Foot in Mouth syndrome

It's interesting to see Pres. Obama back-peddling so quickly on the Sgt. Crowley v. Prof. Gates issue. Let's be honest here; Obama made a jack ass of himself by jumping into a small local issue, not knowing the facts, rendering an opinion on the matter -- that the cops "acted stupidly" -- and thinking he would be safe in his position.

You can read the police report for yourself if that helps, but I'll also provide a gracious synopsis since we all know that clicking and reading would be too time consuming for most of us.

So, a nice neighbor of Professor Henry Louis Gates of Harvard called in a possible robbery in progress, also known as "breaking-and-entering" as she noted two men busting down the front door of her neighbor's house. Upon reaching the residence, Sgt. Crowley of the Cambridge Police Department (CPD) was intercepted by Lucia, the neighbor who called in the report, and she told him she saw two black men trying to enter the residence.

Sgt. Crowley then went to the residence, noted then Prof. Gates, and asked for ID to see if there was a correlation to the man in the house and the supposed owner of the place. (Remember, Crowley doesn't know who the owner looks like.) From there, race baiting begins immediately as Gates responds, "Why? Because I'm a black man in America?" He goes on to inform Sgt. Crowley that he "has no idea who [he's] messing with!"

When Crowley asked him to step outside to speak with him, Gates replied, "I'll speak with your mama outside..." Becoming louder and more angry, Sgt. Crowley eventually places Prof. Gates under arrest for disorderly conduct. The charges are quickly dropped, but the media's meat hooks are already deeply in.

Tell me, if you were in a similar circumstance, what would your response had been? If the officer was white, black, brown, or heliotrope? Let's put this into perspective even more: the door to your house is apparently jammed shut. You enlist someone else to help you bust it down. You make a lot of noise, maybe even swear because the friggin' thing won't open, but you finally smash it open. Suddenly, the cops are on the scene because someone reported a possible break-in. And an officer asks you for ID, and you say... Well at least you would be pleasant, right? I mean, it's the cops, with guns, tazers, handcuffs and the ability to haul your butt off to jail where fair beautiful people like me are traded for cheap commodities such as two half-smoked cigarette butts. *shudders*

Why Obama decided to get involved at all is perplexing to me -- it really could have been just a small footnote to an otherwise long day. But, Obama does have reasons to hate the Cambridge police department. While attending Harvard Law, Obama got 17 parking tickets in his 3 years there. He paid only two of them in 1990. He paid, or rather, the state of Illinois paid the remaining 15 a couple of years ago when Obama announced his bid for US President.

But let's get back to the real issue here, and that is one about racism. Prof. Gates had the uncanny luck of running into the police officer in charge of racial training for Cambridge. Not only that, a supporting officer at the scene, who is black, said Gates was acting strangely and that he supports the arrest 100%.

The point is that our president, adrift without facts, made an unnecessary judgment in favor of an apparent racist on an otherwise minor incident and in so doing, made himself out to be a fool now that many of the facts have come to light. Why would someone of paramount example to our nation do such a brash thing? Birds of a feather, perhaps? At first, Prof. Gates said he was going to sue the CPD for racial profiling. Since then, the CPD has come out and said they have the entire arrest on audio file, and not surprisingly, Prof. Gates now isn't so sure about his lawsuit. Not to worry, Prof. Gates, Sgt. Crowley is considering it for defamation.

And despite all this, Obama still hasn't properly back-tracked yet. Instead, he said that both parties may have "over-reacted" to the situation. The CPD says everything was done "by the book" so what more (or less) could have the police have done? Sure, Obama called Sgt. Crowley and invited him and Gates to the White House "for a beer," but this is way too drawn out. A simple, "my bad" would have sufficed -- end of story. And what I find truly odd is that Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson didn't jump on this. Maybe Obama usurped them. I dunno.

You can read an article that holds back no punches on the issue here, that delineates Obama to Gates and ultimately, racism. Worth a glance, if you are looking for a more in depth perspective.