T onight is the Beer Summit at the White House in which President Obama will play host to Professor Gates of Harvard and Sargeant Crowley of the Cambridge police. Each man will drink the beer of his choice.
But this morning at hSis press conference, Robert Gibbs said the Ptesident would not be “mediatin g” any apologizes. The wire services took this to mean that no apologies would be forthcoming from anybody at the Summit.
But a new poll out today shows that 41 percent of Americans think the president handled this incident badly and only 29 per cent think he handled it well.
The President himself has admitted that his remarks about police “stupidity” added to the media firestorm surrounding the incident.
Should the President apologize?
What do you think?
Mountain out of molehill stuff, I think. It would be a real “teachable moment” if each of the three of them would have a chance to express what was behind each of their actions. No judgement, just an airing. I just read a piece from the Huffington Post about a white dude getting arrested and detained overnight and fined for expressing hatred for the police in the street. That could have been a “teachable moment” as well if the police handled it better. No one likes to be insulted, but, as a teacher, it had happened to me. I did not pull rank, but waited for things to simmer down before having a chat with the other party (who inevitably was having a bad day). There’s too much machismo in the police force, if you ask me.
I forgot about the uppity 72-year-old woman who refused to sign her speeding ticket. She was white and she got tased. YouTube link follows http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKohyVJYiEU
Somebody has to do something about the police forces in the USA (and we can recall similar cases here in Canada).
What do I think? I think I thought this whole “getting together over a beer” thing was a joke! Apparently not. From my Twitter site:
“BreakingNews White House pool: President Obama drank Bud Light, VP Biden drank Bucklers, Henry Gates drank Adams Light and Sgt. Crowley drank Blue Moon.”
So who needs expensive ambassadors to sort out world problems? Gear up the breweries and let’s get talkin’!
Obama started his press conference off quite well: he said he was biased because Mr. Gates was a friend and that he didn’t have all the facts at hand.
And then he went and made the “stupidly” remark.
He should have shut up after making his initial remarks and for not sticking to his initial position, he should apologise.