Obama rushes to quell racial uproar

Saturday 25th July, 09:26 AM JST

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Triumvere at 06:54 PM JST - 25th July

Adendum:

I'll take a stab at a few of these:

If things happened the way Gates says, why did he insist on asking for the officer's name and badge number? Once he'd established who he was and that he was in his own house, why didn't he simply thank the officer for investigating the call?

Easy. Same answer to both of these: by this time Gates, rightly or wrongly, had already decided that his rights were being abused by a racist cop and that he wasn't going to take it lying down.

Why on earth would the officer handcuff Gates in the circumstances Gates describes...

Another easy one: to teach him a lesson. The officer decided that Gates was being disrespectful, and decided to haul him in to show him who's boss. Cuffs for maximum humiliation. Infact, if you lend creedence to Gates' account, the officer appears to have repeatedly tried to lure him onto the poarch so he could do exactly that; hard to arrest someone for "disorderly conduct" when they are inside their own property.

and if those were the circumstances, why did none of the other people standing around at the time, police or neighbours, object then or come forward later?

What sort of standard is this? How do you know they didn't object? Better yet, how do you know they didn't disapprove but declined to get involved all the same... happens all the time. Even better, what are you expecting them to object to? They weren't in the house when the initial exchange took place, so they had no way of judging the cop's behavior or to see if Gates was justified in his reaction. And no-one disputes Gates was vocally accusing the cop of racism and mistreatment from his porch when arrested. How many witnesses are coming forward to say how Gates was "creating a hazardous or physically offensive condition" from his porch?

Basically, what you are saying is "if Gates is innocent, why hasn't anyone stepped forward to put a stop to this?" Not exactly the sort of standard I want my justice system to conform to.
Madverts at 07:03 PM JST - 25th July

Triumvere,

"3) It is not against the law to be an a-hole."

Heh, and 4) It's an international phenomenen. And sadly, there's lot's of 'em.

Saliwind,

"I'd hate to see what he is like after he had few beers in him."

Agreed. I bet it's lite beer at the Whitehouse mind, not proper European beer :p
nandakandamanda at 07:08 PM JST - 25th July

Maybe Gates is timid way down inside there under all the black pride stuff.

Maybe he saw the white cop, made a racist analysis of the situation, and panicked. Who knows?

Behind all this 'racist' rubbish though, it's down to two male egos here. Not sure if sharing a beer at the White House will solve it, but put them both in a life-threatening team experience, and they might just begin to generate some respect for each other and be able to joke in hindsight about what after all has to have been the classic unscriptable situation. Fact is surely stranger than fiction! LOL
Sarge at 08:26 PM JST - 25th July

"knocked off stride"

Obama really should just stick to what's on the telepromter.
Badsey at 08:38 PM JST - 25th July

The "neighbor" was just walking by when she saw Gates and his accomplice trying to break in. =Most likely lived in the area and not next door = Most likely didn't know who the man with the cane (Gates) was. -This is sort of the racial profiling that Gates alludes to.

Thankfully Massachusettes has these "Nutter Laws" so people like Gates can be arrested and held until they are in a calmer state of mind. I believe the Nutter Laws were placed in the state constitution by the Puritans who also started Harvard as their first college (also first U.S. College). You got to hand it to the Puritans -they were so ahead of the game, but they were also the first to burn liberals who they classified as "witches"
Mocheake at 09:14 PM JST - 25th July

I wouldn't call Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton supporters in this issue. They are two of the biggest racists I have ever seen next to Louis Farrakhan and Malcom X....Sharky1 Yeah, and I suppose all the white racists just up and disappeared since whites so graciously elected a black president on the basis of his color and not his merit. Any cop comes to my house here in Japan or in the States and tries to arrest me is going to leave with his baton in a different position. I stand by Mr. Gates. Walk in different shoes and see the difference. Go to a place and get profiled over and over for no reason then tell me how much you all like it.
Wolfpack at 10:41 PM JST - 25th July

Sarge says:

Obama really should just stick to what's on the telepromter. Very true. Whenever he gazes away from his teleprompter he starts mumbling, uses alot of filler words - 'uh, umm, ahh' - and gets into long-winded statements that don't really mean anything. The race question however put him in his comfort zone. For the first time in the press conference, he answered a question directly, clearly, and without fumbling his words.

With his poll numbers declining and his domestic agenda in trouble, the last thing Obama needs to be doing is causing a national uproar over race. His efforts to tamp down the issue are made worse his refusal to apologize for singling out the white policeman. Ironically, he seems to feel that America is always wrong but he never is. Far from being "post-racial", Obama is unable to get beyond the racial sensitivities that he has for the preferred side of his own racial heritage. A president should never allow himself to be interjected into a local issue like this. However, he couldn't pass up the chance to go after a white policeman even though he didn't know any more details then the fact that his buddy Professor Gates was involved. He reflexively protected his friend and went after the working class white policeman.

This is the kind of thing that you get with a Left-wing ideology that is focused on peoples racial differences and not focusing on the content of each individuals character.
elbudamexicano at 12:36 AM JST - 26th July

Are there racist white cops in the USA? Sure, there are, but was this guy a racist? Maybe he just wanted to teach the Havard Professor a lesson? Sounds like Prof. Gates saying stuff like do you know who I am? etc...is a quick way for cops to get angry and for them to put sassy folk (of any color) back in their places. The proff. should have just said, hey the president of the USA is my personal homey, and you gonna get fired! I doubt that Obama will get him fired, too many liberal dems up in Massachussets that voted for him and who would like to vote for him in the next elecctions.
TheQuestion at 12:38 AM JST - 26th July

I'm not saying that you should trust Gates, rather, I'm saying that you shouldn't trust either of them. The truth most likely lies somewhere in the middle.

A bit paranoid are we? I'm not saying that nessicarily makes you wrong, I simply tend to believe uncontested police reports more than the gentlemen who played the race card the second he found out the officer wasn't a minority.

If we flip this around, and assume that the officer's report is true, then we still have the problem of that the conduct that Gates is accused of fails to raise to the standard of "disorderly conduct" as defined by Massachusetts State law, even if you take the officer's account verbatim.

I don't know, shouting and oppressive behavior towards and officer of the law in front of a growing crowd of onlookers seems to be proper justification in my mind. Just imagine if Gate's was an overweight shirtless man on Cops and was cussing and shouting at the officer, I doubt you would have an issue with a charge then.

Any cop comes to my house here in Japan or in the States and tries to arrest me is going to leave with his baton in a different position. I stand by Mr. Gates. Walk in different shoes and see the difference. Go to a place and get profiled over and over for no reason then tell me how much you all like it.

Hay, I see where you and other JT posters are comming from, profiling is annoying, I know, but I've always complied because the officers are merely acting on experience. In the place where I grew up most crimes are commited by hispanics, I happen to be of Cuban heritage, if a pattern exists you would be stupid to ignore it. So my parent's complied, I complied, and we even managed to get to know some of the officers. This kind of stuff still happens from time to time but I keep matters discrete and respectful in hopes my positive attitude manages to make an impact.
SuperLib at 03:39 AM JST - 26th July

The real problem is race relations, but the bigger problem now is how the US steps on our own you-know-whats when dealing with racial problems. We have a situation here where no one really knows that happened. It mostly has to do with emotions or gesturing, not necessarily physical actions, and to that extent we'll never really know exactly what happened. That's to say there's no clear cut answer either way.

So what do we do? We turn it into a race circus. Without any way of knowing exactly what happened this situation is an extremely bad case study for race relations, yet now it's on the front page of every newspaper in the world. The usual demands for apologies are being made when in fact we don't know if it's warranted. I'm sure there are hundreds if not thousands of clear-cut cases where an apology is in order, yet we're going to use this specific case to have the discussion.

Obama has already made comments and has had to soften them. The Governor is asking for an apology and calling it "every black man's nightmare." How can he make a statement like that with such fuzzy evidence? Because it's the usual knee-jerk reaction to racism, and in the end it doesn't even matter if the racism was real or not. It reminds me of the sexual harassment cases where in the end the specifics of the case took a back seat to the need to make people "aware" of sexual harassment. So guilt or innocence went out the window, it was simply used as a trigger for people to get their agenda out there. Sharpton and Jackson get involved and they don't ask if this cop did anything wrong, they start giving speeches about racism overall because it's an opportunity to do so. When you give general lectures about race when talking about this case then the guilt is suddenly assumed. We could very well have a situation where the cop did nothing wrong at all but it will be remembered as an example of race problems in the US.
OssanAmerica at 05:02 AM JST - 26th July

The police report is very enlightening. Hats off to Cleo fot that. I hope they release the recording of Gates ranting in the background. I really don't see any evidence of Crowley "escalating" the problem as it appears basically a unilateral verbal attack, lack of cooperation, and ridiculous attitude on the part of Gates. As for his getting arrested, once Gates followed Crowley outside and continued with his rant he was indeed guilty of disorderly conduct and his getting arrested was proper protocol. Of course it seems this race baiter may have been aiming for just that. The charges were subsequently dropped bot because of any fault in the arrest but clearly an effort not to make this a bigger issue. The bigger problem in my mind is that we've got a man in the White house who does't think before he talks, can't apologize when he's caught in error, and doesn't choose his words but calibrates them.
Triumvere at 11:53 AM JST - 26th July

A bit paranoid are we? I'm not saying that nessicarily makes you wrong, I simply tend to believe uncontested police reports more than the gentlemen who played the race card the second he found out the officer wasn't a minority.

Paranoid? No, just skeptical. A little skepticism is healthy. Police fake police reports all the time... a tactic when pulling people over for supposesd drivng violations is to claim that "they smelled of alcohol". This has happend in cases certain cases where it has been later proven conclusively that no alcohol has been consumed. Once again, this is not a knock at the police; I'm sure most officers are upstanding cops that don't falsify their reports, but just look at this logically:

Conciously or unconciously, the police report will likely be biased toward the officer, simply because he wrote it from his own perspective. Same is true of Gates' account. Now, add to that the pressure to potray youself in the best light given the level of controversy and what you get is two documents that should be viewed with a little bit of healthy skepticism.

As for his getting arrested, once Gates followed Crowley outside and continued with his rant he was indeed guilty of disorderly conduct and his getting arrested was proper protocol

Maybe elsewhere, but not in Massachussetts it wasn't. Once again, the definition of "disorderly conduct" as defined by the Massachusetts court has been posted, and Gates' behavior doesn't meet that standard.
LFRAgain at 11:59 AM JST - 26th July

" . . . to put sassy folk (of any color) back in their places."

Wow. We're just pulling out all the stops here today, aren't we?
Helter_Skelter at 04:49 PM JST - 26th July

Obama rushes to quell racial uproar

...that he helped create.
sharky1 at 11:23 PM JST - 26th July

Oh, and mocheake doesn't think the sharky gets profiled...I see you don't have all the facts either...