The Obama Presidency - 2008 & 2012

[molson]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

His promise was to close Gitmo. If a remedy can be found to keep them indefinitely (or, better, try and convict them using a modified system) in, say, a U.S. jail that already houses terrorists, he'll have kept his promise, in letter and in spirit.

Why do you think they haven't been moved yet? I've heard the arguments for years about how nobody has ever escaped from supermax, etc. So why hasn't Obama moved them yet? Seems like it should be an easy decision, based on the arguments put forth for it.

I know it's only been six months, but how long should such a thing take if it's such a slam-dunk decision that Bush should have made years ago? A year? 4 years?

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Scalia is not Thomas.

Scalia's the guy who, as the War on Terror got going, said publicly that the public may have to expect somewhat less on the order of personal freedoms. Further, until Hamdi he often sided with the Administration on these issues. And unlike Thomas, Roberts and later Alito, Scalia gave much more explanation for his viewpoint.

Which is why it's especially notable that even Scalia started to tell the Bush Administration that enough was enough. So if we're determining the "factual basis" of whether or not the issue on detainees was "resolved", I'd say that if someone like Scalia, who might be otherwise to say "it's war, the Executive Branch should do what's necessary," says it's not resolved, it's not resolved.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by molson

I wonder what Obama would have done (vs. what he thinks he would have done, and what his supporters think he would have done) if he was the president after 9/11. What would he do with the terror suspects that were captured? Try them all in civilian courts? He's even conceded now that that's not practical. Obama would have had some version of Guantanamo Bay. We'll never know if it would have been "better" than the one we have.

It's my understanding that one of the key roadblocks to convictions in civilian courts or even modified military tribunals is the way in which confessions and other evidence was gathered (i.e. torture, illegal wiretapping, etc...). If we make the assumption that another President (without the "aid" of Cheney, Yoo, Addington, et. al.) would not have authorized these activities, then surely the path to convictions would be that much easier.

Again, to take an example, Khalid Sheik Mohammad and his 3 co-conspirators have been in custody for what, 7 years now? They admit guilt. They are not interested in a plea bargain. They're asking for the death penalty. Why, exactly, were they not tried, convicted and sent to join Terry Nichols, Jose Padilla, and the rest in Colorado years ago?

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

Scalia's the guy who, as the War on Terror got going, said publicly that the public may have to expect somewhat less on the order of personal freedoms. Further, until Hamdi he often sided with the Administration on these issues. And unlike Thomas, Roberts and later Alito, Scalia gave much more explanation for his viewpoint.

Which is why it's especially notable that even Scalia started to tell the Bush Administration that enough was enough. So if we're determining the "factual basis" of whether or not the issue on detainees was "resolved", I'd say that if someone like Scalia, who might be otherwise to say "it's war, the Executive Branch should do what's necessary," says it's not resolved, it's not resolved.

Scalia is also someone who is not all that keen on administrative law and does not like that ursupation of legislative power. I know the left likes to portray Scalia in a certain way, but they appear to miss the point quite a bit with him.

And considering that Scalia was far more anti-administration on detainees than, say, Justice Bryer, I think that doesn't bode well for your argument.

[molson]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

Again, to take an example, Khalid Sheik Mohammad and his 3 co-conspirators have been in custody for what, 7 years now? They admit guilt. They are not interested in a plea bargain. They're asking for the death penalty. Why, exactly, were they not tried, convicted and sent to join Terry Nichols, Jose Padilla, and the rest in Colorado years ago?

That's what I'm asking you. If it wasn't done under Bush because (insert liberal theory), then why hasn't Obama done it yet, and how long will it be before we all believe that maybe, there's something more complicated about it that Obama has learned only after he made his campaign promises? How long is it until Obama is equally as "guilty" as Bush for not doing these things?

I don't have a great understanding of the reasons either, but assumed it wasn't as simple as the Bush critics contended over the last 8 years. And let's remember, all of the releases from GITMO took place under Bush. It took time. Critics have decided, I guess, that those things took too long, but what do we have to compare it to? Who knows the procedures involved? Is Obama taking too long to sort things out as well? Why is it that between the Bush administration, the Obama administration, and the general public, it's the third one (the one that has the least actual information) that seems to claim the best understanding of how these things should progress?

[flere-imsaho]

You're right. Antonin Scalia was a constant and effective check on Bush Administration abuses throughout despite the efforts of Breyer et. al. to come up with ad hoc justifications for these abuses. Furthermore, almost everyone agreed that by 2008 the Bush Administration had done everything it could to resolve the legal issue of the Gitmo detainees and had not, through previous actions, introduced any difficulties into the remaining legal actions against them.

I can't believe I overlooked so much. Mea culpa.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

You're right. Antonin Scalia was a constant and effective check on Bush Administration abuses throughout despite the efforts of Breyer et. al. to come up with ad hoc justifications for these abuses. Furthermore, almost everyone agreed that by 2008 the Bush Administration had done everything it could to resolve the legal issue of the Gitmo detainees and had not, through previous actions, introduced any difficulties into the remaining legal actions against them.

I can't believe I overlooked so much. Mea culpa.

*yawn*

Your strawmen are cute, but I hope you haven't fooled yourself into believing them.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

Originally Posted by molson

And it's definitely easier to criticize the guy in power when you don't have a full understanding of the roadblocks to your candyland solutions.

I wonder what Obama would have done (vs. what he thinks he would have done, and what his supporters think he would have done) if he was the president after 9/11. What would he do with the terror suspects that were captured? Try them all in civilian courts? He's even conceded now that that's not practical. Obama would have had some version of Guantanamo Bay. We'll never know if it would have been "better" than the one we have.

Would housing these criminals and trying them in the US be as politically infeasible if it had been done as soon as they were captured and could reasonably be tried?

[molson]

Originally Posted by Ronnie Dobbs2

Would housing these criminals and trying them in the US be as politically infeasible if it had been done as soon as they were captured and could reasonably be tried?

In some ways, I think it would be harder at the start. You're in the middle of a war, do you really want to send military personnel back and forth to the US to serve as witnesses? After all, in a domestic trial, you have the right to confront your accusers. That might impact your decisions on who to utilize when you're capturing prisoners - you don't want to lose your best people to civilian witness commitments. Not the kind of decisions you want to make in a war.

The big problem to me, at the end of the day (as I've explained here in previous threads), is that the civilian criminal justice system and any system to deal with POWs have completely different purposes.

We're totally OK with releasing domestic criminals, because we decided, hundreds of years ago, that we'd rather have thousands of criminals go free rather than have one innnocent person punished. With prisoners of foreign war, that has never been the ideal. Why do we take prisoners? It's not to hold them accountable for their "crimes", it's not for "justice", it's to take them off the battlefield so we don't have to fight them anymore. The domestic criminal justice system just isn't setup to achieve that purpose. The question we should ask when dealing with a POW is not "guilty or innocent?" but "Is this person dangerous to the United States?". It's a round peg in a square hole to try to answer that question in a US civilian court.

There are terrorists that we can NEVER release, even if, for whatever reason, they could never be found guilty in a civilian court. I'm not just talking about admissions by torture, there's plenty of other reason guilty people walk free every day - prosecutorial error, a wacky juror or two, dead or otherwise unavailable witnesses, accidently tainted evidence. It happens, and we accept it even for domestic murderers. We shouldn't accept it for terrorists.

And what if there's no domestic crime that a terrorist is even guilty of? If we're fighting the Taliban, and we capture someone with a gun, we should hold onto him, even if we don't know who he is, and we don't know what he's done or where he's been. What do you charge him with? Why should he even be subject to an AMERICAN domestic crime? Is it even fair to apply american crimes to his actions? That's like the Saudi government charging an American citizen with premarital sex that occurred in the U.S. Imagine facing a criminal trial in a foreign country you'd never even been to! You'd be like, "what the hell?"

And there's so many complications with the rules of evidence. If the right to a trial applies, does the 4th amendment apply too? Do army personnel need arrest and search warrants? Do they have to read prisoners Miranda rights? If an 18-year-old private screws up the arrest somehow, is the whole case thrown out (such as is often the case if a civilian police officer makes a mistake).

The federal government should have a transparent, organized system of how to deal with these people, and how to, as practicality permits, weed out the ones who aren't dangerous to the country. But civilian courts aren't the answer.

And my gut reaction is just always complete disblief that people think that non-citizens, in foreign countries, whose only connection to the U.S. is that they want to kill the people here, should have Constitutional rights. That's so bizzare to me. Ours is apparently the only universal constitution.

[SirFozzie]

Nice to see the Obama Administration actually stuck to its guns in its.. well.. request to cut the F-22 funding (a move fully endorsed by the Department of Defense), that looked to see special interests derail it (areas that built F-22 parts, etcetera).

It was thought that the Obama administration was going to have to climb down (which was going to be a major loss of face for the administration), but Obama managed to rally enough Democrats to defeat the measure.

President Obama's agenda gets a lift with F-22 win - David Rogers and Jen DiMascio - POLITICO.com

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

*yawn*

Your strawmen are cute, but I hope you haven't fooled yourself into believing them.

LOL

Whatever, look, I clearly haven't articulated my point very well, and that's on me. Let's let the Scalia tangent go and get back to the original point.

On a daily basis people are posting to this thread claiming Obama has broken yet another campaign promise and asking why Democrats aren't marching on the White House in response. The latest is this Gitmo campaign promise, which I feel I have to remind people isn't "due" for another 6 months.

As an Obama supporter, I offer the following responses (and I'm - hopefully - just going to do this once, since I'm a little tired of this meme):

1. Believing in campaign promises is for the naive. The only people who get wound up about broken campaign promises are the extremists on each end of the spectrum. Just as Bush not turning American into a theocratic state pissed off the fundies, Obama not undoing every single act by the Bush Administration in his first 100 days put the panties of the DailyKos/MoveOn crowd in a bunch. The rest of us could give a crap. We elected the guy because a) we thought he'd do a good job, b) he wasn't the other guy and/or c) it would make JiMGA despair (OK, the third one is just me).

2. These endless "gotcha" posts about Obama are nothing more than cheap partisan politics, and/or concern trolls. I'd like to note that people in this very thread (or maybe the election one, I can't remember) have been making posts about how Obama wasn't doing enough even before he was actually President. And I find it wonderfully ironic that many of the same posters who openly mocked Obama's campaign promises as bullshit flights of fancy now think he's doing a shitty job because he hasn't delivered on them. Really, guys? But honestly, I don't mind. Those of you on the right side of the fence have lived with 8 years of us on the left side of the fence lambasting your guy so I think you've earned the right to some payback.

3. So what if Obama sets goals that may be too aggressive to be realized (Iraq, Gitmo, health care reform)? To me, it's a sign of strong leadership: challenge the people who work for you to achieve and attain more. You don't think Apple's board sits around and tells Steve Jobs "dude, no one needs a new cellphone, why don't you just take it easy and work half time or something" do you? In fact, I seem to recall it being said of a certain President that at least you knew he believed in something and that he was willing to fight for it, nevermind the wailing of his detractors. Now, which President was that again?

Let me slip into Bucc-mode for this next part....

None of you should fool yourself that this is anything new. Reagan's first couple of years sucked and people were all over him. Bush I broke his taxes pledge. Clinton's presidency was touted as DOA 1 week after inauguration because of his botching of Don't Ask, Don't Tell (and really dead by the summer when HillaryCare failed).

Coming out of Bucc-mode now....

So anyway, that's where I'm coming from. Hope that helps.

[JPhillips]

For those that missed it Culture of Truth ha a transcript of the press conference:

President Barack Obama Press Conference - July 22, 2009
President Barack Obama Press Conference
July 22, 2009
***************************

Obama: hello American people you all know if we don’t enact health care reform we are totally fucked in a major way - now I’ll take questions from the idiots called the white house press corps

AP: How do you plan to pay for this and
what’s your dealbreaker?

Obama: hey dude right now we’re all paying for it - at this rate we won’t be able to afford to iPhones, cable tv, or to invade every tiny little country that pisses off

AP: oh no

Obama: yeah! so that’s 2/3 of the cost right there

AP: and the rest?

Obama: remove tax deductionsbut I don’t
foreclose other options

AP: oh no don’t say foreclose

Obama: hey we could raise taxes on millionaires

White House Press corps: oh shit

Obama: or eliminate waste

White House Press corps: oh yeah much better

Obama: I’m am the motherfucking president and let me tell you - just like the economy - the health care system I inherited from George W. Bush really fucking sucks

White House Press corps: oh poo

Obama: we can do this but we’ve got to make some major fucking changes - we need new computers, fewer tests and better goddamm lollipops!

White House Press corps: he’s good

Obama: people hate Washington DC but I’m telling you people the cost of doing nothing is worse - yo Two First Names David Alexander!

Reuters: what’s the rush Bammy

Obama: people are fucking dyin on me!

Reuters: then you bite the bullet and take
them to a fucking hospital

Obama: you have set deadlines in this town or nothing ever fucking happens - at this rate I’m going to have promise a mushroom cloud over Arlington to wake you fuckers up!

Reuters: that iz scary

Obama: you’re damm right it is!

Obama: C-Todd let’s all get a load of your big brain

Todd: how many people will you leave uninsured and will they deserve it?

Obama: good one toddster - look I want to cover almost everyone - but not that cheerleader on Heroes - she keeps jumping in front of a fucking bus and running into fire and that shit just ain’t right!

Todd: woo hoo NBC

Obama: zip it Toddy

Todd: woo

Obama: the average American is paying hidden costs to pay for people who get their primary treatment in the fucking ER - that is just stupid

Todd: why can’t you get all the blue dog Democrats on board big guy?

Obama: hey I float about the fucking fray - I love me some Chuck Grassley - sure he’s a major doofus but at least he’s not off hiking the Applachian Trail
of Stupidity

Todd: good one Barack

Obama: of course it was goatee boy - Tap Dancer!

Tapper: Mr. President will we be sacrificing the lives of our old people and will any of them not be celebrities?

Obama: they’re going to have to give up the endless joy of mammograms and that third MRI and of course the testicle squeezing

Tapper: [ twittering ] i hate teh ball krushing

Obama: hey dude stop twittering for a goddamm second

Tapper: [ twittering ] prez sayz dood no twittering

Obama: I get that people are worried about all the trillions of debt - debt I inherited from Stupid I might mention - also Bush lost 700,000 jobs and trillions
in U.S. wealth

Tapper: [ twittering ] Bam says Stupid screwd me

Obama: so I care about the debt and I cut it by 2 trillion by for example getting rid of a fighter jet that doesn’t fly in the motherfucking rain

F-22 Pilot: [ pops umbrella ] uh oh

Obama: Computer Chip!

Reid: specifically what kind of human sacrifice are you suggesting for Medicare for example may
I suggest my mother-in-law

Obama: that’s cold Chocolate Chip

Reid: heh heh

Obama: I just got Big Pharma to give me $80 billion for old people - Kristy!

Parsons: why all the secrecy Bam

Obama: hey you can stand outside the white house and see who goes in and out if you really want

Parson: why not put it on C-SPAN

Obama: we did - a network no one but crazy shut-ins in the perfect place to hide!

Q: Will you crack down on Wall Street criminals

Obama: it was Stupid who gave all the money to the Bankster Crooks - now as it turns out the experts said we had to give free money to criminals who created a near Depression to stave off an actual Depression

Q: that is awesomely convenient

Obama: wait there’s more - now they’re all getting rich off the money we gave them which proves
we were right!

Q: Do any of them drive Cadillacs like Reagan’s welfare mother

Obama: hell if I know - all I know is the lesson we’ve taught them is that whenever they get in trouble
for their gambling Uncle Sam will be there to bail them out

Q: so what’s the solution?

Obama: public shaming - they must sit in the table near the kitchen at Le Cirque

Bankster: oh the horror

Cleveland: Will you guarantee people will actually be covered once the GOP gets hold of this
1,000 page bill?

Obama: that’s the beauty of the plan - health insurers must compete and provide good, honest, non-profit driven-care or go out of business

Insurers: oh shit we’re fucked

Obama: right now health insurers are getting super-rich fucking over the American people
which is nice for them but kind of fucking sucks
for the rest of us

Audience: he’s got a point

Obama: dammit people right now the Insurer comes between you and your doctor - and getting rich by denying care when somebody gets sick is just fucking wrong!

Cleveland: will enroll in same public plan?

Obama: I’ve got the best health care in the world - I got tiger woods’ doctor dammit

Q: why are you going to Cleveland - did you lose
a bet or something?

Obama: read the Mayo Clinic blog - they
tweeted that they love me

Q: dood can a black man enter his own fucking house anymore?

Obama: I know very little about this incident with Skip Gates except every damm little fucking tiny detail

Audience: I see

Obama: hell I’ve been stopped by the Secret Service three times trying to enter the fucking White House

Audience: wow

Obama: the Cambridge police acted stupidly for arresting a brother for entering his own motherfucking house - I mean all this was all
covered in the movie Soul Man for christ’s sake

C Thomas Howell: amen bro - catch me on Southland

Q: I’m black and now I’m going to back in my White House and watch America's Got Talent and make sweet love to my beautiful black wife in the motherfucking Lincoln bedroom

good night white fuckers!

[Schmidty]

I can't believe I read that whole, awful thing.

[Schmidty]

Dola.

Most overused word in threads like these???

Strawman.

It's the "paradigm" of political debate.




(no offense to those that use it )

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by Schmidty

Most overused word in threads like these???

Strawman.

It's the "paradigm" of political debate.

Well, since the strawman argument is, by far, the most popular form of argument in threads like these....

[Schmidty]

Originally Posted by sabotai

Well, since the strawman argument is, by far, the most popular form of argument in threads like these....

True, but maybe we can create a new term. I'd come up with something clever, but I'm about to fall asleep at my keyboard. My wife's watching a girl movie (Sydney White), and I can't focus on any kind of game. So someone people come up with something. I beg of you.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Someone want to tell me why the hell the President felt the need to comment on the local case involving the arrest of a Harvard professor at his home? While I'm not interested in arguing who was right and wrong in the situation, I REALLY don't think we need a president who feels the need to pull a Jesse Jackson and interjects himself into every small flare-up that allows him to gain more attention. Leave that to Jesse Jackson and his 'Rainbow Coalition' podium that follows him everywhere he goes.

By the way, the president didn't have a lunchtime conference yesterday, likely because he had an hour of primetime TV that night. 2/3.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

Someone want to tell me why the hell the President felt the need to comment on the local case involving the arrest of a Harvard professor at his home? While I'm not interested in arguing who was right and wrong in the situation, I REALLY don't think we need a president who feels the need to pull a Jesse Jackson and interjects himself into every small flare-up that allows him to gain more attention. Leave that to Jesse Jackson and his 'Rainbow Coalition' podium that follows him everywhere he goes.

By the way, the president didn't have a lunchtime conference yesterday, likely because he had an hour of primetime TV that night. 2/3.

I 100% agree with you on this by the way. Just saw this in the paper on the way to work and was like "ummm...wtf is Obama doing making a statement about this?"

I mean I suppose I can see it if he was asked a question about it by a reporter, but i think even then the best answer would be something like: "that's a local matter and it's not my place to comment."

[DaddyTorgo]

dola

guess he should have stopped after he said this in response to the question: "I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played," Obama said Wednesday night while taking questions after a White House news conference.

and he certainly should have stopped after this:

"But I think it's fair to say, No. 1, any of us would be pretty angry; No. 2, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home;"

and not gone on to: "and, No. 3 ... that there's a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately."

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

Someone want to tell me why the hell the President felt the need to comment on the local case involving the arrest of a Harvard professor at his home? While I'm not interested in arguing who was right and wrong in the situation, I REALLY don't think we need a president who feels the need to pull a Jesse Jackson and interjects himself into every small flare-up that allows him to gain more attention. Leave that to Jesse Jackson and his 'Rainbow Coalition' podium that follows him everywhere he goes.

By the way, the president didn't have a lunchtime conference yesterday, likely because he had an hour of primetime TV that night. 2/3.

I agree. He should have stopped at "don't have all the facts". It was certainly premature and beneath the office.

[JPhillips]

Really? This is offensive?

Obama then continued narrating the circumstances of the Gates story. "I don't know, not having been there, and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that," he said. "But I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry. Number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home. And number three -- what I think we know separate and apart from this incident -- is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately."

"That doesn't lessen the incredible progress that has been made. I am standing here as testimony to the progress that's been made," he added a short while later. "And yet, the fact of the matter is, this still haunts us. And even when there are honest misunderstandings, the fact that blacks and Hispanics are picked up more frequently, and oftentimes for no cause, casts suspicion even when there is good cause. And that's why I think the more that we're working with local law enforcement to improve policing techniques so that we're eliminating potential bias, the safer everybody's gonna be."

[DaddyTorgo]

I don't think I find it offensive. Just think it's somewhat...beneath him.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

Someone want to tell me why the hell the President felt the need to comment on the local case involving the arrest of a Harvard professor at his home?

Can I assume this is simply a rhetorical question, since it's pretty obvious to anyone with even one eye why he stuck his nose in the middle of it.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

Someone want to tell me why the hell the President felt the need to comment on the local case involving the arrest of a Harvard professor at his home?

He was asked a specific question about it by a reporter at his press conference. Did you miss this?

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

I think it's poor form for him to call out the CPD from his position and the amount of information he has. The rest of it I'm fine with, it's not like racial profiling has never been a national issue before. I'm not sure why the President's opinion on something like that is either irrelevant or beneath the office.

[ISiddiqui]

Also it appears to me that the CPD didn't do anything wrong. I mean a guy is attempting to break into a house and refuses to show identification (which would have proven it was his address). WTF do you want them to do?

[molson]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Also it appears to me that the CPD didn't do anything wrong. I mean a guy is attempting to break into a house and refuses to show identification (which would have proven it was his address). WTF do you want them to do?

I'm confused about what part is "racial profiling". Is it the woman who called it in when she saw two black men breaking into a house? Is it the fact the police came and demanded identication? Or is it the part where he was arrested at the end for yelling and everyone and calling everyone racist?

The officers should have walked away, even though the guy was clearly guilty of the crime he was being arrested for (or they should have cited him). But this guy sounds obnoxious. The police report indicates a, "Can we see some identification?" "WHY, BECAUSE I'M BLACK!!!" kind of scene. Hopefully there's an audio out there. If I'm a black guy in Boston, I might try to break into this house soon, everyone will be afraid to respond or call it in.

Intersting trivia that this cop performed CPR (unsuccessfully) on Reggie Lewis 15 years ago.

Obama ranting about this, and calling someone stupid without all the facts is definitely beneath the office. A president using that kind of language at all, even with the facts, is kind of beneath the office.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

I'm not really interested in getting into all the details, but since this happened like a block away from where I work I've read more about it than I wish to.

The police report and Professor Gates do not agree on the facts of what was said. I guess we can all make our own opinions on who is more credible.

He did show his ID, he didn't refuse to show it. He showed both his Harvard ID and his driver's license.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

He was asked a specific question about it by a reporter at his press conference. Did you miss this?

As someone mentioned previously, his opening sentence was just fine. State that you don't know all the facts in the case and that you are sure that the parties involved will come to a correct conclusion on the matter. Leave the rest for Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. No president should have ever commented to the level he did on the matter, especially passing judgment on either party.

[larrymcg421]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Also it appears to me that the CPD didn't do anything wrong. I mean a guy is attempting to break into a house and refuses to show identification (which would have proven it was his address). WTF do you want them to do?

They arrested him even after he showed identification. They didn't do anything wrong up to that point, and that's the only thing Obama called them out on.

[molson]

Originally Posted by larrymcg421

They arrested him even after he showed identification. They didn't do anything wrong up to that point, and that's the only thing Obama called them out on.

They didn't arrest him for breaking and entering. One can definitely argue they should have utilized their discretion to not arrest someone in this kind of circumstance, and just take the verbal abuse, but it's not like they figured out that he lived there, and then decided to arrest him for breaking into the house anyway.

Legislatures all over the country should really revise these disorderly conduct statutes, maybe narrow the conduct that falls under them. If you're yelling at police officers (or anyone), in public, that's a crime under these statutes, but it does obviously create drama, depending on what the yelling is about. And when these statutes are too broad, it definitely invites very arbitrary enforcement.

[JPhillips]

Regardless of race, I'd think most police departments would consider it a failure to arrest a guy after you mistakenly think he's breaking into his own house. I'm sure Gates got heated and escalated the confrontation, but after the ID was shown the officer should have gotten out of there ASAP. His need to show who's boss has made this event a nightmare for the CPD.

Just to be clear, I'll take his word that in his mind race had nothing to do with it, but he still acted unprofessionally.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

This is a serious question, though: Is being disrespectful to a police officer an arrestable offense?

edit: In your own home. He was arrested in the foyer of his own home, not in public.

edit2: Actually, he was arrested on the porch. I guess that does make it public, though the process of getting him to come outside in order to arrest him seems to me to be about the same thing.

[molson]

Originally Posted by Ronnie Dobbs2

This is a serious question, though: Is being disrespectful to a police officer an arrestable offense?

No, but yelling in public definitely is. And the people that get arrested for that tend to be yelling at police officers, because an officer has to be there to hear it for there to be an arrest.

[molson]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Regardless of race, I'd think most police departments would consider it a failure to arrest a guy after you mistakenly think he's breaking into his own house. I'm sure Gates got heated and escalated the confrontation, but after the ID was shown the officer should have gotten out of there ASAP. His need to show who's boss has made this event a nightmare for the CPD.

Just to be clear, I'll take his word that in his mind race had nothing to do with it, but he still acted unprofessionally.

I really hope we get more info, or an audio. With the threat of lawsuits neither will probably happen though.

I'm sure there was yelling before the ID was shown. I'd be curious about the sequence of events. What exactly were the officers doing after identify was established. If they were just questioning him, then ya, bad form. If they were trying to verify that this identified person actually lives here (maybe some kind of radio call could confirm that), and the yelling continued, I see how an arrest might be warranted. There was something I read about the officers being unable to hear each other, or their radios, because of the yelling. Showing an ID alone isn't the end of the story - you still have to establish that this is a real ID, that this person is the person depicted on the ID, and that that person actually lives at the house. That probably required some time and radio calls, and Gates wasn't going have any patience for that.

Police are going to hear this story and think, "shit, if I come across a black guy breaking into a black house, I'm going to take his word for it and get the hell out of there". These guys really aren't looking for to be in the middle of controveries in the media.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

I think anyone who considers either party without blame in this matter is highly naive.

With that said, the primary topic is the president's comments. He should have never made the statement he did outside of saying he didn't have enough information to make any judgment on the situation. I expect better judgment from the leader of our country.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

I agree that both sides could have easily defused the situation and neither did. If you believe the police report is completely accurate, then Gates is pretty much at fault. If you believe Gates, then the police are pretty much at fault. I would guess that would raise the more general question of in a situation like this, is the onus on the citizen or the police officer to be the bigger man and not escalate the situation? There was no real need to arrest Gates, he was no danger to himself nor anyone else, and I'm sure people yell in public all the time (I can confirm this is true in Cambridge) and not get arrested for it.

[larrymcg421]

The racial issues don't exists with the cops. They were just doing their job, and Gates was wrong to yell at them for it. They were wrong for for arresting him for disorderly conduct, which just smells like they reacted emotionally to the situation and found a way to get back at him. I do think there is some prejudice (maybe not overt, but just internal) involved with this situation being reported to the police. If the guy is white, it is definitely less likely that the CPD even gets called.

As for Obama's comments, they were all 100% correct. I can understand thinking he should have refused to comment, but to say he acted like Sharpton or Jackson is ridiculous. He never called the cops racist, and didn't attack them for showing up at the home, only for arresting him after the ID was shown.

[molson]

Originally Posted by larrymcg421

The racial issues don't exists with the cops. They were just doing their job, and Gates was wrong to yell at them for it. They were wrong for for arresting him for disorderly conduct, which just smells like they reacted emotionally to the situation and found a way to get back at him. I do think there is some prejudice (maybe not overt, but just internal) involved with this situation being reported to the police. If the guy is white, it is definitely less likely that the CPD even gets called.

I agree with all that. It's a real fine line about what to do when people are relentlessly yelling at officers, calling them racist. Obviously in America, we want some freedom to do that. It doesn't feel right to be arrested after you are verbally criticizing an officer. I can definitely see how one would feel wronged in that scenerio. And officers do need to have patience and let a lot of that stuff go (and believe me, they let 99.9% of it go).

But at the same time, you can't really have it out there, as a "street law", that you can yell and scream and police and call them whatever you want and they just have to take it. They would never be able to do their jobs. There has to be SOME check, some small possibility in people's minds that they could be arrested if they cross some line, otherwise it would just be out of control.

If people decided that they were going to just relentlessly yell at shoe salesmen wherever they went, call them racist, etc, that would eventually become a legal issue, something that people would get arrested for. With police, the threshold is WAY higher, you have to do far more, just because of this possibility of political backlash.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by larrymcg421

As for Obama's comments, they were all 100% correct. I can understand thinking he should have refused to comment, but to say he acted like Sharpton or Jackson is ridiculous. He never called the cops racist, and didn't attack them for showing up at the home, only for arresting him after the ID was shown.

So the job of our president is now to comment on each ethnic community flare-up that results in some form of controversy? Answer: no. It's ludicrous to suggest such a thing. He acted EXACTLY like Sharpton or Jackson, passing judgment on a racially sensitive topic without fully knowing the information behind the incident. Of course, this doesn't even matter because this isn't a topic that the President should be addressing.

It's somewhat insulting that the media feels that because there's a black president that he suddenly needs to pass judgment on any race incident that occurs. He should have said as much and dismissed the question IMO. He should be far above that. They would have never asked this question of a white president in a similar situation. It's a form of bias that this question was even asked of this president.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by molson

I really hope we get more info, or an audio. With the threat of lawsuits neither will probably happen though.

I'm sure there was yelling before the ID was shown. I'd be curious about the sequence of events. What exactly were the officers doing after identify was established. If they were just questioning him, then ya, bad form. If they were trying to verify that this identified person actually lives here (maybe some kind of radio call could confirm that), and the yelling continued, I see how an arrest might be warranted. There was something I read about the officers being unable to hear each other, or their radios, because of the yelling. Showing an ID alone isn't the end of the story - you still have to establish that this is a real ID, that this person is the person depicted on the ID, and that that person actually lives at the house. That probably required some time and radio calls, and Gates wasn't going have any patience for that.

I largely agree, except I think from very early on the assumption should have been that he was indeed who he said he was. There's nothing about him or the initial situation that should have screamed liar, especially if his initial response was something like, "You're racist, this is my own damn house." Where I think this officer messed up is in presuming, or at least giving the appearance of presuming Gates was guilty throughout the encounter.

The other part that disturbs me, but seems to be a little in dispute, is that the officer entered the house without permission. I think most of us, regardless of race, would have a problem with a policeman without a warrant entering the house uninvited.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

So the job of our president is now to comment on each ethnic community flare-up that results in some form of controversy? Answer: no. It's ludicrous to suggest such a thing. He acted EXACTLY like Sharpton or Jackson, passing judgment on a racially sensitive topic without fully knowing the information behind the incident. Of course, this doesn't even matter because this isn't a topic that the President should be addressing.

It's somewhat insulting that the media feels that because there's a black president that he suddenly needs to pass judgment on any race incident that occurs. He should have said as much and dismissed the question IMO. He should be far above that. They would have never asked this question of a white president in a similar situation. It's a form of bias that this question was even asked of this president.

awww jeeezus i agree with you again

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

The other part that disturbs me, but seems to be a little in dispute, is that the officer entered the house without permission. I think most of us, regardless of race, would have a problem with a policeman without a warrant entering the house uninvited.

if the officer didn't know it was gates' house then he was just "pursuing a suspect in the act of committing a crime"

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

awww jeeezus i agree with you again

It's alright. We all have our bad days.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

if the officer didn't know it was gates' house then he was just "pursuing a suspect in the act of committing a crime"

Except by the time he entered the house he had heard Gates' side of the story, had seen the "suspect", and had no other reason to believe a break in was occurring. In those circumstances I don't think the police have a right to enter your home.

[Mustang]

If it appears I'm breaking into my house (crawling through a window, shouldering the door, etc), I hope someone calls the cops.

If that happens, I expect the following to happen - Show up, ask for an explanation, ask for my id, run my id through their computer to see if it comes up with any warrants, give me back my id, leave.

If at any time I start to become a belligerent asshat, I expect a warning. If I continue, I would then expect them to give me another warning with the threat of being hauled in. If I then continue, I would think I'd be hauled in.

Sorry, but I'm tired of hearing 'They are professionals, they should defuse the situation.' At some point, we need to hold society to that standard. I don't see why we somehow think it is ok to berate the police (or anyone) and not expect some type of consequence to our actions.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Except by the time he entered the house he had heard Gates' side of the story, had seen the "suspect", and had no other reason to believe a break in was occurring. In those circumstances I don't think the police have a right to enter your home.

hmm

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Mustang

If it appears I'm breaking into my house (crawling through a window, shouldering the door, etc), I hope someone calls the cops.

If that happens, I expect the following to happen - Show up, ask for an explanation, ask for my id, run my id through their computer to see if it comes up with any warrants, give me back my id, leave.

If at any time I start to become a belligerent asshat, I expect a warning. If I continue, I would then expect them to give me another warning with the threat of being hauled in. If I then continue, I would think I'd be hauled in.

Sorry, but I'm tired of hearing 'They are professionals, they should defuse the situation.' At some point, we need to hold society to that standard. I don't see why we somehow think it is ok to berate the police (or anyone) and not expect some type of consequence to our actions.

I agree.

Although I question the neighbor that was calling the cops also - I'm not familiar with the neighborhood itself, but if they're standalone houses - don't you usually know your neighbors? At least by sight? I dunno, maybe the neighbor was new or something...

[Mustang]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

I agree.

Although I question the neighbor that was calling the cops also - I'm not familiar with the neighborhood itself, but if they're standalone houses - don't you usually know your neighbors? At least by sight? I dunno, maybe the neighbor was new or something...

I thought I read 2 versions. One where it was the neighbor and the 2nd where it wasn't the neighbor. (and the news story was edited to reflect this)

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

The person who called police works in a building close to the residence. Her name is in the police report.