Someone at the Associated Press got a headline mostly right ("Obama rushes to quell racial uproar he helped fire") -- although you still have to wonder if it had been almost anyone else, if something along the lines of "xxxx stops short of full apology" would have been used instead.
AP writer Nancy Benac's story does note a couple of clear negatives in Barack Obama's behavior in the Henry Gates matter, but it also lapses into blather about "the nation's keen sensitivities on matters of race."
Benac also blew by an incendiary comment by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about the President's police union critics reported earlier today at the Politico -- "I think the Fraternal Order of Police endorsed McCain, if I'm not mistaken" -- that surely would not have been ignored had a Republican president's PressSec had made a similar statement about a Democrat-endorsing group. It as if, in Gibbs's world, partisanship is the only reason the FOP defended officer James Crowley.
Here are key paragraphs from Benac's report:
Knocked off stride by a racial uproar he helped stoke, President Barack Obama hastened Friday to tamp down the controversy. Obama, who had said Cambridge, Mass., police "acted stupidly" in arresting black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., declared the white arresting officer was a good man and invited him and the professor to the White House for a beer.
Obama conceded his words had been ill-chosen, but he stopped short of a public apology. He personally telephoned both Gates and Sgt. James Crowley, hoping to end the rancorous back-and-forth over what had transpired and what Obama had said about it.
.... Hours earlier, a multiracial group of police officers had stood with Crowley in Massachusetts and said the president should apologize.
It was a measure of the nation's keen sensitivities on matters of race that the fallout from a disorderly conduct charge in Massachusetts - and the remarks of America's first black president about it - had mushroomed to such an extent that he felt compelled to make a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room to try to put the matter to rest. The blowup had dominated national attention just as Obama was trying to marshal public pressure to get Congress to push through health care overhaul legislation - and as polls showed growing doubts about his performance.
.... The president did not back down from his contention that police had overreacted by arresting the Harvard professor for disorderly conduct after coming to his home to investigate a possible break-in. He added, though, that he thought Gates, too, had overreacted to the police who questioned him. The charge has been dropped.
Obama stirred up a hornet's nest when he said at a prime-time news conference this week that Cambridge police had "acted stupidly" by arresting Gates, a friend of the president's. Still, Obama said Friday he didn't regret stepping into the controversy and hoped the matter would end up being a "teachable moment" for the nation.
Oh, it was "teachable," all right. One lesson is that an AP writer covering Obama can wait until the sixth paragraph to report the President's long since-refuted claim that the police overreacted. Another is that a Press Secretary's blatant politicization of a clearly non-political event can be ignored at the Essential Global News Network and still meet whatever remains of its journalistic standards.
Commenters can weigh in on other lessons learned.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
—Tom Blumer is president of a training and development company in Mason, Ohio, and is a contributing editor to NewsBusters
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I'd be having more fun if this President was not a train wreck.
July 24, 2009 - 23:56 ET by JWFLesson Learned: Chicago politics does not work well outside of Chicago. Do you know who I am? No, can you measure the level of my concern? Here is a microscope.
Lesson Learned: 87 year old black men should not be throwing out your mama insults. Or at the very least, they should be funny when they do.
Lesson Learned: Disabled people can get arrested too. Police officers are very fit. The 2 of us can carry you to the Police vehicle. Watch out for that doorway...(bop) oooooooh. Sorry.
Lesson Learned: When throwing the race card at white police officers, ensure there are no black police officers witnessing the race card throwingness.
Lesson Learned: 87 year old men should not be carrying around backpacks. 25 year old men should not be carrying around backpacks, fanny packs, or luggage on wheels. You are a man. Act like one. Wallets. Briefcases. Suitcases.
Lesson Learned: Fix your door. Ah. Ah. Ah. Shut up. Fix it.
Lesson Learned: I am not arresting you because I am racist. I am arresting you because I am analist. I hate buttholes.
Lesson Learned: I woulda knocked but your door appears busted. Fix it!
Lesson Learned: ID please. What is this? an FOO card? Friend of Obama's? Sorry, not gonna work. Why don't you just hand me a Get out of Jail Free card moron. Yes, I know who you are. The biggest douche I have met today.
Lesson Learned: Please follow me outside to where all of the witnesses are waiting. (Oh jeeze, that worked? And this guy is a perfessor?)
Lesson Learned: This is a horrible horrible horrible President. Stick to your waffling statements on Georgia, Iran, and Honduras. Waffling works much better for you. Definitive statements on stupidity when you admit you do not have all the facts. Yea, don't work so well.
Lesson Learned: What? You have still not fixed that door?
Lesson Learned: ID card? Sure officer. You'll notice the picture on that ID card matches the ones above the fireplace mantle and the many in the photo albums throughout the house. I know, I am an idiot. I should have fixed that door long ago.
Lesson Learned: Police Officers are trained not, I repeat not to lose their temper. Think you will win a shouting match with a Police Officer? Think again.
Sincerely,
a Veteran of a 1000 psychic wars.
You are very optimistic
July 25, 2009 - 00:02 ET by general companyThinking they learned anything, very funny too!!
My Gov. thinks I am dangerous, so be careful
"Television is a freak show" Bernie Goldberg
JWF
July 25, 2009 - 00:26 ET by MrShyYou seriously gotta let me know to put my drink down before you post something that ingeniously funny.... DANG !!!! :)
EDIT: I am posting this on my fb page, if that's okay :)
Sure big guy.
July 25, 2009 - 00:54 ET by JWFHave at it.
I think the President
July 25, 2009 - 06:00 ET by motherbeltI think the President learned one lesson too:
Never, ever say anything unless it's on the teleprompter!
Lesson Learned
July 24, 2009 - 23:58 ET by ParagrouperPontification hurts--absent facts, Mr. President. You should have us all up for a beer.
"Beware the fury of the patient man." - John Dryden
My eyes rolled when I heard
July 25, 2009 - 07:08 ET by karelingMy eyes rolled when I heard Obama say "teachable moment"--wasn't that term coined by the MSM lapdogs to lovingly describe his long-winded blatherings at pressers?
Another "teachable moment"
July 25, 2009 - 11:01 ET by ReaverLast time I heard that phrase is when Obama compared his bowling to the SpecialOlympics. This man is way too self absorbed to learn from his mistakes.
If stupidity got us into this mess,
then why can't it get us out?
--Will Rogers
And right now.....
July 25, 2009 - 07:32 ET by GecksJoe Biden is kicking himself !!! Seems Obama is more and more often encrouching in his territory of "open mouth, insert foot".
Gecks
Says Joe: It's all about
July 25, 2009 - 07:40 ET by motherbeltSays Joe: It's all about one thing...that three-letter word: R-A-C-E!
one more.
July 25, 2009 - 07:43 ET by JWFLesson Learned: Relax. You have a black mayor, a black governor, and a black president. If the white man is trying to keep you down - Big Fat Fail.
Politics
July 25, 2009 - 08:49 ET by iveseenitallSomeone once told me, "they'll be politics in Hell". Gibbs remarks show what this is all about for these Washington guys--politics. To bring this entire issue, with all its ramifications, down to those who supported McCain is pathetic. It demonstrates their mentality. Nothing done in Washington these days is for or about the American people (or the state of the world in general). This is a political game for them. People in Washington are working in a vacuum. It is what is so frustrating to the American people. It's like watching a bad soap opera. Wahington "elites" do not understand (nor care about) the American people. None of what Barry and the Congress has done (stimulus, cap and con, heathcare, business takeovers, etc.) has been for the American people, as Barry promised it would be. People's lives are not improving. Most politicians are dishonest, sick individuals-- that's the history of the world. But also in history is the fact that, sooner or later, the people say they have had it and they throw all the bums out! Be they royalty or dictators, they eventually go. History always repeats itself and it usually isn't very pretty.
NEVER,NEVER trust a "liberal"
Race Baiting 101
July 25, 2009 - 08:41 ET by HumblepieWith all the statements and comments being thrown from political figures and other twits. Why don't I find it funny that only white people can be a racist. As a former law enforcement office, I know that responding to a break in is stressful enough as you'll only have the basic information at best. While investigating, you try to keep radio communication with your base, its your only salvation if things go south. Upon meeting someone, you control the situation until you determine the identity(s) of said individual and proceed from there. If at anytime, suspects/individuals become belligerent, you try to move it outside (hopefully backup arrived) to help contain the situation. If the individual continues to be belligerent, you ask them to calm down and if forced to, arrest same. Does not matter what color you are.
We now are reaping what the lib's have sown. Black people say they are afraid of the cops. Why is that? Could it be that they have been programed into believing it from their own family and/or environment? Instead of teaching children respect they continue to regurgitate the general belief that cops are evil and you should always run away or lie to them. When all else fails, just use the race card. Now we have a President that is teaching another generation or two that it's okay, cops are always bad and we must make examples of them just because your black.
We are now a society that believes that it's never our fault, it is someone else. Why own up to your stupidity when you can blame it on others because of the color of your skin. Here's a clue for you Professor Gates, admit your stupidity and your lame excuse for using the race card. Teach your students to be responsible for their actions. And for you MR. PRESIDENT, if you react this way without know all the facts, what does that say about your ability to lead this county and to make "informed" decisions. And Mr. B.O., if you want to see the new face of racism, you and your "friends" just need to look in the mirror.
Quick! The gene pool needs more chlorine.
Gates
July 25, 2009 - 10:18 ET by iveseenitallGates is 58. Like so many blacks of his era, he is living in the past. His prejudices and paranoia are the ones which are alive and well as demonstrated in this incident. Who brought up the race issue? But the more insidious aspect of this is that his generation won't let go and are literally indocrinating hatred for whites in the minds of young blacks ( God DAMN America). This can be seen in the remarks of Barry Soetoro at the press conference. And it is not a coincidence that Gates is a university "professor" (teaching at Harvard with only a BS degree). He's there, as so many of them are, to put chips on the shoulders of black youth because of real or imagined wrongs. They just won't move on. This is not the America of 50, much less 200 years ago. Gates is doing a disservice to those he is "teaching". Barry "the Cambridge police acted stupidly" and "I was never so proud of my country" Michelle are prime examples of the disrespect for America and its traditions that guys like Gates are fostering in young black citizens. And it's not just a coincidence that another of Barry's "friends" is filled with rage against the white man. Sad.
P.S. What a shame that the POTUS is involved in this. The economy is in shambles, 10+% unemployment and hyper- inflation on the way, Americans dying in a war, the Middle East not stable by far, Iran and N.Korea want and may already have nukes--- on and on. But, of course, he is a Community Organizer. The deeds of Badman Whitey are his forte. God help us all.
NEVER,NEVER trust a "liberal".
Re chips
July 25, 2009 - 10:29 ET by slickwillie2001Well put. Gates is living in the past because his career depends on it. He has nothing else; he is a both a product of the race grievance industry and a chief benefactor. In the interview I posted last night he says that he wants to make documentary films now for PBS or HBO. He is basking in his newfound fame.
Now sadly, he and the Bamster's new volley of propaganda will be absorbed by blacks across the nation. The next time a black is pulled over, or deals with police in any way, they will assume they are being dealt with differently than a white person would, because the President says that's what happens. They may react aggressively because of that and might end up in jail or worse. All because our President shoots his mouth off without thinking.
A good message for everyone
July 25, 2009 - 10:07 ET by ParagrouperVery good comments Humble. One thing you said I feel is very important for everyone to do--not just teachers.
"Teach your students to be responsible for their actions."
I've read or seen numerous people in the media--even our President-try to justify Gates actions. There's even a few clowns posting on this website that somehow this cannot be Gates' responsibility--and our children watch and learn.
All of us are equal and should be treated so. But with our equal rights there must also be equal responsibility or we will never be truly equal. Thats the "new face" of racism.
"Beware the fury of the patient man." - John Dryden
July 26, 2009 - 15:07 ET by jessieHGibbs is a second string "yes man". obama is a first string racist.