Your Mama!

Let’s stipulate up front that we’ll stipulate a lot in this post but that the strange engagement of President Obama in a local controversy in Cambridge, Mass., is worth looking into. This is the case of the black Harvard professor who apparently broke into his house after being locked out, which led to someone calling the police to investigate. When the cops arrived, they eventually arrested the professor after he was combative and refused to follow the police officer’s order to either enter or exit the house. The professor maturely taunted the officer with, “Ya, I’ll speak with your mama outside,” according to the police report.

First, let’s stipulate that we don’t yet know all the facts. But for the sake of argument let’s stipulate that the facts are what is known from newspaper accounts.

Why would the president insert himself into what amounts to a minor disorderly conduct charge when he held a nationally televised press conference to promote his healthcare legislation that is tanking in Congress and in public opinion polls?

Secondly, let’s stipulate that the president had an eloquent few sentences to say on the topic. I happen to think it was well-said. It was not well-thought-out.

“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. 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 enforcement disproportionately, and that’s just a fact.”

In an incident in which he knew virtually none of the facts outside of what was in the newspaper, the president managed to say the cop “acted stupidly.” He defended the professor’s actions because they occurred in his “own home,” which was known to the officer but irrelevant to why he was arrested. He ratcheted up the racial rhetoric by essentially accusing the officer of “stopping” the man — as if this were a traffic stop, when, in fact, a neighbor had called 911 with a report of a burglary — and through an ad hominem attack said the officer was engaging in racial profiling. And even yesterday the president continued to defend his statement in a media interview, although the White House tried to pull back on the “stupid” comment.

What has this gotten the president?

* A real-live controversy
* A major distraction from his legislative goals
* A split with his base as the law enforcement unions strongly back up the officer
* Significant damage to the president’s ability to work on race relations as he again defends some interesting characters with colorful activities
* Damage to his veneer of being more politically adept than most

Next time the president gets a question at a press conference that he should so obviously not delve into, he should just evoke the professor’s own words and tell the reporter, “Your mama.”