Talk About Overreaction

My, my, my. The President of these United States has elevated a sticky situation involving his Harvard buddy and a police officer. I think the President boldly overreacted and had no business escalating the problem, if there is truly a problem to begin with. Naturally this has been made into a racial firestorm.
According to the police report, Barack Obama’s buddy, black scholar Henry Louis Gates, got in a shouting match with the police officer who had responded to a reported break-in, that information of a “break-in” came from a neighbor who saw two men – as it turns out Gates and his driver – trying to get inside.
The police officer responding to the call arrived on the scene and began talking to Gates. One thing led to another and Gates was asked to step outside. He originally refused, ultimately came outside, according to the police report, and asked if the officer was ordering him outside because he is a black man.
Gates also demanded to see his badge and asked him for his name. At this point, Gates was handcuffed. Seems to me the scholar has a chip on his shoulder. Either that or he was insulted that the police officer did not know Gates was a black scholar.
Truth be told, I’m betting that Memphians would not know Gates is if they ran into him in a mall.
Anyway, this seems to me that the racial nature of this was invented out of rage that Gates was handcuffed or that anyone in a position of authority, especially a police officer, and especially a white officer, would dare insult him.
The whole thing turned into a shameful episode and then the President makes it worse. At a press conference primarily dealing with the administration’s battle for running national healthcare from the Oval Office, he called the police reaction was “stupid.”
The police officer has said he will not apologize for the way he handled the situation and I’ll bet any police department would say they would not handle it any differently.
I think we’ll find out that Gates was insulted that the officer didn’t know who he was.
I can tell you what will happen next: All police officers in this community near Harvard will have to carry a book with the pictures of faculty members.