“There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good disposition.” –Thomas Jefferson
When a slick “community organizer” cons his way into the White House, you may be able to take him out of the hood, but you can’t get the hood out of him.
When Barack Hussein Obama interrupted a recent live media propaganda confab on his administration’s most critical national initiative (socializing health care) in order to accuse a local police officer of “acting stupidly,” he got more than my attention; he earned my disrespect — and that of most law enforcement offices and veteran officers across the nation.
I graduated from a state police academy at age 19 and worked as a uniformed patrolman for the next four years while completing my undergraduate degree. That was many years ago, but I can assure you that there is no such thing as a “former police officer.” You can take a trooper off patrol, but can’t get the patrol out of a former trooper.
On occasion when my kids and I watch the television program “Cops,” with its familiar theme song “Bad Boys” and cameras recording real patrol officers on pursuits and takedowns, they know that I am not so much watching the show as I am vicariously riding shotgun.
So when Obama used a national soapbox to unfairly chastise a local Cambridge, Massachusetts, police officer, Sgt. James Crowley, for arresting one of BHO’s comrades, Harvard professor Henry Gates, Obama also took a cheap shot at every sworn officer and veteran officer in America. It’s a big fraternity, and even a novice like Obama should have known better.
There is an old but good adage, which Obama might want to learn before even the most devoted of his disciples declares the emperor has no clothes: “When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging!”
Of course when a pathological narcissist like Obama finds himself at odds with reality, he inevitably endeavors to alter reality.
Unless you just returned from Mars, you undoubtedly know the sequence of events regarding the arrest of H.L. Gates for disorderly conduct. Turns out, the arrest was fully justified and, having “been there and done that,” there was no question in my mind from the start of this controversy that Gates blew a gasket, and the officer’s actions were justified. (Gates might also benefit from the “stop digging” maxim.)
In any event, Obama, who has himself been so steeped in a culture of ethnocentric elitism by mentors of racial hatred like his old “pastor,” Jeremiah Wright, could not help but assume that the arrest of Gates was the result of racism.
Gates under arrest
Under pressure from a black president, a black Massachusetts governor (Deval Patrick) and a black Cambridge City mayor (Denise Simmons), the district attorney dropped charges against Gates before any of the facts of his arrest were reviewed.
Obama said the police “acted stupidly,” Patrick protested that this was “every black man’s nightmare,” and Simmons concluded, “the incident of July 16, 2009 was regrettable and unfortunate.”
However, as I said, Gates’ conduct was, at best, disorderly, and the arresting officer not only used restraint and good judgment in his actions, but Sgt. Crowley and a fellow black officer have, for the last five years, been instructors for a racial profiling class at the Lowell Police Academy in Boston, and Crowley was handpicked for that post by a senior officer who happens to be black.
At noon last Friday, with all the facts in, there was a press conference called by numerous representatives of Massachusetts law enforcement associations and unions, in support of Crowley and condemning Obama and Patrick for there rush to racial accusations.
One of Crowley’s defenders, Dennis O’Connor, noted that Obama “used the right adjective but directed it to the wrong party” — that it was Gates who acted stupidly. Noting that Obama did qualify his remarks by indicating he did not have all the facts, O’Connor added, “When you don’t have all the facts, your next words should be ‘I have no comment.'”
Though Obama can extend the benefit of doubt to folks like Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, when it comes to a couple of local cops, he convicted them sight unseen.
Steve Killian, president of the Cambridge Police Patrol Officers Association called for Obama to “make an apology to all law-enforcement personnel.”
Not to be upstaged by the police unions, Obama made an unplanned appearance at a White House conference an hour after the Cambridge conference, to remake his case.
Receiving a reception similar to that George W. Bush received with his surprise appearance to have Thanksgiving dinner with our troops in Baghdad a few years ago, Obama’s unannounced appearance at the press conference elated his adoring MSM audience.
“Hey, it’s a cameo appearance. Sit down, sit down,” Obama said, like some Hollywood teen idol.
In one of the most contorted makeovers of his asinine remarks to date, Obama feigned “making nice” with Crowley and offered to have him and Gates as guests at the White House “for a beer.”
I am including a few Obama quotes below (with editorial reply), not only because he has dug himself deeper, but also because his comments were not read from a teleprompter. Consequently, the incidence of his verbal tick, “uh,” occurs at a ratio of 1.2 times for every 10 words. This is significant because for Obama, “uh” constitutes a “poker tell,” an unconscious cue that he is attempting to be deceptive.
When studying Obama’s unscripted comments, the occurrence of this tell at a ratio of 1/20 indicates his remarks are disingenuous. At 1.2/10, he is lying. (While the White House video mutes his verbal ticks and struck all of them from the text of his comments, you can read the full — and accurate — text of Obama’s comments here.)
“Uh, over the last day and a half, uh, obviously there’s been all sorts of controversy around, uh, the incident that happened in Cambridge with, uh, Professor Gates and the police department there. … Uh, and because, uh, this has been ratcheting up — uh, and I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up — uh, I want to make clear that in my choice of words, uh, I think I unfortunately, uh, gave an impression, uh, that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically — uh, and I could have calibrated those words differently.”
(I am certain that saying they “acted stupidly” constitutes “maligning.”)
“Uh, I continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that, uh, there was an overreaction in, uh, pulling Professor Gates, uh, out of his home to the station. Uh, my sense is you’ve got two good people, uh, in a circumstance, uh, in which, uh, neither of them, uh, were able to resolve the incident in the way that it should have been resolved.”
(Ah, they did not act stupidly, they just “overreacted.”)
“Uh, the fact that it has garnered so much attention I think is a testimony to the fact that these are issues that are still very sensitive here in America.”
(No, Obama’s comment garnered so much attention because it was, uh, stupid.)
“Uh, what I’d like to do then I [sic] make sure that everybody … uh, not extrapolate too much from the facts — uh, but as I said at the press conference, uh, be mindful of the fact that because of our history, because of the difficulties of the past, uh, you know, African Americans are sensitive to these issues. And, uh … interactions between police officers and, uh, the African American community can sometimes be fraught with misunderstanding.”
(What is clear, however, is that Leftist socialized programs ostensibly designed to give blacks a chance to attain the American dream, have spawned a subculture of nightmares, and there is no misunderstanding about the resulting disparity in criminal activity by race, or the burden that places on society, including police officers of all racial backgrounds, who have to deal with that burden.)
“Uh, my hope is, is that as a consequence of this event, uh, this ends up being what’s called a ‘teachable moment,’ where all of us, uh, instead of pumping up the volume spend a little more time listening to each other, uh … instead of flinging accusations, uh, we can, uh, all be a little more reflective in terms of what we can do, uh, to contribute to, uh, more unity.”
(The most teachable moment in this event was when Obama didn’t have the facts. As previously suggested, Obama should learn to say, “no comment.” The only folks flinging accusations were Gates, Obama, Patrick and Simmons.)
Sometimes both white and black officers overstep their authority, and on occasion, that is motivated by racial tension. But it is difficult to avoid race-based profiling when the felonious crimes committed in our country are perpetrated by a grossly disproportionate number of black and Latino males. “And, that’s just a fact.” (Yes, yes, I know, victims of “the man,” one and all…)
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Mark Alexander
Publisher, PatriotPost.US
And a footnote: Regarding Obama and the Cambridge Police Department, you may recall that between 1989-1991, while a student at Harvard, Obama received 17 citations for offenses like parking in a bus-loading zone (how insensitive to those who must rely on public transportation). According to the Associated Press, Obama’s citations and late fees were paid by somebody “two weeks before he officially launched his presidential campaign.” I suppose he thought those citations were the result of racial profiling and thus, did not need paying.