A DISGRACEFUL MOMENT - AT 11:03 P.M. ET:  President Obama startled many reporters, and I'm sure many viewers, when he expressed an opinion about the arrest some days ago of Henry Louis (Skip) Gates Jr., the distinguished Harvard professor of African-American studies, and a personal friend of the president's:

WASHINGTON — President Obama bluntly accused the police of acting “stupidly” by arresting the Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. last week after an officer had established that Mr. Gates had not broken into his own home in Cambridge, Mass.

Mr. Obama stopped short of accusing the police department of racial profiling, as Mr. Gates has done. But during a prime-time White House news conference that was otherwise largely devoted to health care, Mr. Obama weighed in full bore on the Gates case and suggested that the police should never have arrested him.

COMMENT:  Professor Gates was returning home when he had difficulty opening the door to his home.  His cab driver helped as the two men tried to force the door open.  A neighbor, witnessing the scene, called police, thinking a burglary was in progress.  When the police responded, Professor Gates was already in his home.  A police officer, perhaps believing Gates had broken into the house, asked him to step outside and show some i.d.  There, the story becomes murky, with Professor Gates claiming he was mistreated and the officer claiming that Gates became unruly and made charges of racism.

Whatever the facts, it is stunning that the president, a lawyer, should prejudge them.  The president wasn't there.  He should have declined comment.  Instead, he charged that the Cambridge, Massachusetts, police acted stupidly.  How could he know that?  Maybe they did, maybe they didn't.  By tradition (and wisdom), high government officials don't comment on legal cases.  Maybe the president doesn't believe that someone from his cultural class, a professor, could act badly.  Maybe he's simply taking the word of a friend.

We certainly know that African Americans have often been treated unfairly.   We certainly know that racial profiling does happen.  But we also know that one aspect of historic racism was (and sometimes still is) the propensity of white officers automatically to believe the word of a white over a black.  In his statement, the president did exactly that - in reverse.  He seemed automatically to believe his friend over the word of the police.  And it's fair to point out that police officers always risk their lives when they respond to a report, correct or not, of a crime in progress.

The president made a serious mistake.  He should apologize and stress the importance of waiting for facts.

July 22, 2009