to the fact that these are issues that are still very sensitive here in America. So to the extent that my choice of words didn't illuminate, but rather contributed to more media frenzy, I think that was unfortunate.

What I'd like to do then I make sure that everybody steps back for a moment, recognizes that these are two decent people, not extrapolate too much from the facts -- but as I said at the press conference, be mindful of the fact that because of our history, because of the difficulties of the past, you know, African Americans are sensitive to these issues. And even when you've got a police officer who has a fine track record on racial sensitivity, interactions between police officers and the African American community can sometimes be fraught with misunderstanding.

My hope is, is that as a consequence of this event this ends up being what's called a "teachable moment," where all of us instead of pumping up the volume spend a little more time listening to each other and try to focus on how we can generally improve relations between police officers and minority communities, and that instead of flinging accusations we can all be a little more reflective in terms of what we can do to contribute to more unity. Lord knows we need it right now -- because over the last two days as we've discussed this issue, I don't know if you've noticed, but nobody has been paying much attention to health care. (Laughter.)

I will not use this time to spend more words on health care, although I can't guarantee that that will be true next week. I just wanted to emphasize that -- one last point I guess I would make. There are some who say that as President I shouldn't have stepped into this at all because it's a local issue. I have to tell you that that part of it I disagree with. The fact that this has become such a big issue I think is indicative of the fact that race is still a troubling aspect of our society. Whether I were black or white, I think that me commenting on this and hopefully contributing to constructive -- as opposed to negative -- understandings about the issue, is part of my portfolio.

Comments

[Hypatia]

Obama lived in Cambridge. Probably has a tale or two of his own to tell about the police department.

Remarkable how many people think it's okay for a policeman to take a man away from his house in cuffs because he didn't like his attitude, and that this was all Gates' fault for failing to kiss cop butt. It made me think, and not for the first time, of how many people would be quite comfortable under an authoritarian regime, once it was in place.