Would You Have a Beer With Someone Who Slandered You?

I hope Sgt. James Crowley politely tells Barack Obama where to go with his invitation to come down to the White House for some cheap photo op. This mess is all the making of Henry Louis Gates and Obama. There should be no valid reason that Crowley allows himself to be used any further.

In an abrupt reversal, President Obama yesterday said he was wrong to criticize a white cop for arresting a black Harvard professor -- and he invited both to the White House to have a beer with him and talk about the incident that set off a national racial firestorm.

It was a sharp break from Obama's comments Wednesday, when he charged that the Cambridge, Mass., police "acted stupidly" by arresting Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., his friend, at his home near Harvard.

Two hours after his spokesman said Obama wouldn't be commenting any further on the matter, the president made a surprise appearance in the White House press room and revealed he had just called Cambridge Sgt. James Crowley, who had arrested Gates.

Obama stopped short of apologizing but said his impression of Crowley is that he is an "outstanding police officer and a good man, and that was confirmed in the phone conversation. And I told him that."

Ironic, isn't it, that Barack Obama has spent much of his first six months in office unnecessarily apologizing for perceived misdeeds by this country. Yet when it comes time to apologize for being so egregiously wrong in this case he refuses to apologize.

Our "post-racial" president has a racial chip on his shoulder the size of Texas.

When the tape of this incident is released Obama is really going to look bad.

Maybe then he'll actually apologize.

D'Oh! Cop Insulted by Obama is Racial Profiling Expert

I wonder if Baracky would like to remove the foot from his mouth now?

The white police sergeant criticized by President Barack Obama for arresting black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his Massachusetts home is a police academy expert on racial profiling.

Cambridge Sgt. James Crowley has taught a class on racial profiling for five years at the Lowell Police Academy after being hand-picked for the job by former police Commissioner Ronny Watson, who is black, said Academy Director Thomas Fleming.

"I have nothing but the highest respect for him as a police officer. He is very professional and he is a good role model for the young recruits in the police academy," Fleming told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The course, called "Racial Profiling," teaches about different cultures that officers could encounter in their community "and how you don't want to single people out because of their ethnic background or the culture they come from," Fleming said.

Obama has said the Cambridge officers "acted stupidly" in arresting Gates last week when they responded to his house after a woman reported a suspected break-in.

Naturally, those who are quickest to play the race card are usually the slowest to apologize for slandering people.

Obama spokesthing Robert Gibbs tried to weasel out of the mess today.

"Let me be clear, he was not calling the officer stupid," Gibbs told reporters as Obama landed in Cleveland for two health care events Thursday. He said Obama felt that "at a certain point the situation got far out of hand" at Gates' home last week.

He acted stupidly, but he's not stupid.

Thanks for clearing that up.

'I Don't Know All the Facts'

He doesn't know all the facts, yet he makes a judgment and calls a police officer stupid.

Nothing like being a post-racial president.

"I don’t know – not having been there and not seeing all the facts – what role race played in that, but I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home," Obama said in response to a question from the Chicago Sun-Times's Lynn Sweet.

Gates, Obama allowed, "is a friend, so I may be a little biased here. I don't know all the facts."

Oh, he might be a little biased, but it's OK to ruin an innocent cop's life and basically call him a racist.

For his part, James Crowley isn't backing down. Good for him.

“I just have nothing to apologize for,” he said. “It will never happen.”

More from Dan Riehl.

Update: If Obama wants to avail himself of the facts, maybe he ought to read the police report. Of course doing so would show Obama is a total chump and Gates is an angry racist asshole.