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Beer's Vile Anyway
Jul. 25th, 2009 06:46 pm“President Obama expressed regret yesterday over a comment that has plunged his administration into a polarizing national debate over race, and he invited the two men at its center - a white police officer and an African American scholar - to join him at the White House for a beer.”
- “Obama Regrets his Police Words”, Philadelphia Inquirer
Alright, maybe I’m weird, but this would really annoy me if I were Professor Gates. I mean, there’s no way he can politely turn down the invitation without looking like the bad guy. That doesn’t strike me as very fair, since it seems to me he’s entirely within his rights to maintain a grudge for the rest of his life rather than having to agree to a meeting with the police officer who he, presumably, would much rather never see again in his life.
I mean, hell, I’ve had plenty of confrontations with authority figures in my life. Sometimes I was in the right, sometimes I wasn’t, most of the times when I was in the right I handled the situation extremely poorly. Now it seems to me that Gates probably didn’t handle the situation particularly tactfully. On the other hand, he was being accused of breaking into his own house then being handcuffed after offering proof of his identity, so it’s pretty understandable that he wasn’t in a very charitable state of mind.
But then Obama decides to weigh into the discussion of the incident. Not entirely of his own choice, he was asked about it, but he could have been non-committal from the beginning. Instead, he makes the - fairly understandable - statement that he thinks the police were pretty stupid to do what they did. A day later, surprise surprise, it turns out the police didn’t appreciate that analysis. So now he’s asking everyone involved to come meet him at the White House and pretend they’re completely over the incident so he can quickly distance himself from his own statement.
And, like I said, there’s really no way Professor Gates – or the officer - can diplomatically say “Fix your own mess; I didn’t ask you to get involved, and I’m not participating in this charade just so you can restore your reputation as a moderate.”
But then Obama decides to weigh into the discussion of the incident. Not entirely of his own choice, he was asked about it, but he could have been non-committal from the beginning. Instead, he makes the - fairly understandable - statement that he thinks the police were pretty stupid to do what they did. A day later, surprise surprise, it turns out the police didn’t appreciate that analysis. So now he’s asking everyone involved to come meet him at the White House and pretend they’re completely over the incident so he can quickly distance himself from his own statement.
And, like I said, there’s really no way Professor Gates – or the officer - can diplomatically say “Fix your own mess; I didn’t ask you to get involved, and I’m not participating in this charade just so you can restore your reputation as a moderate.”