During a panel discussion on Meet the Press, New York Times reporter Helene Cooper rehashed President Obama’s infamous scolding of the Cambridge, Massachusetts police for acting “stupidly,” recalling that at the time Obama's take “made sense to me.”
In response to Chuck Todd noting that Obama aides say the president talks about gun control more than race relations because guns are “believe it or not, less polarizing” Cooper insisted that she doesn't “necessarily think that Obama has problems talking about race. I think that he has been jumped on a lot whenever he has in the past.”
The New York Times reporter then recounted the infamous Henry Louis Gates incident as evidence of how the president is “jumped on” whenever he talks about race:
I remember the Skip Gates thing back at the beginning of his first term where he said the Cambridge police behaved stupidly for arresting professor Henry Louis Gates for trying to go into his own house. And when he said it, I remember sitting at the press conference and thinking, that's what I thought.
That kind of made sense to me. And the next day, I remember writing a story and the next day came the backlash and everybody was saying, why is he going after the Cambridge police? These are police officers, blah, blah blah.
Cooper concluded her defense of Obama by asserting he was criticized for his comments in the Henry Louis Gates incident because he is a "black man":
I thought that sort of has dogged him I think for years ever since then. He gives his initial reaction and then that ends up being polarizing because of who he is and because he is a black man. I think when he has spoken about race in a real issue, he can be great on it. He can be awesome.
See relevant transcript below.
NBC’s Meet the Press
June 21, 2015
CHUCK TODD: You know, Helene, I had long conversations with aides, why guns, not race? And they were just saying, well guns, believe it or not, less polarizing.
HELENE COOPER: Yeah, it is sort of ironic. I don't necessarily think that Obama has problems talking about race. I think that he has been jumped on a lot whenever he has in the past. I remember the Skip Gates thing
back at the beginning of his first term where he said the Cambridge police behaved stupidly for arresting professor Henry Louis Gates for trying to go into his own house. And when he said it, I remember sitting at the press conference and thinking, that's what I thought. That kind of made sense to me.
And the next day, I remember writing a story and the next day came the backlash and everybody was saying, why is he going after the Cambridge police? These are police officers, blah, blah blah. And it was very much — I thought that sort of has dogged him I think for years ever since then. He gives his initial reaction and then that ends up being polarizing because of who he is and because he is a black man. I think when he has spoken about race in a real issue, he can be great on it. He can be awesome.
TODD: His symbolism may be more powerful than anything else.
