Posted on 07/25/2009 7:33:08 PM PDT by Chet 99
THEY are calling it bar-stool diplomacy – a novel attempt by President Barack Obama to cool a heated racial controversy by inviting the offended parties to settle their differences over a beer at the White House.
Yet the president’s efforts to limit the fallout from a row over the arrest last week of Henry Louis Gates Jr, a black Harvard professor, may serve to extend a furore that has shaken the White House and raised questions about Obama’s vaunted leadership skills.
The row showed no sign of diminishing yesterday as Massachusetts media pressed for the release of police tapes that could shed new light on the angry exchanges between Gates and Sergeant James Crowley, a white officer who arrived at the professor’s Cambridge home to investigate a report of a break-in.
The incident led to a rare breakdown of Obama’s previously impressive political judgment. Having spent much of the past two years steering clear of racial controversy and nurturing an image of so-called “postracial” conciliation, the president plunged unexpectedly into the Gates affair.
He declared on Wednesday, when it was still far from clear what had happened, that the Massachusetts police had “acted stupidly” by arresting Gates, whom Obama described as a personal friend.
By Friday evening, Obama was back-pedalling furiously and his invitation to Gates and Crowley to join him for a beer was interpreted as an acknowledgment by the president that he had spoken too hastily in “maligning” the police. “I could have calibrated those words differently,” he said.
Yet the move also ensured that a story he desperately wants to go away will continue to overshadow his domestic political agenda. No beer-drinkers are likely to make as many headlines as the president, the professor and the policeman.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
I suppose Gates can’t really back down from this one. This is his life’s work, getting whitey and the man who serves whitey. As for Obamba, he’s supposed to be the great unifier. He’ll need something stronger than beer.
“This man has the “football” with the nuclear button.”
No, this man THINKS he has the nuclear football. I’m betting they’ve got a briefcase with lots of knobs and buttons and flashing lights that they send with him wherever he goes, but that does absolutely nothing.
Perhaps he’s not aware that beer kills slugs? They crawl in and drown.
I respectfully solicit those of superb word spinning talent (a set which does not contain me), and humbly request inputs on words sufficient to describe the appalling stupidity of Barack Obama.
*chortle*
>> as Massachusetts media pressed for the release of police tapes
I’m not a big fan of the “media”, in general, but good for them!
I’d like to hear the tape. I think it should be public information — a man was arrested over it.
In fact, I think it’s a crime NOT to release the tape.
Actually, I think he’s a ‘Crystal Light’ kind of guy.
What a hideous pic! Darts anyone?
RELEASE THE TAPES!!!!!!!!!!
More like “Crystal Meth”.
Thanks for that info (new to this story). That’s even better. Works for me.
Why beer?
Isn’t that what all you working class people drink too much of?
Maybe Obama will demand that they all wear “wife beater” t-shirts, while he is talking with the proles.
Sgt. Crowley should say “OK, let’s have a beer...at my favorite bar”.
For such an intellectual as OdumbO take was odd choice of words.
1: to ascertain the caliber of (as a thermometer tube)
2: to determine, rectify, or mark the graduations of (as a thermometer tube)
3: to standardize (as a measuring instrument) by determining the deviation from a standard so as to ascertain the proper correction factors
4: to adjust precisely for a particular function
5: to measure precisely ; especially : to measure against a standard
Thanks..you read my mind.
What a bunch of crap this line is.
Obama f'ed up on the Iranian elections, backing the Mullah's and blaming the violence on the protesters while the rest of the world KNEW the elections were rigged.
Obama f'ed up on North Korea, mis-reading Kim Jung Il who's now tested a nuclear device ... twice and directly threatened nuclear war against the United States of America. What's Obama done? Nothing.
Then Obama f'ed up on Honduras, backing Zelaya the Chavez-wanna-be dictator, completely ignoring the fact that the Honduran Government followed their own constitution in deposing and deporting him, all the while the "smartest politician ever" demanded his return.
Now Obama jumps into the Gates fray, because Gates is his good friend (which I exposed on my blog, the first blog to do so) without knowing all the facts and backs a known race baiting JERK calling the Cambridge cops "stupid."
This all goes to show just how "stupidly" this country acted in electing an inexperienced community organizer with 144 days in the U.S. Senate for President.
Obama has demonstrated that his inexperience is exactly what causes him to react without having command of the facts in any situation. He's done it time and again, yet no one in the lamestream media or the so-called "political experts" seem to have caught onto it yet.
Obama's stupidity is wrecking this country, it's high time he was run out of office.
Nope, bet 0 goes with a Shirley Temple or a Grasshopper most of the time.
Previously impressive political judgment-where the hell did that appraisal come from-some nitwit reporter who dreams the Kenyan will honor him by grabbing his ass? The man makes promises and then breaks most of them hoping that the brown-nose media and his boot-licking yes men will run interference for him so his lies are never brought up. While I will admit he's an impressive liar his judgment so far has been remarkable for how bad its been.
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