Black Harvard Professor arrested after breaking into his own home?

that may be, but in my opinion, screaming at a cop has less of a purpose than playing drums. I see screaming at a cop that he is a racist as having no purpose.

 

Obama reacted hastily on this one.

How can Obama use harsh words here against the police but not against Iran? If he is going to be diplomatic to our enemies, he should be diplomatic to the local police.

He shouldn't comment strongly on this, it takes the spotlight away from the incident and puts it on him.

He said he doesn't know the fact but then passes judgement. That's not right.

I think Obama answered the question poorly.

But all in all, it's still not a big deal.

 

but unfortunetly the media is eating it up.

 

Obama: Let's talk about my health care plan

Reporter: Why did you say the police were 'acting stupidly'

Obama: uh ......... uh

 

Did you really just compare the Iranian election mess with this? I don't know how many LOLs and rolleyes to put to show how ridiculous that is.

edit:

 

the media sensationalizes everything - doesn't mean it will stick

 

Nope - I did not compare the two.

I love it how when you bring up two different situations in the context of how a president should act - all of a sudden people say you are comparing those two situations.

Iran is nothing like this situation. But this isn't about Iran, it's about Obama, if anything he should be tougher with iran and more diplomatic with our own cops, not the other way around.

 

Glad somebody else see's it the way I do.



Gates may have been a dick to the cop, but he didn't break any laws. The cop didn't arrest him because he was racist, but it's looking to me like he was getting back at him for calling him a racist and talking about his mom.

 

why didn't he just give him his ID? Dumbass. of course he has to make this into a big deal

 

You're right, Obama acted hastily...not a shocker to me, though. So why would Obama do this? He admitted he didn't know the facts yet, but still rushed to a judgment about the cops that acted "stupidly"...hm...why did this happen...

Well, I'll just say what most people think but probably won't say, although I know some around here would, the reason Obama rushed to a wrong/incorrect conclusion is because the Harvard professor is supposedly famous, a "scholar", he's from Harvard, and he's black...*gasp*. That's right, I said it. The Harvard professor, in the news, is called a "prominent scholar", etc. etc. The man's a joke and if he made the comments that the police officer alleges (about the cop being a racist) he's made than he's most likely a racist himself. I don't understand how people get away with this crap nowadays, it's sickening. This man's been waiting to give some white cop a piece of his mind and he got his chance. To make things worse, the President takes his side before he knows any facts of the case and pretty much calls the police "stupid". What a joke.

I hope I'm wrong about this and that other facts come out later because this disgusts me.

 

The law doesn't say you can't make noise without a purpose. It says you can't do it to cause public annoyance or cause alarm. And it's not about your opinion, it's about the LAW.

It's funny that he tries to make it sound like it was Gates's fault that some people started showing up infront of his house. Maybe if the officer hadn't called other officers to the scene, people wouldn't have come out to see what's going on. After hearing Gates talk, I seriously doubt he can yell loud enough for people in the neighborhood to have heard him inside. And don't tell me that in the few seconds he was outside, multiple people heard him and came running down the street and gathered infront of his house.

 

This is a growing problem. People aren't even bothering to read the story and commenting on things that didn't happen. Please explain where you read or heard that he didn't show the officer his ID?

 

"Gates — the director of Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research — initially refused to show the officer his identification, but then gave him a Harvard University ID card, according to police."

He gave him a Harvard school ID, not a real ID. Showing him his real ID would have proven his residence and there would be no problem

 

I think it is obvious he was trying to create alarm about his situation. Drama queen is he.

 

Correct. Pretty stupid of a HARVARD professor. All the school ID says is his name, his title, and the school's name. So what was his intention of showing his school ID? That he's a professor therefore he cannot be a bad person? Stupid. Maybe he never heard of the Unibomber, who became a math professor at 25.

 

The President conceded he didn't know all the facts, but then actually did a fairly decent job of recounting most of them, and even initially commended the neighbor for calling the cops. Maybe as a trained lawyer, he's a little more confident about bluntly and instinctively criticizing a cop's behavior; the extra stuff about "race still being a factor" could be due to his race, ideology or just the fact that he's a politician being asked a question about race.

Although, the leader of the free world probably wouldn't have been asked about this during a nationally televised prime-time press conference about a controversial, high-profile piece of legislature if he weren't black. Just because any remotely competent or ambitiuous journalist wouldn't have wasted that kind of an opportunity to basically change the subject. (I'm black, and I wouldn't have.)

 

I'm confused. Are you saying since he is black, even though he worked hard for education, job, and other perks that he has, he should be thankful because we was given a free ride by the white community?

what crime was he guilty of?

 

You make great points that are very logical but I don't agree at all with the highest ruler in the land making comments that police acted "stupidly" when he claims he doesn't know everything about what happened. Those people risk their lives for average people daily. It's careless, in my opinion, even if it was just to take sides on something like this.

 

Is it illegal to be belligerent toward a police officer? I'm not asking to try to make a point or use it against somebody. I honestly want to know. I know the police can probably trump up some kind of charge to fine you, arrest you, etc. but is it right?

 

I think Casey is saying that Obama's presumably positive personal experiences, mostly in the company of whites, undercuts a claim of victimhood.

That's an equally flawed statement, though, because it implies that Obama's experiences were like those of other blacks, or that the whites outside of Kansas or Hawaii or wherever were the same as whites everywhere.

But the possibility that some blacks somewhere interacted with some whites in the same place that were mean to them doesn't mean that whites everywhere should be made to feel...I gotta take a knee.