Obama Shows his Gratitude to Police Unions
July 23rd, 2009“Stupidly”
What is it with Barack Obama and his junior high attitude? Why does a sitting President do Jay Leno, let his daughter wear a leftist peace symbol on a visit to Russia, and attack private citizens? Next he’ll be judging American Idol. “Uh, your singing isn’t very good. Uh, I would go so far as to say, ‘No, you can’t.'”
I was amazed when he stooped to bad-mouth Rush Limbaugh. Is this Presidential conduct? Maybe Obama should start a blog and post at Democratic Underground. Now he’s sullying his office by making wild accusations against the Cambridge, Massachusetts, police. He says they acted “stupidly” when they arrested Professor Henry Gates. And in the same breath, Obama admits HE DOESN’T KNOW THE FACTS.
Forget the Presidency. Let’s pretend Obama is just a lawyer, acting in his professional capacity, on television. No lawyer who deserves a license offers legal opinions without doing his homework. It’s fine, if you’re blathering on a blog or ranting in a bar with your beer buddies, but when you put on your suit and go to work, that kind of thing is supposed to cease.
Look at the result. We have a lowly Massachusetts police sergeant at the mercy of the liberal press, and their newest ally is the President of the United States. And Obama admits he’s going after Crowley BEFORE determining whether Crowley did anything wrong.
Imagine how that feels. Imagine being accused of screwing up at your job, and going home, and turning on the tube, and seeing Barack Obama flapping his lips about what a bad employee you are.
Instead of saying, “I am the President, and it is not my job to investigate, or comment on, trivial arrrests made by local peace officers,” he convicted the entire Cambridge PD without hesitation, and he used very harsh language while doing it. He didn’t even allow for the possibility of an honest mistake.
I would hate to be fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan right now, depending on this immature, approval-craving pop idol to back me up when I do my job.
Newsbusters put the police report up. Predictably and credibly, it says Gates acted like a jerk. He essentially dared the police to arrest him. If the facts alleged in the report are true, Crowley showed up to prevent Gates’s home from being burglarized, asked to see some identification, and tried to leave. Gates pursued him into the yard and berated him in front of the public. I find that very believable. The police can be obnoxious and tyrannical, but it’s pretty unusual for them to fabricate a reason for an arrest, in front of a gawking crowd.
Gates was cited for disorderly conduct. I don’t know what the elements of disorderly conduct are, under the controlling law in Cambridge. I would guess that wearing a McCain button would suffice. Before Obama pronounced judgment, he should have had one of his lackeys check the law and read the arrest report, and he should have spent fifteen or twenty seconds performing an analysis. Some law professor.
Obama went on to convict the entire American law enforcement establishment. He said this:
“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. That’s just a fact.”
What he didn’t point out is that we also have a long history of insincere minority activists slandering the police. Maybe that’s what happened here. But why wait to find out? President “I Won” doesn’t have to check the facts. He rules by prejudice, assumption, and fiat.
We also have a long history of cops showing up when people break into houses, as Professor Gates did. Maybe that’s relevant here.
The cops are hard on minorities. No question. The other day, someone told me someone he knew had been pulled over for having a light out on his car, and I interrupted and said, “That HAS to be a black person.” And sure enough, it was. I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. I know a lot of cops look for reasons to pull black people over. But if I were President, would I go on TV and indict millions of workers who constitute the front-line troops in the domestic part of my own branch of government? Uh–as Barack would say–NO.
I might say, “We need to continue working to treat minorities as well as the majority under the law.” I might say, “There is a continuing effort in our police departments to prevent disparate treatment of minorities.” I would not turn on the cops as a whole, sapping their morale and giving the green light to race-card players all over the nation.
Imagine if Obama had said this before the Simpson murders. O.J. was already spoiled by police (white and black) who refused to follow up on his transgressions against his wife. Think how happy he would have been, knowing the cops were intimidated by a kneejerk pronouncement from a President who doesn’t think. Ask yourself whether prosecutors would have been as likely to prosecute Simpson. From now on, every cop who has a legitimate reason to arrest a prominent black person will think twice before doing his duty.
This is a man with no maturity and no understanding. He’s like a green piece of fruit. The words “class” and “grace” are beyond his comprehension. His Presidency is coming to resemble the Jerry Springer Show.
How can anyone be surprised? This is a man who turned on the white grandmother who raised him, while penning a book in praise of a black man who abandoned him. What kind of treachery can be beyond a person like that?
I hope all the union-brainwashed cops who voted for Obama understand that their throats have been cut. I hope they realize they have been betrayed, and I hope they won’t be stupid enough to let their unions choose their candidates in the future. He sandbagged the Jews by putting the screws to Israel. Now he’s turning on the police unions. I wonder whose back will feel the knife next.
July 23rd, 2009 at 9:25 AM
I’m not so sure the cops in question _did_ vote for Obama. They just paid for his campaign.
I think the people that put him over the top and into office thought they were flipping channels. “This Bush show is Stupid. Let’s see what else is on.” The McCain show was on the same channel, so it lost out.
July 23rd, 2009 at 9:40 AM
He’s as good a president as he is a lawyer.
July 23rd, 2009 at 9:52 AM
Over 16 years I have been living or working in Central America, in various places doing a variety of things. Always hearing gringos remarking when they first arrive about the corruption and pettiness of public officials. Fools. They should have been paying attention to what was going on up there in gringolandia.
July 23rd, 2009 at 10:18 AM
Seems like nothing is below this guy’s pay grade.
July 23rd, 2009 at 10:53 AM
“It’s fine, if you’re blathering on a blog or ranting in a bar with your beer buddies, but when you put on your suit and go to work, that kind of thing is supposed to cease.”
I thought the very same thing. (I’m no lawyer. I just work for them. And I’ve never come across one who would DARE make a comment like that, especially in public. Good [and even most of the bad I’d imagine] lawyers are just too smart for that.)
July 23rd, 2009 at 1:16 PM
I’ve been stopped *twice* for having a light out, and I’m about white as you can get. I can’t even get a tan. The best I can hope for is to get enough freckles that if someone squints they’ll sort of merge together and make me look less white.
Both times I was driving perfectly safely and within the speed limit. Once out on the open freeway in the middle of Kansas, the other time in a small town in South Carolina. Both times the headlight had gone out that same day. The second time I even showed the cop the new headlight which I had stopped to buy on the way home.
I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the color of my skin (or the lack thereof) that got me stopped. That’s not to say that people of color don’t get stopped more often for such things, but it’s clearly not limited to them.
July 23rd, 2009 at 1:17 PM
I got stopped once. But the cop was black, so it was probably payback.
July 23rd, 2009 at 1:53 PM
TheGunGeek probably lives in a rural area. I’m white, and I’ve been stopped twice for having a headlight out, but I doubt it would have happened in the city.
I don’t watch TV, but apparently there was a televised interview with the cop today, and according to the blogger who watched it, the cop appeared “reasonable”. That’s what’s so stupid about Obama picking this particular fight. The cop now gets a bully pulpit of sorts, and as long as he doesn’t look or talk like a fat southern sheriff with an itchy butt, he’ll make Obama look bad.
Not that Obama needs much help in that regard.
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:38 PM
White and stopped. I got away with it since I had the replacement light sitting on the seat next to me.
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:03 PM
What’s an itchy butt have to do with anything?
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:41 PM
Forget all of the “Black and Hispanic” nonsense when it comes to getting “stopped” or “profiled.”
Unlike the TSA at airports Today the cops on the streets aren’t stopping my 76 year old mother checking for explosive tennis shoes and box cutters.
And forget all of the stupid Jesse Jackson/Al Sharpton pandering rhetoric about a “disproportionate” number of “blacks and Hispanics” in jail in “certain” parts of what we used to call “my country.”
Yes I’ve been stopped in my own 1977 Camaro thirty years ago guilty of being an Alabama Redneck kid spinning tires and having a tail light or head light out, but today look at the actual statistics on CONVICTIONS on carjackings and burglary and other personal assault and property crimes in many places like the DC suburbs and Detroit and New England and your home in Coral/Maimi and my old homes on the Georgia coast and in the Atlanta Suburbs.
Their arguments are inane and obtuse and unsupportable.
And besides the confrontation, I don’t care if you are guilty or innocent of the original suspician/supposed crime…you screw with the cops beyond a certain point or put your hands on them/assault them, you better expect that they will lock your stupid pompus butt up–liberal or conservative–as they should because they never know who they’re dealing with and everyone says their innocent while standing on the curb at 3 AM spitting and yelling.
BTW…This guy Gates represents why I haven’t paid money in the past ten years to go back to an Ivy league law school to get a degree which would allow me to work as a patent attorney…
Because I know that they’d give me B’s & C’s just because of my politics if they didn’t outright throw me out for my incredible “insensitivity.”
July 23rd, 2009 at 4:27 PM
“Let’s pretend Obama is just a lawyer, acting in his professional capacity, on television”
I think he is pretending he is president and acting in a professional capacity he doesn’t really understand. I think he actually knows nothing of most of America. He never lived anywhere in America except Hawaii, and certain prestigious schools before he moved to Chicago. Chicago is not a good role model for America.
July 23rd, 2009 at 6:42 PM
I’ve been stopped 3 times, in Dallas, Tampa, and DC for having a taillight out and I’m white, too. In Tampa and in DC, it was late at night. In Tampa, the cop actually ticketed me, and was pretty snotty about it (I had out of state plates, and he said something like “Here in Florida we care about safety.”)
July 23rd, 2009 at 7:49 PM
What’s an itchy butt have to do with anything?
Well, it might make someone squirm around in front of the camera, which would tend to reduce credibility. Speaking of which, the cop who arrested Gates is a police instructor who teaches a class on…wait for it…racial profiling. As in, this particular cop probably has about as good anti-racist bona fides as a cop can get, without actually being black. The chief says he’s a good cop, so Obama won’t be able to divide and conquer the department.
Press secretary Gibbs came out and said that Obama didn’t call the cop stupid. Well, okay. He said “behaved stupidly” or something. Stupid of us, I guess, to think that’s anything like calling the guy stupid.
Popcorn!
July 23rd, 2009 at 9:30 PM
I am so disillusioned by the fiasco that has become President of the United States of America…I did not vote for this fool, but I was prepared to be patriotic, and hoped and prayed the end result would not be what it is.
July 24th, 2009 at 12:50 AM
RickC: If you get that light fixed they will stop stopping you…
July 24th, 2009 at 9:13 AM
I, an extremely white person (nearly albino white), have been stopped on a few occassions where I was doing suspicious things or hanging around suspicious places at suspicious times.
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Yes indeed, minorities get a lot of focus from law enforcement. Some of it is unwarranted.
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But look at any major urban area and see where the crime and other bad behavior is concentrated. Who predominately lives in those areas?
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Simple idea, if you want your minority group to stop being the major focus of law enforcement, stop being the most active criminal minority groups. You don’t see a whole lot of negative Asian profiling complaints, do you?
July 24th, 2009 at 10:04 AM
Kind of depends on which Asian minority you’re talking about.
July 24th, 2009 at 10:08 AM
I had a guy attempt to assault me on the commuter train Wednesday night. He tried to wrap his hands around my throat. For no reason other than maybe I’m white. I’m not sure.
I blocked his hand and bladed up because it was coming to a fight. He started yelling and said, “We don’t have to take your s— no mo.” There were some other incoherent comments along those lines.
Clearly a thug, and clearly an ex-con from the jailhouse tats. But it’s telling as to where things are headed.
July 24th, 2009 at 10:12 AM
Here in Miami, the only place I would ever go on a train is the courthouse. And they have a no-gun policy, so that means riding the train unarmed. You would think they would let people check pistols at the courthouse door, but that would make too much sense. As a result, the many criminals in the downtown area can do anything they want to a person who has just come from the courthouse. It’s a very slimy area.
July 24th, 2009 at 11:19 AM
Yeah…they have little lockers for the police to put their guns in at the courthouse, why not make the lockers available for private citizens with carry permits?
July 24th, 2009 at 11:31 AM
Steve in tulsa: Yes, that’s true. On the other hand, the problem was that the bulb had melted the socket in the lens, so every year or so it would fall out. The bulb never actually burned out as such. Eventually I duct-taped it into place. I don’t have the car any more, either.
July 24th, 2009 at 8:59 PM
Heather McDonald on cop-civilian interactions:
The ACLU and other anti-police activists have alleged for years that blacks are the victims of disproportionate and unjustified traffic stops, a charge that has become received wisdom among large swathes of the population. It happens to be contradicted by drivers themselves. The Bureau of Justice Statistics regularly polls tens of thousands of civilians about their contacts with the police. Virtually identical proportions of white, black, and Hispanic drivers — 9 percent — report being stopped by the police, though in 2005, the self-reported black stop rate — 8.1 percent — was nearly a percentage point lower than the self-reported white stop rate (8.9 percent). The stop rate for blacks is lower during the day, when officers can more readily see a driver’s race.
As for urban policing — where the police have victim identifications and contextual and behavioral cues to work with — blacks are stopped more, but only in comparison with their proportion of the entire population. Measured against their crime rate, they are understopped. New York City is perfectly typical of the black police-stop and crime rates. In the first three months of 2009, 52 percent of all people stopped for questioning by the police in New York City were black, though blacks are just 24 percent of the population. But according to the victims of and witnesses to crime, blacks commit about 68 percent of all violent crime in the city. Blacks commit 82 percent of all shootings and 72 percent of all robberies, whereas whites, who make up 35 percent of the city’s population, commit about 5 percent of all violent crimes, 1 percent of shootings, and about 4 percent of robberies.
These figures are not police-generated; they come from the overwhelmingly minority victims of crime in their reports to the police. Such crime reports mean that when the police respond to community demands for protection against crime, information-based police deployment will send officers to minority neighborhoods where crime is highest. When the police respond to a call about a shooting, they will almost never be told that the shooter was white, and thus will not be searching for a white suspect.
July 25th, 2009 at 8:42 AM
What is the stop rate for trivial things like malfunctioning lights? That’s the issue. Black people are very conscious of the danger of driving with lights that don’t work, and white people are not. Redd Foxx referred to it on Sanford and Son, uttering the line, “Death to a nigger with one headlight.” I doubt that widespread fear developed in a vacuum.
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I’m white, and I didn’t even know it was illegal to have a light out until I was pulled over for a bad headlight when I was in my thirties.
July 25th, 2009 at 8:23 PM
I doubt that widespread fear developed in a vacuum.
I suspect it did. Some people walk around with a chip on their shoulders. They look for prejudice where none exists. I’ve seen any number of exchanges in New York City between blacks and white cops that I haven’t seen with civilians of other races – the encounters have invariably been very hostile on the part of the black civilians and super courteous on the part of the cops. Think of it as no different from anti-Semitism – it’s a cultural thing that gets transmitted from one generation to another. (In case you think blacks are incapable of prejudice, let me point out that genocidal inter-ethnic wars have taken place in many African countries, and most of the Asian populations from the colonial era have been evicted).
July 27th, 2009 at 12:22 PM
I always feel like I’m living in bizzaro world nowadays. I was reciting the Presidents to myself yesterday (trying to figure something out that was on TV), and I realized that it actually saddened me to say the O’s name at the end of the list.