Obama had no right stepping in on this....I guess he's finally showing his true colors. Talk about completely undermining an entire police force and sending the wrong message. He had no business being involved in this..regardless of whether Gates was a friend or not.


http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/24/officer.g...rest/index.html

he should have kept it at the local level..friend or not. the cop and gates may have both been at fault (hot headed), but imo it begins with gates. the officer was responding to a call and needs to protect himself until he figures out what happened. gates thought he was a vip and overreacted.

Coudn't agree more...big time Harvard Professor shouldn't have to deal with a lowly local cop.....lets pull out the race card and play it for all the media attention we can get.

And the cop teaches???? {Drumroll}...........race relations to the department for the past 5 years!!!!!!!

he was put in that position by a person who was black too.

This story reeks of reverse discrimination to me. The police officer is well respected in the town and simply answers the call of citizen; responds to the situation in a calm, respectful manner, yet the Harvard professor goes completely insane, verbally abusing the cop for interrogating him (just doing his job). The officer arrests the professor, and the charges were later dropped anyway. So I'm not sure why Obama's running quickly to his defense considering the black professor IMO was clearly in the wrong in the way he acted. Then on the news conference (caught a little bit of it the other night) Obama essentially calls the cop a racist for what he did.

Overall, between this, the Georgetown incident, Obama's health care plan (I have some strong thoughts regarding that -- Dave, have you seen what he put in the bill about funds for people to come to homes with vaccinations? Seriously he wants to turn this into a communist country) and other things, has confirmed more and more why I didn't vote for him. And I think many people are realizing the mistake they've made now.

Hate to say it, but I think you're right. The bloom is off the rose and his approval ratings are dropping quickly. I thought he was highly overrated from the beginning, but we really didn't have any better alternatives so I think that made him look much better by comparison. His communication skills got him elected. He can campaign, but I'm beginning to seriously question his ability to be an executive.

Hate to get into politics because most have strong convictions and there's not much hope of changing anyone's viewpoint in either direction. However, I will simply comment that there seems to be a disproportionally high negative sentiment expressed towards Obama on this board's posts which is not representative of the prevailing viewpoint. Some of that was plainly evident during the campaign when you would have thought Obama didn't stand a chance of getting elected if you only read posts here, when in fact he won easily. There are always going to be gaffs, doubts, mistakes, policy questions, etc. with any president, and I certainly haven't been pleased with some Obama moves. However, he is still widely viewed in a positve light. He inherited two wars, an economic crisis, and countless other issues and challenges. Approval ratings are fickle and will ebb and flow over time. Tackling the present health care system is a bear that few would dare take on yet he has. I don't know the outcome of that, and wait for more details before deciding for myself on the merits, but I do believe that change is long needed and I appreciate that someone is pushing it. I certainly have no crystal ball and the future is an enormous unknown. However, if I was a betting man, I'd say Obama will likely waltz into a second term in '12. All of this is not to say that people shouldn't express dissatisfaction with Obama if that's how they feel. Just trying to inject a little balance into the dialogue.

The majority wanted him in but the majority is also not always correct. And I think many folks are realizing that now with Obama's approval ratings generally downward the past few months; 51% of the country currently disapproves of his actions thus far, much less than the near 65% approval back in Nov/Dec.

By the way, I consider myself as more of a centrist and not strongly liberal or conservative in politics. But one of the aspects that bothered me most prior to the election was Obama's take on health care, and he's taken the direction I expected (toward government control and overwhelming mandates). Also, contrary to his earlier promises about being an overall centrist president, he took a turn strong left as soon as he was elected. To each their own I guess.

Storm -- Easy to say that the majority is not always right (which I agree with BTW). However, there's no better system. Besides, exactly by who's definition would you like to say something is correct -- yours? Sorry but I disagree with yours. I know this discussion on a board has no effective conclusion so I'll say no more. However, I thougt it worthwhile to present a different viewpoint on Obama. Peace.

Robbbs -- I respect your opinion and that's what's great about this board. We can engage in civil disagreement without getting personal like they do on Eastern. I'm still giving Obama a chance and hopefully the economy turns around for the sake of all of us.

Storm -- Same sentiments.

still think obama needed to stay out of it, but he made amends with the officer, so thats that i guess. back to the situation btween the prof. and officers (the way it should have been) im not sure its a case of reverse discrimination as much as its a case of a man who "thinks who he is" complex gone crazzzy. it was very recent that his house was actually broken into! now he wants to find fault with the police that where there to protect him. he should have thanked the officers for responding so quickly, if he was the actual criminals, the police would have caught them. no he said, im a havard prof., ur white, im black, and im better than u.

All I know is that for a guy who is supposed to be so thoughtful and calculating, he sure has made a large number of awful statements in his first six months as President. I understand that he may be sensitive to racial issues due to his background and heritage but he should not have popped off about the police like that without knowing all the facts. And I think the professor is totally out of line; of course, he teaches at Harvard, so he's probably used to getting his @$$ kissed and told how brilliant he is. This time, he got his little ego bruised by the cop and couldn't handle it, so he went into a toddler-like tantrum.

Good to see people with difference of opinion having intelligent conversations..doesn't happen that often anymore.

This is kind of a segway from this topic, but since it was used I'll start here.

I'm currently having a discussion with a friend over the use of the term "reverse discrimination". Do we really need to have the word "reverse" added to it? Is there really more than one form of discrimination? It certainly has it's implied meaning but do we need that differentiation?

Do you have any take on this?

Maloga,

Discrimination can be a term utilized to describe a prejudice against any particular group of people, (most often a minority) whereas reverse discrimination involves the unfair treatment of the majority. For example, I see reverse discrimination in this latest situation as Obama took the side of the Harvard professor and essentially called the cop a racist for his actions (which were completely within fair boundaries IMO considering the poor behavior of Gates). Another example would be the preferrence of blacks over whites for admittance into a prestigious college (happens all the time nowadays). If the choice is between a white with a 98 GPA, 1600 SAT's, community service, several leadership positions, and a black with those same credentials, the latter will often take the spot; not all the time but a lot more than people like to admit.

Storm,

Perfect examples, and I agree with you that there needs to be a distinction, but my friend argues that it is exactly the same and there is no need for adding "reverse" to it, discrimination is discrimination. I disagree.


Semantics? Some may thinks so. I was just looking for some more wood for the fire.

that term simply implies that only whites can discriminated.

It almost seems to suggest that it's OK for minorities to discriminate against white people as some kind of "payback" for what has gone on in the past. As if anyone living today had anything to do with what went on decades or even centuries ago. Does racism still exist? Absolutely. But I think at some point, we need to stop carrying our grudges around and start looking at each other as humans first, instead of noticing the color of our skin or our last names first.

tell that to al and jesse...oh wait, then they would be unemployeed.

Exactly. They make their living by making black people feel like victims of "the man".

I was very disappointed in Obama on multiple fronts in this entire episode.

Well we'll just have to see if a beer at the White House will wash this all away. They still haven't said whether Gates is a beer drinking kind of guy. I hope they all get smashed, moon the press corp and declare war on Seattle.

I hope people realize that this is nothing but a PR stunt by the White House.

not sure what in the hell this guys was thinking?? don't see how he can defend his writing of racist words or how he can say he isn't racist? i do wonder if he can be terminated though. he went way over the line, but doesn't freedom of speech account for anything? so he should keep his job and people know who he is and let them judge if the want to associate with him. what a dope though!

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/30/gates.pol...logy/index.html

Conan O'Brien on the Tonight Show said that the beer summit got off to a rocky start when a neighbor called police to report that Gates was trying to break into the White House.

could have been obama...no?

gotta give it to crowley, seems like a good cop