Barack Obama’s Health Care Press Conference tanked, but notice what everyone is talking about? Not health care, but race, thanks to the last question and answer from the press conference about the incidence in Cambridge with Harvard Professor Henry Gates.
The pundits who are opining whether or not this question was planned in advance are falling right into the trap, as they are discussing the question and race-issues, not the increasingly unpopular plans for government control of your health care. But the question was more than a distraction, it was a calculated playing of the ubiquitous “race card” designed to obscure the health care issue and create a situation of racial divide. In a desperate move, President Obama is once again trying to make the issue about minority status and seek to re-frame the debate. He wants to change the playing field, and even though the health care issue has nothing to do with race, he feels more comfortable in that arena. So the message to African Americans and Hispanics is support President Barack Obama because he is one of you. The issues are unrelated, but since he is fighting for you over here, support him over there.
Manipulative yes, but will it work? Its pretty much the same thing he did with Sotomayor… nominate a minority woman who has made blatantly racist comments in the past… and the issue becomes about her race not her judicial competence… framing all opposition as racism instead of honest dissent.
And that might have worked with Obama’s Gates comments… where he goes on about Blacks and Hispanics being picked up more than whites and the cops acting “stupidly”. It might have worked had a couple facts not come quickly to light.
- Professor Gates apparently acted like an ass
- Professor Gates’ house was recently the site of an attempted robbery
- The police officer in question actually trains other officers to avoid racial profiling
- Bill Cosby put the President in his place
While the first three items are important, you can’t under estimate Dr. Huxtable’s immediate commentary in diffusing the situation. When he told people to wait until the facts come out, he re-framed the issue as not one of race but one of law, and positioned President Obama as a racial outlier and not a champion of unity. Intentional or not, that commentary may have instantly changed the debate on this topic.
And now we are back to the questions about President Obama himself, and not race. Was he purposely trying to enhance the racial divide? Was he trying to obscure the issue and play the politics of distraction? Will he apologize for calling the cops stupid?
Instead of being a political check mate, this very well might have been a political disaster. Commenting on something he admittedly knew nothing about, the President riled up the cops and got a little smack by Bill Cosby. And he looked more like race pimps Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson trying to stir up the race debate for his own purposes.
He’s taken this tactic before, but this time he failed. So now when the press wants to carry his water and move on from the unmitigated disaster of his final question, they have no choice but to return to talking about his fledgling health care proposals yet again. Health Care Proposals that are getting less and less support. With a public who generally trusts President Obama, will this transparent race tactic only backfire and increase questions about his leadership? Time will tell, but the only thing stupid about this issue was President Obama putting himself in the middle of it.
“Professor Gates’ house was recently the site of an attempted robbery”
This is the part that makes me laugh. The guy’s house had been part of an attempted robbery, you would think that he would be happy to see that the police responded to another possible break-in attempt.
We have three observations about the Harvard professor incident:
1. We find it interesting that the fact that this was the professor’s home was evidently not established early on way before the dispute escalated;
2. We find it fascinating that the versions of two members of society, who most would ordinarily view as responsible and honest citizens (this obviously does not include politicians), would vary so dramatically from a factual point of view.
3. Finally, considering that the reading and viewing public were not present at the scene (and thus have no first hand knowledge), and that there is no video tape to our knowledge of the sequence of events and what was said, how so many have formed conclusions, and made assumptions, about who did what and who was wrong.
There are some things which Professor Gates might have considered upon the arrival of the police, no matter how incensed he may have been.