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There
has been a lot of squabble locally about President Obama's remark that
the Cambridge Police acted "stupidly" by arresting his old pal
Professor Gates last week. There are always two sides of a story, to be
sure, and maybe one side will be a little less vindicated when the
facts reveal themselves – but the real question is simple: why did the
President of the United States comment about a simple little arrest?
Was
it because Professor Gates is an old friend? Was it a racially
motivated? Was it a momentary lapse of rational thinking and just meant
to be a snippy little comment thrown towards the city where he had to
pay his parking tickets – 17 years later – before he could run for
President?
In an unabashed act of pure self-promotion, let's remind everyone of who broke that story: The Somerville News.
Typically,
when a politician does something so silly, it is to purposely distract
people and the press from another topic of discussion. That's an old
trick in politics. Unfortunately for the President, he definitely did
not want to distract anyone from his universal healthcare initiative.
You could see the uneasiness in his eyes and hear it in his voice when
he made that ridiculous statement about how he should have done a
better job "calibrating" his words more carefully.
President
Obama – you would have regained more respect back from the people you
insulted, had you just said "I never should have said anything, I am
sorry."
So now there will be silly debate over such topics as:
"well, he showed he is human," "the Presidential Office is bigger than
a common arrest," "he was speaking for every oppressed person of
color," and so on, and so on, and so on. The bottom line is simple: he
should have kept his mouth shut – it had nothing to do with him on any
level.
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