Barack Obama plunged his presidency into a charged racial debate and set off a firestorm in one of America's most liberal bastions by siding with a black Harvard scholar who accuses police of racism.
Saying he was unaware of "all the facts" but that police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, "acted stupidly" in their arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Obama whipped up emotions on both sides of an issue that threatens to open old wounds in America.
Boston University professor of politics Thomas Whalen defended Obama’s “stupid police” accusation by saying:
I think he was trying to let the majority of non-minority Americans have a sense of what it is like to a black or Latino.
Others are also making “what he meant was...” comments trying to put words in Obama’s mouth.
Many in Massachusetts, however, are saying he crossed a line by passing judgment on police while acknowledging he did not have all the facts.
Online polls in Massachusetts show strong support for the white arresting officer. A police union and his department's chief also came out strongly in his defense.
"Based on what I have seen and heard from the other officers, he maintained a professional decorum during the course of the entire situation and conducted himself in a professional manner," Cambridge Police Department Commissioner Robert Haas told a news conference.
Obama's comment stunned the city's policemen.
Others questioned whether Obama should have so strongly backed Gates, a friend, over the police without knowing fully what took place.
It appears that Mr. Obama was acting more like a community organizer from South Chicago that the President of the United States.
This racially charged diversion is good news to opponents of Obama’s health-care proposal. Almost everyone is talking about his racially charged accusation rather than what he said about health-care.
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