Saturday, July 25, 2009 WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama said his remarks about the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. should have been “calibrated” differently as he sought to tamp down a growing controversy overshadowing his agenda. Obama, making an unscheduled appearance at the daily White House news briefing, said he spoke by telephone today with the officer involved in the case, Sergeant James Crowley. The president also spoke by phone with Gates and invited him, along with Crowley, to the White House, administration officials said later. “In my choice of words I unfortunately, I think, gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge police department or Sergeant Crowley specifically,” Obama said at the briefing. The president was referring to his assertion at a July 22 White House news conference that the police “acted stupidly” in arresting Gates. Obama’s comments today stopped short of the apology called for by police union officials in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “Cambridge police are not stupid,” Cambridge Police Patrol Officer’s Association President Stephen Killion said earlier today. “I think the president should make an apology to all law enforcement personnel throughout the entire country.” A spokeswoman for a coalition of Cambridge police unions, Melissa Hurley, released a statement tonight saying Crowley and the president had a “friendly and meaningful” conversation and that the sergeant “was profoundly grateful that the president took time out of his busy schedule to attempt to resolve this situation.” Hurley said the conversation made clear that Obama “respects police officers and the often difficult and dangerous situations we face on a daily basis.” Obama didn’t back away today from his decision to comment on the arrest in response to a question at the news conference. He did add that Gates’s action also played a role in the dispute that led to the professor’s arrest last week on a disorderly conduct charge. “I continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Professor Gates out of his home to the station,” Obama said. “I also continue to believe, based on what I heard, that Professor Gates probably overreacted as well.”
Saturday, July 25, 2009 WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama said his remarks about the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. should have been “calibrated” differently as he sought to tamp down a growing controversy overshadowing his agenda. Obama, making an unscheduled appearance at the daily White House news briefing, said he spoke by telephone today with the officer involved in the case, Sergeant James Crowley. The president also spoke by phone with Gates and invited him, along with Crowley, to the White House, administration officials said later. “In my choice of words I unfortunately, I think, gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge police department or Sergeant Crowley specifically,” Obama said at the briefing. The president was referring to his assertion at a July 22 White House news conference that the police “acted stupidly” in arresting Gates. Obama’s comments today stopped short of the apology called for by police union officials in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “Cambridge police are not stupid,” Cambridge Police Patrol Officer’s Association President Stephen Killion said earlier today. “I think the president should make an apology to all law enforcement personnel throughout the entire country.” A spokeswoman for a coalition of Cambridge police unions, Melissa Hurley, released a statement tonight saying Crowley and the president had a “friendly and meaningful” conversation and that the sergeant “was profoundly grateful that the president took time out of his busy schedule to attempt to resolve this situation.” Hurley said the conversation made clear that Obama “respects police officers and the often difficult and dangerous situations we face on a daily basis.” Obama didn’t back away today from his decision to comment on the arrest in response to a question at the news conference. He did add that Gates’s action also played a role in the dispute that led to the professor’s arrest last week on a disorderly conduct charge. “I continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Professor Gates out of his home to the station,” Obama said. “I also continue to believe, based on what I heard, that Professor Gates probably overreacted as well.”
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