President Barack Obama Says Cambridge Police "Acted Stupidly" in Arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., Takes Heat for Comments

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I listened to President Barack Obama's press conference on changing the health insurance system from the mess we currently have. Overall, I was very pleased with his delivery, but most people won't remember the important points he touched on. They will, instead, focus on his comments about the recent racial profiling case involving Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the Cambridge Police. You will recall that Professor Gates was arrested for allegedly disorderly conduct -- a charge that was quickly dropped -- after a confrontation with a police officer inside his own home. Though some facts of the case are still in dispute, Obama showed little doubt about who had been wronged and I must say that I agree with him wholeheartedly.

"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 he 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." However Gates, he continued, jimmied his way to get into [his own] house."

"There was a report called into the police station that there might be a burglary taking place – so far so good," Obama said, reflecting that he'd hope the police were called if he were seen breaking into his own house, then pausing. "I guess this is my house now," he remarked. "Here I’d get shot." Source: President Obama

It is important for his critics to realize that he has been the victim of racial profiling in Illinois. He tirelessly fought against racial profiling during his tenure in the Illinois legislature.

"Separate and apart from this incident is that there’s along history in this country of African-American and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately," the president said, eagerly engaging the issue of racial profiling, a concern earlier in his career that has seen little White House attention to date.

"That’s just a fact," Obama said of profiling. "That doesn't lessen the incredibly progress that has been made." Source: President Barack Obama

I am sure the right wing will only hear the President's criticism of the Cambridge police and not bother to understand his position in the broader context -- racial profiling of blacks and Latinos is a big problem in the United States that continues to occur on a daily basis. I do believe, however, that the president should have refrained from calling the actions of the policemen involved "stupid." They did nothing wrong up to the point where they went to the home. President Obama rightly stated that racial profiling is still a problem in the United States, but he should have stopped short of attacking the Cambridge Police Department directly, unless he was privy to information we were not.