Longtime reader previews the press coverage we can look forward to after Obama’s comments on the Henry Louis Gates case:
Tonight sums up where we are in America: the headlines are all about, not how to get to secure and affordable health care, the preeminent social inclusion issue
relevant to millions of American families, but about African American Obama defending his millionaire friend Skip Gates on the race issue! (Yes, the Cambridge police were stupid, but so was arrogant Skip, who lost his temper and is turning it all into self-promoting race fiction.)Race trumps social-economic justice: just what the right wing wants, and just what has repeatedly derailed possibilities for redistributive reform since the 1960s.
This was Obama’s best chance to get through to millions of ordinary
Americans on health care — and he blows it, with self-obsessed Skip Gates, the race-obsessed press aiding and abetting all the way.
It’s a funny thing. When I was watching the press conference tonight during the Gates question, I think I must have looked away or maybe been writing when Obama made the “stupidly” comment. Because I didn’t hear it. But I don’t think it changes my mind or my original impression.
Now there’s a flood of para-commentary: not necessarily what he said, which is inconveniently unremarkable. But are we surprised that he said it? Should he have gone into such detail? What’s the fallout?
The political press is all atwitter over this, a bit like just after two high school kids square off for a fight but just before the punches start flying. But let’s be honest: this is all about a black guy getting on the side of another black guy who got crosswise with the cops. Why would he touch such a powder keg? Like it’s going to ignite at least one more battle in the late lamented Culture War.
Hopefully now Obama can appoint Gates to the Supreme Court so we can have the Republicans create a media circus when the cop who arrested Gates testifies at Gates’ confirmation hearings.
Here are some salient facts. The house was Gates’ house. From what I understand, no one disputes that prior to his arrest and while in the house, Gates provided proof that the house was his. When you have those facts and the guy whose house it is ends up getting arrested, I think that’s prima facie evidence of bad police work.
We certainly can’t know it was racism. And perhaps there are extraordinary facts that would show the arrest was proper — that all the escalation came from Gates, was unwarranted and left the officer no choice but to arrest him. But I think the assumption has to be that the officer mishandled the situation. Because we hire the police to protect us from burglars breaking into our homes, not to arrest us in our own homes if we get a little miffed at being mistaken for burglars. Police are trained to prevent situations like that from escalating. They’re professionals. And I suspect that people who actually train recruits in best practices policing procedure, as opposed to political analyst and GOP press secretaries, would probably agree with that.
I’m failing in my efforts to feign shock that the president said it.
President gaming out what might happen to him if he were caught trying to break into the White House.
Sen. Jim “Waterloo” DeMint (R-SC): Obama “has lowered the discourse.” That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
We get regular complaints from readers who prefer reading text to watching video. For you, the transcript of last night’s press conference.
Jon Stewart to Lou Dobbs: Do you even watch your own eff-ing network?
Shocked? Yeah, a bit. But not all that much. A prominent anti-health reform activist, who recently joined two Republican members of Congress in an online anti-reform town hall meeting, has been caught circulating a photoshopped picture of President Obama as an African witch doctor, which he finds “funny”.
Rep. Heath Shuler (D-NC) refuses to say whether he lives in the C Street house “because of privacy issues.”
Late Update: Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) is getting antsy about his C Street connection, too, when asked about it on a conference call with reporters:
“I will not discuss what goes on there, because I’m not there. … Are there other activities going on there? Yes. But what goes on and things like that, I don’t know. I have my room there.” …
“I have a room there. And I participate in a Tuesday night dinner once in a while there. … So there is no regimen. There is no group stuff I have to do. … You guys … are grasping at straws that’s not there. I rent a room there.” …
“I almost have to chuckle at your questions,” Stupak said. “No. 1, I don’t belong to any such ‘group.’ I rent a room at a house on C Street. I do not belong to any such group. I don’t know what you are talking about. … I have no affiliation. I rent a room at C Street.”
Classic.
A very intriguing series of arrests in New Jersey this morning where the feds, claiming to be busting up an international money laundering ring that allegedly includes the “trafficking of body parts,” have picked up a bunch of mayors, rabbis, and lower level government employees. It’s not clear yet the scope of the investigation or how far it extends beyond New Jersey (some New York rabbis were arrested, too). We’re looking into it at TPMmuckraker and will bring you more through the day.
Late Update: TPM Reader SP flags this angle:
Hoboken Mayor Peter J. Cammarano III, who was taken away by the FBI today, was sworn in on July 1. Granted he’s been a councilman since 2005, but, still, did he just set some kind of record for the official most quickly arrested for corruption? Even for NJ, 22 days is awfully fast.