Acting stupidly v. being stupid
by Pete on July 24, 2009
As we all now know, about 3% of the President’s press conference this past Wednesday night was devoted to answering a question about the Cambridge, MA police department’s arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
President Obama stated that he thought that the Cambridge police “acted stupidly.” Predictably, the news media has been completely overcome by a collective case of the vapors regarding this remark, and has been obsessively clutching its handkerchief ever since
Today, Greg Sargent has a post up on his blog about the thus-far “unapologetic” response thus far from White House:
Yes, the White House moderated his tone a bit. But what’s noteworthy is how little, not how much. In his first explanation yesterday, press sec Robert Gibbs did clarify that Obama never called the cop stupid. But that amounted to lawyerly and wholly unapologetic parsing. Gibbs went out of his way to say the President had no regrets.
Unapologetic, sure–I’ll buy that. “Lawyerly” and “parsing”, though? Sorry, but no.
If the President had said that the Cambridge police were stupid, or that the officer who arrested Gates was stupid, some of this handwringing might (and I stress the word “might”) be warranted. However, that’s not what the President said–he said they acted stupidly, which is an entirely different thing.
Pointing out the difference between the two is not lawyerly parsing, a loaded phrase which connotes abstract and meaningless debates about what the meaning of “is” is.
One comment
It bothers me that I have heard people say he was arrested because he was black and breaking into his home. NOT TRUE! He was arrested for giving the cops a hard time when he should have been thanking them for protecting his home.
He’s lucky someone was protecting his home. If he gets broken into this weekend while he is in his other home….you know the PD won’t stop the perp.
I was seen by the cops breaking into my home years ago. I had to come out of the house (procedure) and show ID. I did so, and THANKED them for protecting my home! Did I say “You only bug me because I look like a farm hick and think I couldnt afford this home?” Hell no, but Gates did. He should be blamed for making this a racial issue, not the cops, who are doing their job.
by Joel on July 24, 2009 at 3:14 pm. #