Ready, Fire, Aim
Now you know why Obama needs his teleprompter:
President Obama made a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room Friday to address the spiraling controversy over his comments on the Monday arrest of Harvard Prof. Henry Louis Gates by the Cambridge, Mass., Police Department.
Just hours after Cambridge police union officials called on Obama to apologize for saying the officers involved in the incident behaved “stupidly,” Obama conceded that he erred in his “choice of words.”
Obama said he spoke to James Crowley, the sergeant who arrested Gates, “and I have to tell you that, as I said yesterday, my impression of him is that he was an outstanding police officer…and that was confirmed in the phone conversation.”
In my choice of words, I unfortunately gave the impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically,” Obama said, walking back his sharpest criticism.
Not to mention how utterly ridiculous it is for the president of the United States to use insulting language when shooting his mouth off over a local misdemeanor when all the facts are not known. (Which is why I had not bothered posting about it until now.)
I do not know who was at fault at this point, neither does Obama. The media is casting more heat than light at the moment.
I rather imagine that this little incident wasn’t polling well for the White House. Hence the Olympic quality rowing back on the issue.
Obamantics | Gaius July 24, 2009
By martian, July 24, 2009 @ 1:42 pm
I love that last quote, “In my choice of words, I unfortunately gave the impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically”. If he wasn’t talking about Crowley or his department, just who the hell was he talking about when he said,”The Cambridge Police acted stupidly”? Is there some new wrinkle to the English laguage of which I have not been made aware?
By Andrew X, July 24, 2009 @ 1:54 pm
Agreed, martian -
Here’s a good comparison. Amazon’s Jeff Brezos responding to the firestorm over Amazon deleting books from people’s Kindle’s without their knowledge -
“Our ’solution’ to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we’ve received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.”
Now Obama – “In my choice of words, I unfortunately gave the impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically..”
See the difference? SMELL the difference??
Of course you do. So does everyone else.
Except maybe the White House.
By Bleepless, July 24, 2009 @ 6:59 pm
I certainly concur with the foregoing comments by my distinguished colleagues. Permit me to make a prediction: Obama never will apologize.