THE STORY IS GROWING - AT 5:18 P.M. ET:  The story, that is, of President Obama's disgraceful comments toward the end of last night's press conference, injecting himself into a local dispute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, involving the arrest of his friend, Harvard Professor Louis Gates Jr.  The president, with no independent information, and the absence of an investigation, proclaimed that the Cambridge police acted "stupidly."  Even Bill Cosby was shocked by this breach of basic legal protocol:

On a Boston radio program this morning, Bill Cosby suggested that President Obama spoke too soon on the controversial arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates.

“I’ve heard about five different reports [on the details of the arrest],” Cosby said on Boston’s WZLX. “If I’m the president of the United States, I don’t care how much pressure people want to put on it about race, I’m keeping my mouth shut.”

“I was shocked to hear the president making this kind of statement,” Cosby said referring to the president’s remarks during last night’s press conference.

The White House was apparently concerned enough to put out a statement "clarifying" Mr. Obama's ill-considered remarks:

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, questioned about the flap as the president headed for two health care events in Cleveland, stressed that Obama "was not calling the officer stupid." He said Obama felt that "at a certain point the situation got far out of hand." Gibbs said Obama has not spoken with Gates since the incident.

The president, however, continues to blunder on the issue.  Apparently, his delicate ego can't take the criticism:

President Barack Obama said Thursday he was surprised by all the hubbub over his comments that a white police officer in Cambridge, Mass., had acted "stupidly" in arresting a prominent black scholar for disorderly conduct. The president didn't take back his words, but he allowed that he understood the sergeant who made the arrest is an "outstanding police officer."

"I have to say I am surprised by the controversy surrounding my statement," Obama said in an interview with ABC News, "because I think it was a pretty straightforward comment that you probably don't need to handcuff a guy, a middle-aged man who uses a cane, who's in his own home."

COMMENT:  Given that the president wasn't there, didn't know the facts, and didn't study police procedure in Cambridge, maybe an apology was in order.  The incident may well have been a preventable misunderstanding, but we won't know that until there's an investigation.

It turns out that the police officer involved has an outstanding record, and is an expert on racial profiling:

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - The white police sergeant criticized by President Barack Obama for arresting black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his Massachusetts home is a police academy expert on racial profiling.

Cambridge Sgt. James Crowley has taught a class on racial profiling for five years at the Lowell Police Academy after being hand-picked for the job by former police Commissioner Ronny Watson, who is black, said Academy Director Thomas Fleming.

This officer's career may well be over now, or at least severely damaged.  Wherever he goes in chic Cambridge, home of Harvard University, he will be pointed out as "that cop."

And Henry Louis Gates Jr?  He relishes it.  He now says he wants to keep the incident alive and make a documentary about it.

Thanks, Mr. President.  Now that you've cold-shouldered American allies like Britain, Poland, the Czech Republic, Israel and the freedom fighters of Iran, add our police officers.  Great work.

There are, of course, problem police officers.  But the mishandling by the president of an incident like this does nothing to deal with them, just as the false rape charges against three Duke University lacrosse players helped in the battle against sexual violence.

July 23, 2009