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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (59395)	7/26/2009 7:11:53 AM
From: Bread Upon The Water	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

IMHO, Obama prejudged a local case wherein all the facts were still not known--and may never be known. (Depends on whose version is seen as being correct.) Furthermore, IMHO, this is not a case of racial profiling. Racial Profiling is when police officer (PO) stops a person and begins an investigation primarily based on the fact that he is of a certain race. Here the facts (as I am aware of them) are that a citizen who lived in the neighborhood reported to the police a possible break in in the neighborhood. That fact gives the police the right to investigate the complaint until such time as it is established that a break in is not going on. Gates, initially, only produced a Harvard ID card that didn't have his address on it. After this there is disagreement about the facts. The police version is that Gates was non-cooperative in establishing that he owned the house and furthermore acted in some manner that was disrespectful and hindering of the police in their investigation. I am not sure what Gates' version of the facts is, but I think it is something along the lines that he established ownership of the house and the police arrested him anyway because he is black. Gates may or may not have been disorderly (the white PO's partner who is black backs up his white partner on Gates being disorderly), and that is judgment call. But police all the times make decisions about who to haul in when they are getting yelled at. But, IMHO, Gates getting hauled in was about his conduct (or the perception of his conduct) and not his race. In any event, PO's do not have to take verbal abuse from citizens when they are discharging their duties. The question here is whether or not their was verbal abuse. If Obama wanted to talk about racial profiling in general and as to how that affects citizen's attitudes toward the nation's police forces--fine. But he didn't do that. He made a value judgment about the the PO's actions ( using the term "stupidly") when all the facts where not known--or were in dispute. This shows a vast lack of judgment on Obama's part and to his credit he realized it and more or less said so the following day. If Obama wants a second term he should pay attention to what we elected him to do (solve the nation's problems) and let the citizens of Cambridge, MA. worry about their police force.