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"I should say at the outset that Skip Gates is a friend, and I may be a little biased here. I don't know all the facts." – President Barack Obama responding to a reporter's question at Wednesday's primetime news conference.
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I was hoping that President Obama would ignore the bait, that he‘d brush aside the question about Henry Lewis Gates’ now-infamous arrest.
Going there, I thought, was a no-win trap. Besides, with so many global issues resting on his Oval Office desk, it’s simply not presidential to get caught up in a low-level pissing match, especially when you concede not knowing all the facts.
But Obama did respond, and he gave his honest opinion.
And guess what: I have to agree; the Cambridge police did act “stupidly” in hauling Gates to jail.
I say that, for the purposes of this blog, assuming that every word in the police report is true, that Gates did became loud and petulant, that his did call the investigating officer a racist, that he did say "You don't know who you're messing with."
Truth is, a man who has committed no crime, standing in his own home, can legally say just about anything he darn well pleases, short of actually threatening the officer.
Still, as I said in my earlier blog, I suspect Skip Gates doesn’t have entirely clean hands in this unfortunate mess, which has now become a referendum on race relations in America.
As a writer asked on the Guardian Web site: “Why was a brilliant 58-year-old scholar unable to talk down a less educated cop trying to do his difficult job in the scholar's own home?”
(Again, read my earlier blog.)
For possible clues, look no further than a recent interview Gates gave to his daughter, Elizabeth, which was published on The Daily Beast.
Said Gates: “My house. I mean, he was there investigating? He should have gotten out of there and said, ‘I’m sorry, sir, good luck. Loved your PBS series—check with you later!’ If he would have given me his card I would have sent him a DVD!”
Assuming his daughter's quote is accurate, it seems that part of the insult for Gates may have stemmed from the fact that this intrusive white cop didn't immediately recognize him – and accord him due deference.
Only two people know for sure what happened inside Skip Gates’ Cambridge home that day, and their accounts differ wildly. So in a racially charged case of he-said-cop-said, please, Mr. President, leave the uninformed speculation to barbershop debaters and bloggers like me.
I need your presidential laser focused on health care.
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