
It’s been one bad week for President Obama as he foolishly put his foot in his mouth. His true character came to the surface during his largely unsuccessful healthcare infomercial on Wednesday evening when asked about the arrest of Harvard University professor and Obama friend, Henry Louis Gates Jr., who was arrested for disorderly conduct after belligerently accusing a policeman of being racist against blacks.
Obama’s comment that the policeman acted “stupidly” has created much controversy, and the president was forced to come out with a sort-of-apology to quiet down the uproar over the incident, especially now that his poll numbers show that his overall approval rating has for the first time dropped below 50%. Hip, hip, hooray!
Why was Obama so quick to judge the policeman for racism? Could it be a lingering resentment for white people that Obama has carried since his youth?
Before the election, I read his book “Dreams from My Father” and observed that Obama was obsessed with the issue of race. Add that to his twenty years as a student of Jeremiah Wright, and the result is one angry black man. Isn’t it interesting that Obama is friends with a Harvard professor who is clearly a racist himself? Birds of a feather flock together.
The amazing thing is that his presidential victory should have alleviated any such racist feelings. After all, white America played a huge part in electing the first black president.
See what Rush Limbaugh has to say about Obama’s comment on his friend’s arrest, via Newsmax:
Limbaugh Blasts Obama's Reaction to Gates Arrest
“Reacting to the escalating firestorm over President Barack Obama's comment that a much-decorated Massachusetts cop ‘acted stupidly’ in arresting his friend Henry Louis Gates Jr., Rush Limbaugh blasted the president for mimicking the black supremacist thought of his longtime mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Instead of dodging the question and staying above the fray, Obama provoked a firestorm when he criticized the police. In doing so, Limbaugh said, Obama fell back on the leftist teachers of Wright and early mentors during his years as a community organizer in Chicago.
‘I think what we learned last night, ladies and gentlemen, is that President Obama did, after all, listen to Reverend Wright all those 20 years,’ Limbaugh said on his show Thursday. ‘He says, “Yeah, I was a member of the church 20 years. I sat there and I didn't hear any of that.” I think he heard it all. That question he got from Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times, that's when he came alive. The rest of the press conference, he didn't even want to be there. He knew that they were in trouble, so he goes out there and tries to dazzle everybody with his professorial insight and capabilities and elegance and all that.
‘But when that question about Henry Louis Gates and the arrest in his home came up, why, it was passion, excitement, animation, fire! He came alive. That question was, “Mr. President, recently professor Henry Louis Gates was arrested at his home in Cambridge. What does that incident say to you, and what does it say about race relations in America?”’
‘A loaded question if I have heard one. This is a liberal idyllic panacea, Cambridge, Harvard. It's liberal everything. So now we've got racist cops profiling a distinguished Harvard professor — who to my eye, every time I see this guy on TV I see somebody enraged. I see somebody angry. He's a liberal, they all are.’
Limbaugh said the more likely scenario is that Gates had a ‘chip on his shoulder’ and provoked the police officer.
‘In the first place, what we now know is that Gates was not arrested sipping tea sitting on his sofa legally in his house. He followed the police out of the house screaming at them. How else would neighbors know he was belligerent? That's when he was arrested. He wasn't sitting in a couch sipping tea daintily. He was screaming at the cop there to help protect his property. I've also learned that Gates' house had a history of having been broken into. This is why the neighbor called. There are a lot of break-ins in this neighborhood recently. In fact, there was damage done to Gates' door.’
‘So I've long thought that there's a chip on the shoulder here, and that there's a little anger out there at the country based on who his mentors, associates, all that were. Gates was not “stopped.” This was not a profiling case. Let's review what happened. To the best of my knowledge, a neighbor sees Gates . . . A friend and driver of the car, in addition to Gates, tried to get in the house. Gates and one other person. And some neighbor said, “Whoa, what was that? That doesn't look right.” They called the police. My first reaction would be to thank the neighbor for looking out for me. But I guarantee you the neighbor is also going to be, before this is all over, a racist. In Cambridge now. We're talking Harvard, Cambridge!’
Limbaugh found it implausible that police in the liberal community of Cambridge would treat a black elderly man with disrespect. He likened the escalating media uproar over the case to the one-sided coverage of the discredited rape of a stripper by members of the Duke lacrosse team.
‘It may as well be Duke,’ Limbaugh said. ‘May as well be the lacrosse team here. May as well be that dancer. Gates and a friend break in, and the cops show up, and apparently all hell breaks loose inside the house, handcuffs and so forth. Obama doesn't know what all happened — and we don't, either. There are five or six different versions of what went on in there. We still really don't know. Bill Cosby has come out today in Boston, and he can't believe the president would say what he said about this admitting he doesn't know all the facts. So Obama wasn't quite through. After taking this incident, where Gates was not stopped. He was not pulled over. The cops were called there by somebody in the neighborhood. This was not a profiling incident. ‘
Finally, Limbaugh pointed out that Obama, much like Gates, is hardly a victim. Both men are at the pinnacle of an elite establishment in the United States.
‘He doesn't know the facts, he wasn't there, he pops off, just exactly as he would back in Chicago in the community organizing days. He goes off about racial profiling, all the rest,’ Limbaugh said. ‘Based on what? A limited amount of information about a single incident where he's quick to condemn the cop, the whole police department, and white America. Mr. President, you are not a victim. You are, in fact, the president of the United States. You went to private school. You went to Ivy League schools. You are a millionaire. You have a charmed life. Congratulations. You're living the American dream. Stop pretending otherwise. If anybody behaved stupidly yesterday it was the president, in even taking the question.’”
UPDATE: President Obama sure knows how to pick his friends. Dr. Gates On Whitey: "Malcolm X Was Talking About the White Man Was the Devil... It Was Great"
UPDATE 2: Brit Hume makes a good point: President Who's Always Apologizing For America Couldn't Apologize For Himself
3 comments:
I think Obama went too far saying "stupidly"... but I have little doubt that the poice sergeant was at fauly here. Both Sgt Crowley and Prof Gates overreacted, but if you read Crowley's own report, you see what happened. Gates yelled at him, Crowley suckered him into going outside (because the acoustics in the Gates' kitchen were bad!) and, as soon as they got outside, Crowley arrested him. I'm willing to give Crowley the benefit of the doubt, especially given his background, about the racism angle. But he was almost certainly a cop who resented having his authority questioned, so he slapped the cuffs on Gates to show him who was boss. Crowey's a police sergeant; he's trained to DE-escalate volatie situations, not escalate them. Once Crowley determined that Gates was in his own home, he shhould have bit his tongue and left. THAT'S HIS JOB and he didn't do it. Yelling at a police officer is not a crime, not yet. Both men overreacted, but it was Crowley's job NOT to overreact.
Well, did you listen to the police tapes today? It shows, for sure, that Sgt. Crowley clearly abused his authority, arresting Prof. Gates for (at worst) disrespecting Sgt. Crowley and his momma. And it doesn't help disabuse anybody of the notion that it was racially motivated.
Crowley says he was told that the possible suspects were two black men. Ooooops. No he wasn't. The neighbor woman, when asked, said she didn't know, and that MAYBE the shorter one was Hispanic. NOBODY SAID BLACK.... except Crowley, in his official report.
And Crowley, in his report, says about 20 different things happened to escalate the situation, which led to Gates' arrest. Except, if you check the police tape, all those things had to happen in only 28 SECONDS.
Ooooops.
I agree with Obama when he says he could have calibrated his statement differently. But, looking at it now, saying the Cambridge police "acted stupidly" may have been the nicest thing he could have said.
Hello;
The video of this blog is missing. I went to the various youtube videos posted by americasnewstoday1 & they all have been removed by youtube.
I hope this is not another 1 of youtubes censorship.
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