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I am going to go ahead and make a snap judgment here and say that men in authority ought not make snap judgments and brash statements. It seems that our current president is finding that it is much easier to be a rock star and make carefully crafted speeches with the aid of a monitor than it is to be the insightful leader he claimed he would be.
So far, Obama has been more incite-ful than insightful. While in the midst of ramming his socialist agenda down the throats of the American people, he stopped down to give commentary on an unfortunate incident, saying that a Cambridge policeman who arrested the Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates acted “stupidly.” He may be right. I don’t know for sure, because, like him, I don’t know exactly what went down on Mr. Gates’ front porch.
What I do know is that the so-called leader of the free world acted stupidly when he – no doubt feeling the pressure of militant minority leaders who have lamented his lack of attention to their agendas – felt it necessary to knee-jerk and offer an official statement and stance on the incident. Yes, official. When the president of the country makes a statement about anything, he does so “officially,” especially when the statement is measured and delivered as this one was.
This is the president’s statement as reported on Boston.com:
Now, I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played. . . . But I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately, the president said. That’s just a fact.
I have no beef with some of what Obama said. But when you read his opening remark, the qualifier – “I don’t know, not having been there…” – you might anticipate that he would curb his enthusiasm for lowering the hammer of “acted stupidly” on the head of a man who was in a situation the president knew nothing about. His conclusion is as stupid as any act he might have been judging. To say “I don’t know,” and then declare, they “acted stupidly” shows a lack of judgment and a faulty line of reasoning.
The result of Obama’s statement was that law officials and their representative groups across the country felt insulted and undermined by the chief executive of the land.
Quoting from Boston.com:
Cambridge Police Commissioner Robert Haas said yesterday that his department was deeply pained and his officers every much deflated by Obama’s remark. It deeply hurts the pride of this agency, he said at a news conference, where he defended Crowley’s actions.
The world loves to laugh at George W. Bush, the man who could hardly open his mouth without butchering the language in some capacity. Tired of the belly-laughing, we Americans elected ourselves an “intellectual,” a man of letters. And what does he do before the paint is even dry on the White House walls? He makes fun of the disabled on The Tonight Show and then undermines police work everywhere by uttering his vitriolic assessment of the way one officer did his job.
Good thing he is so smart and able to weasel his way out of these verbal gaffes…or he would look pretty, um, stupid.
Like Forrest Gump’s momma said, Mr. President, “Stupid is as stupid does.”
And now for an honest, thoughtful, and thought-provoking commentary on the subject…
