Obama Takes ‘Stupid’ Gates Police Arrest Primetime

By all accounts last night’s White House presser was a snoozer (unless you were following it via Twitter, which somehow makes even the most boring events fun) — apparently even Barack Obama can’t make Health Care reform interesting. So much so that it appears the big headline to come out of last night is that Cambridge police are stupid.

Yep, much as we speculated the other day, Henry Louis Gates-Gate made it into the nationally televised presser courtesy of the Chicago Sun-Tribune’s Lynn Sweet, who managed to squeeze the question in right at the end.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. Recently, Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was arrested at his home in Cambridge. What does that incident say to you? And what does it say about race relations in America?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, I — I should say at the outset that Skip Gates is a friend, so I may be a little biased here.

I don’t know all the facts. What’s been reported, though, is that the guy forgot his keys, jimmied his way to get into the house; there was a report called into the police station that there might be a burglary taking place.

So far, so good, right? I mean, if I was trying to jigger into — well, I guess this is my house now, so — (laughter) — it probably wouldn’t happen.

(Chuckling.) But let’s say my old house in Chicago — (laughter) — here I’d get shot. (Laughter.) But so far, so good. They’re — they’re — they’re reporting. The police are doing what they should. There’s a call. They go investigate. What happens?

My understanding is, at that point, Professor Gates is already in his house. The police officer comes in. I’m sure there’s some exchange of words. But my understanding is — is that Professor Gates then shows his ID to show that this is his house, and at that point he gets arrested for disorderly conduct, charges which are later dropped.

Now, I’ve — 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.

And number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcing disproportionately. That’s just a fact.

Wow right? Not only does Obama manage to make a joke about race in America, he just called the police stupid! (While admitting he hadn’t examined all the facts.) Perhaps the President should try his hand at blogging. (You can read his entire response here, or watch below.)

Will this be enough to land Gates-Gate back in the spotlight? The story, courtesy of Obama’s “vigor” has finally made its way above the NYT.com homepage fold. However, as one of our commenters advised us would happen, the story never really broke through on cable, aside from a few segments — naked women still rule the day! Also, how long until someone demands that Obama make a formal apology to the Cambridge police for calling them stupid?

What didn’t make it into the presser were the Birthers. Based on Obama’s skillful Gates answer one sort of wishes they had. The Twitter press room journos, however knocked out some funnies of their own on this topic. Next question: Is it possible last night’s Gates mention is enough to knock the Birthers off the airwaves, or do we need another naked woman/dead celebrity scandal for that?

share this post

filed under