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Guest Post: Obama's Frightening Ferguson Fiasco
Authored by Robert W. Merry, originally posted at The National Interest,
One must ask what President Obama was seeking to accomplish by weighing in, early on, on the matter of the sad death of young Michael Brown at the hands of a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Here we have that combustible combination of law enforcement, criminal justice, racial tension, personal tragedy, street demonstrations with attendant looting and national attention. Predictably, the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson would be on hand to foment racial anger among Ferguson’s African American residents, as they always do in such circumstances, long before anyone really knows what actually happened. For those charged with bringing the community of Ferguson through such a thicket, it was going to be difficult enough without any further complications.
And yet it is in just such circumstances that President Obama seems most intent on adding further complications. That’s what he did the other day in adding his voice to those grappling with this incendiary development. To understand just how sadly meddlesome the president was, consider his actual words in their entirety:
The local authorities, including the police, have a responsibility to be open and transparent about how they are investigating that death and how they are protecting people in their communities.
On one level this is merely a truism, a simple statement of the responsibility of local officials. Hence, on that level, it is gratuitous. But, coming from the president of the United States in a matter of such delicacy—and before the officials with direct responsibility have had a chance to investigate the matter effectively—it carries serious weight beyond the truism. It implies that the president, with his greater moral authority, needs to weigh in because of implied or presumed limitations on the part of those with the actual responsibility for dealing with this complex and potentially dangerous situation. He goes on:
There is never an excuse for violence against the police or for those who would use this tragedy as cover for vandalism or looting.
Another truism, again gratuitous. Of course, there is no excuse for such actions, and so it would seem to go without saying—unless there is another, related point the president wishes to make. And sure enough:
There also is no excuse for the police to use excessive force against peaceful protests or to throw protesters in jail for lawfully exercising their First Amendment rights.
Another truism, but fraught with implications. Here we have a president, thousands of miles away from this tragedy as he pursues his Martha’s Vineyard vacation, setting himself up as the arbiter of just where the proper balance should be struck in the fast-moving and perilous standoff between thousands of protesters, with significant looting and rock-throwing going on, and the authorities charged with ensuring that this highly charged situation doesn’t flip out of control and lead to serious violence and bloodshed. In directing his admonitory words at both protesters and local government officials, he implies a moral equivalence of the two sides, which serves to undermine the standing of the local officials. It also suggests that there may in fact have been excessive force used or that officials violated protesters’ constitutional rights.
Obama’s tendencies in such situations may be understandable. As the nation’s first black president, he quite naturally may see himself as having particular standing to address racial issues within the nation, perhaps especially when they become raw and anguished. But his track record on such matters has not been impressive.
He weighed in unwisely when Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates was arrested in 2009 after he became belligerent when police mistakenly concluded his effort to enter his home without a key might represent a burglary. Without seeking to understand all the facts involved, the president declared that the local police had been “stupid.” This maligned an officer who had an exemplary record on race relations and who was seeking to handle a puzzling situation as best he could. The president quickly backtracked, talked about the incident as a “teachable moment” and invited the two men to the White House for a conciliatory discussion over beer.
Worse, he seemed to jump to conclusions regarding the tragic death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, in 2012. “If I had a son,” said the president, “he would look like Trayvon.” This represented a blatant presidential intervention—again, long before the facts were known—into a delicate criminal justice case in which Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, deserved the full protections of American jurisprudence. In the end, Zimmerman was acquitted, with a jury of his peers concluding that prosecutors had failed to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the accused’s actions were not self-defense.
What can we say about such presidential activity? Simply, that it is unwise, meddlesome and potentially disruptive. Not every racial incident or episode of national notice needs a presidential intervention, and many could be better handled without such interventions.
As for Ferguson, the complexity and difficulty of the situation is reflected in developments of the past few days. After initial clashes between protesters and Ferguson police, and after Obama’s observations issued from Martha’s Vineyard, Missouri governor Jay Nixon ordered local police officials to relinquish command of the situation to the state highway patrol. The state patrol promptly adopted a less confrontational approach, removing riot gear and mingling with protesters. It seemed to work for a time.
Then looting and street destruction resumed, and the governor imposed a curfew on Ferguson. Sunday morning seven persons were arrested in conjunction with officials’ efforts to enforce the curfew, and two shootings were reported. Sunday evening going into Monday morning violence seemed to continue. Governor Nixon early Monday morning ordered the National Guard in to help restore order. There is also the potential for even larger challenges ahead following the release of a “preliminary private autopsy” report concluding Brown was shot at least six times, twice in the head.
It remains an extremely delicate and ominous situation, fraught with potential to slip out of control at any moment. The man most directly responsible for getting this community through this harrowing time of unrest is Governor Nixon. So far, he seems to be handling it with due sensitivity mixed with appropriate firmness. The last thing he needs is second-guessing from on high.
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Tick tock Mr President, each night that this shit escalates is an hour closer to the first dead cop, then the lid comes off this motherfucka and not even Holder, Jackson, and Sharpton holding a group prayer vigil and singing songs of freedom, will put it back on!!
So enjoy your parties in MV and a round of golf as you wait, but tick tock to the first dead cop!
Create the solution then cause the crisis.
As long as it distracts from the failed foreign policy ....
Not to lend any support in any way to the Clown in Chief but he did say:
Call me strange, but I tend to insist that people read and comprehend words properly so as not to merely add to the overall ass-hattery, no matter on which side they come down.
I am Chumbawamba.
So the NBPP and the Communist Party trying to light cocktails off is peaceful protesting... Only 4 people arrested last night were from the town. The rest were from outside, who went there to cause more trouble. That isn't peaceful and they deserved to be jailed just like Sharpton and Jackson.
Numbnuts: try again.
The words the Dipshit in Chief said referred to "peaceful" and "lawful" protesting. Where did he condone violent and unlawful protesting?
I'm not fond of the exercise of building up strawmen to then knock down. I find it a complete waste of time and an extreme form of narcissism.
I am Chumbawamba.
Obama is too busy playing with Reggies balls to waste time on Ferguson trivialities. Besides, what horror could be worse than having to pretend you like spending time with Michael/Michelle/Wookie?
Here's the problem. Vast majority of disenfranchised actually tacitly support the thug, and the rioters.
And no amount of evidence (pretty much 100% backs up the cop) will disuade them from their stupidity. This thug was a piece of shit. No way around it. And the cop actually did his job despite having his fucking face crushed in.
As far as I am concerned......they are all scum. Anyone that would attack another innocent person or property, or countenance those who do, are fucking pieces of shit.
Like the dear pandering race baiting leader himself. He could have come out and said VEHEMENTLY no rioters, and they wil be prosecuted, and under no circumstances will others be harmed. But no.....
He sent in his lapdog.
Now go blow your leader. And his dead could-have-been-my-son thug.
Eric Dick-Holder
"Uhh...If I had a son...Uhh"
"Uhh...The officer acted stupidly...Uhh"
"Uhh...Screw this, let's play golf!"
That rather fits with what Obama said doesn't it? It is also congruent with chum's words.
That said, I don't believe a word out of Obama's lips. Word is he says the opposite of what he means.
"Create the solution then cause the crisis."
You mean like write the Patriot Act and THEN have Israel and their retarded playground bully (the U.S.) blow up those 4 buildings on 9/11?
True enough. A dead cop or almost any damn thing. Sooner or later there will be violence from both sides, and all hell will break loose. This needs to be shut down now.
Yeah, watching this unfold from New Zealand, I assumed with all the guns the public own someone would have shot a cop by now. I guess its harder for a normal citizen to shoot to maim/kill a human than it is for a police officer
Maybe New Zealand could take in some Ferguson refugees. Then the New Zealanders would own lots of guns too.
up arrow for exporting our criminals overseas. I went back to visit the area last year, Ferguson has become a ghetto. I grew up there and I felt like I had no business being there.
@Clifftastic from New Zealand, You should visit Chicago!
No legal gun owners there - very safe place for police officers and civilians alike.
Nearly all lawful gun owners have no interest in killing a cop.
Nearly all lawful gun owners have no interest in killing a cop.
Stupid fuck -
Most of the guns are in the hands of law abiding / upstanding citizens.
They don't normally go out shooting cops -
Law abiding / upstanding citizens having access to guns is a GOOD THING.
Why not stick to posting about something you have experience with -
Maybe you could tell us how to fuck a sheep.
I have lived in the States, I guess you dont understand what I mean. Can't believe my accent carries over into typed words.
What I am saying is, no cop has been shot because normal citizens aren't psychopaths. The public are armed but have restraint, unlike the cops who shoot first, second and third and are never questioned later....so chill out.
As for sheep rooting, well that would be better explained by our Australian neighbours who are more experienced and prolific at it..
Hey bud, when you have sorted out the Maori self determination problem, then we might take notice of your comments.
Expand please
Presumably someone was popping off with a small to mid caliber pistol at 50-100 yards, on the move, holding the gun sideways. Haven't you watched any movies?
Anyway, black areas tend to have very strict gun control laws in the US. It's very odd considering those people need to protect themselves from each other more than most of the rest of us, statistically speaking of course. Odds are that very few people there could pick up a rifle and hit a human sized target at 100 yards with iron sites. Odds are that even fewer of them have a rifle with better sights/optics and know how to shoot. It is a very strange dynamic where the less armed a people are the more likely they are to be victimized by armed criminals and overly armed police.
The only people shooting at cops are the hood rats and they typically have piece if shit wore out hand me down pistols and they grip them sideways when they shoot so they look cool. Couldn't hit the sky unless they are point blank.
Fuck this whole scene it is bullshjt theater on all sides.
Americans own guns to protect ourselves from the guys on both sides of the line,both of whom have histories if disregarding the rules of law and decency.
You think he cares? This is all by design. I bet 3 or 4 young black men get shot and killed in Chicago tonight and Obama is flooding more illegals and drug gangs into Chicago. Selective outrage.
This is all about destroying the USA. White liberals, democrats and blacks voted for this. Why would anyone be suprised at what is going on?
To answer your question directly, the useful idiots who really believed this was all about making life better for everyone and that Obama was some kind of messiah figure. Well, he was but that has rubbed off very well now hasn't it?
Who cares about what 0bummer says or does? He is a nobody and a distraction.
I hear you. Barry is a sack of shit, but this is a great piece. It gets Barry's tone exactly right. He tries to intimidate local white authorities, by suggesting they can never do anything right, while pandering to blacks by never blaming them for anything, regardless of how criminal, stupid, or parasitic their actions are. It's one of his few "skills."
I hate to tell all of you this, but your all so wrong and you don't even know it. Even the article was a BS piece. I love Zerohedge but most of this forum is black people bad, president is protecting them, holder too. That's not the case, in fact if you ask most blacks Obama hasn't done nearly enough if anything for blacks. He's done more for gays and women and whites than blacks. And do you remember him getting in front of the NAACP and saying to the whole group you need to get over it, meaning racism. Imagine him doing that to Jewish or another group. Do you know that Michelle Obama is the first black woman he ever dated and then married. And he did that so he could get the black women votes because as we all know black women hate the idea that a black man has on his arm a white woman or someone that isn't a black woman. All his life he either dated a white woman or an asian. He was raised by his mothers parents who where white. This man sees things from the white point of view most of the time and he doesn't like talking or going to black functions unless he has no choice.
Dude is a white man dipped in feces.
-Chumblez.
LOL! You act like we have real elections. Any problem or election he had got fixed by powerful people. He got court records unsealed to smear opponents and got every record about him totally sealed.
He has always been el see eye aye duh like the Bushes and Clintons.
His family, history and everything else is as real as Adam Lanza and his parents - who never existed.
While I don’t disagree with your assessment of the POTUS, I want to interject my observations. Every black person that I work with, not one, not two, or even three I mean every black person reveres the POTUS as if he is Jesus himself. Any disagreeing with anything the POTUS states is a direct slap in the face to them. I’ve seen them talk about him as the new messiah. Even though his policies make the idiot George Bush look competent.
Well what would anyone expect from the grandiose, incompetent, corrupt, arrogant, narcissitic, illegal indonesian kenyan alien muslim sociopathic pahtologic liar in chief only interested in its celebrity grand imperial Martha's vineyard golf life style off the backs of hard working, tax paying US citizen serfs and peasants.
You forgot "former Senator"--
"You forgot "former Senator"--"
"grandiose, incompetent, corrupt, arrogant, narcissitic,... sociopathic pathologic liar"
No. He got it.
Hmmmmm, sounds like any other 3rd world communist dictator.
intimidate local white authorities, by suggesting they can never do anything right, while pandering to blacks by never blaming them for anything....
Bingo. Exactly.
Name a better skill for a politician/tyrant than manipulating the mob? Yeah, that should scare the poopoo out of you.
200% I agree. So, I'm outahere. Everybody else, enjoy discussing the distraction.
Clearly time for a Swisher Sweet Summit ;-)
He is a DutchMasters kinda fellow I believe.
I stand corrected! ;-)
"rillos"
Should be a few handfuls in the Ferguson evidence locker
3k for thingamijgs like he promised and all this may have been avoided.
What do you expect from a community organizer?
"The last thing he needs is second-guessing from on high."
You need to change your thought processes Mr. Merry. It's not second guessing, it's a calculated response seeking a desired outcome. I'll leave it to you to figure out for yourself what that may be....... Here's a clue:
"Fundamentally transforming America".
Fucking lying charlatan treasonous pig fucker obama is the "one"
..From the desk of Barry Truism- "the buck starts here"..
So it took Sharpton for black people to have a grudge against the po-lice?
Wow, the luxury of such cluelessness.
There are a hundred beatdowns that go unreported, from roadside to front porch, several hundred trivial arrests after bogus traffic pullovers, and sundry related abuses and unending contempt that black people face in that town, as in every town across this Great/Exceptional Nation of ours--still, as they have for hundreds of years as a people--but black people never even had the ability of animals to put 2 + 2 together without Reverand Fucking Asshole Al Sharpton ?
Wow.
To live in such a bubble of cluelessness must be almost like . . . heaven.
Sad that it's white people like you who give assholes like Sharpton their traction.
So do you thing all those beatdowns are against blacks only. Guess your pretty close to heaven yourself.
Fortunately whites, asians and hispanics do not have race baiting biggots parading around as Reverands showing up at everyone of our community tragidies trying to make a buck and glean self importance. There is also no riots.
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/police-shoot-kill-man-watering-lawn-fam...
Too fucking stupid for even that are they, then?
Find any respect in my comment for "race baiting" Al Sharpton and you win a prize!
Find any respect for people who ain't out in the streets by now--people of any race or creed, including the poseurs around here--and you get something even better: A clue.
never let a good crisis go to waste.
Weren't the fine Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson booed away?
One would hope.
That I disagree with. It went from brute thug tactics to officer friendly do whatever the fuck tactics to a curfew that was not enforced back to thug tactics. Combine the officer friendly tactics for most people who aren't being violent and aren't looting with arresting the looters and people who actually are getting violent, and he might get somewhere.
Whoa wait there a gosh durned minute. Do you mean he should have his state po po... enforce the law... as it was intended?
Someone get me something to drink, I think I'm going to faint.
Or is it feint?
Ha, good comment.
Cops ought to sit in their vehicles along the street and only exit to address actual violence or other destructive criminal behavior. Let the good folks have the street to protest peacefully. Instead of a shield wall against the good people try protecting them and their rights.
PS: Just what are they doing with a shield wall? Presumably they would be protecting something or someone. I cannot figure out what is so precious behind them that THEY have to block traffic and cause a disturbance. Very stange things happen when control must be demonstrated.
So someone actually listens to Obozo? Really?
no, nothing bad is going to happen because of Obama sticking his big, racist nose into this matter.
Something bad would happen if the corporate media took offense at this words. But the corporate media likes what he is saying. His words further the goals of the corporations. Corporations like it when the media and politicians play up white guilt and elevate nonwhites in social status. That puts more money into corporate coffers.
Are the white majority going to get angry over this? Don't make me laugh. Yes, a few will get angry. But most have been so throughly crammed full of white guilt by the propaganda regime of the media, hollywood and academia that they are afraid to do anything that might make them look racist
If "those people" would just look past the whites thinking all of them as sub-human; we all, together, could act like the reasonable people we all truly are.
Can't we all just have our own reality.
Just drone strike'm if they don't like you coward traitor peter puffin crack head losser who can't golf, walk (probably the dick in your ass) or play basketball any better than a 10yr old girl..ha Eat Shit Odouchbag!
He was called Barry the Bomber because he didn't have the balls to take the ball to the hole in spite of his decent size and superior athleticism.
He was always a cunt in waiting.
VIDEO at link
Can you IMAGINE a WHITE cop having said OPENLY such about Whites? He would be FIRED instantly and probably never work again.
Capt. Ron Johnson: ‘We All Ought to Be Thanking the Browns for Michael’
"We all ought to be thanking the Browns for Michael, because Michael's going to make it better for our sons, so they can be better black men, so they can be better for our daughters, so they can be better black women, better for me, so I can be a better black father, and we know they're gonna make our mommas even better than they are today," said Johnson.
"I wear this uniform, and I should stand up here and say that I'm sorry," he said.
"This is my neighborhood. You are my family. You are my friends, and I am you. And I will stand and protect you.
"When this is over, I'm gonna go in my son's room - my black son, who wears his pants saggin', wears his hat cocked to the side, got tattoos on his arms, but that's my baby," said Johnson.
"And we all ought to be thanking the Browns for Michael, because Michael's going to make it better for our sons, so they can be better black men, so they can be better for our daughters, so they can be better black women, better for me, so I can be a better black father, and we know they're gonna make our mommas even better than they are today," he said.
The fact that eyewitnesses gve their very first accounts of what happened to TV cameras instead of detectives is all you really need to know about this event... it was a coverup from the moment it began.
You don't wait days, hours, or even seconds to interview eyewitnesses.
You do it immediately... unless you don't want to hear what they have to say, and fear and despise putting it down on paper.
Well, let's see how quickly Obama will rush to comment on the awful beheading of the journalist in Iraq and the threat of a second possible beheading. From two dimensions into three, or four. Time to leave the island for good?
I'm going to get down-arrowed for this, but the "mishandling" of Ferguson by the CIA-Obama regime is a deliberate Hegelian /Cloward–Piven respone.
If one believes, like I do, that Obama is a CIA manchurian candidate with a mandate to lay the ground work for the return of the neo-cons with a vengeance, then one can see it clearly. The neo-cons have the ReadyReserve, DC US "Brownshirts," waiting in the wings to bolster or supplant the local gun and badge thugs. The ReadyReserve will more and more be heard of in the complicit-media and then will be pushed as a "community" answer to the hostility and anger of the American people toward the current thugs called the "police." However, these new thugs will be politically oriented and beholden to the neo-cons, and fundamentalist Christian as well . And they will be primarily white and from mostly rural areas.
"Never waste a crisis"
An American, not US subject.
Spot on. Tiny dancer up in chicago will be next with the military roaming the streets. Never let a crisis go to waste
You forget Obama has his buddy Bill Ayers of the criminal Weather Underground to model himself after. Obama plays it carefully with his word choice but the message is clear "Im with you Bros go loot tonight" . Here is a legal lesson for you. "Assault" means placing someone in fear of bodily harm, "Battery" is defined as an unlawful touching again placing the subject in fear of injury etc. Michael Brown looking at the video was guilty not of shoplifiting but of assult and battery a felony, The robbery was just icing on the cake. So it is absoutely fair to bring that into evidence to show the possibility that Brown was in no mood to be arrested and have that felony come to light. In any case you don't see Jesse Jackson or Spike Lee standing up for the law abiding Black Americans far more terrorized by other criminal Blacks like Michael Brown. How abut an "ice bucket" challenge for them to calm down the 15 murders a weekend in the South Side of Chicago that is almost entirely Black on Black?
Barry and his hanger on reprobate Holder seem to forget the dozens that get killed each week in Detroit and South Chicago.
Here's hoping Holder gets clipped in Ferguson.
This article is bullshit. If Obama said nothing, people would be pissed. When he said something, no matter how anodyne, people parse his words, searching for some hidden meaning. Like most of what he says routinely, there is no meaning.
This was simply an instance where he had to say something so he could get back to the golfcourse. Does anyone here honestly think he gives a shit about this situation in Ferguson? Ukraine and Russia were about to start WWIII and he wouldn't leave the golfcourse, FFS!
As Freud said:" sometimes a cigar is just a cigar".
Obama is a disaster on many levels, but what could he say about this farce in Ferguson that would make anybody happy or anything better? Nothing. So that's what he said.
The shooting was 100% justified. Nothing to see here.
Obama wants race relations in AMerica to crater. He wants Quick Trip and Family Dollar pillaged. He wants ignoramuses marching in a circle chanting shit spoon fed to them. He wants communties torn up and divided. He wants the police to look like racist statists. He wants all this distress and chaos.
You are beyond stupid if you think that Obama hasn't stoked this shit.
This is what HE WAS ELECTED FOR by the dummies, the ignoramuses, the reprobates, the hustlers.
This is judgement on the people of this nation. We abandoned morals and reason and took the spoonsful of multi-culti, post-modern nationalism, outcome-based ethics, moral relativism. This is the logical outworkingof that worldview.
America is gone unless there is a great awakening. It has nothing to do with any of the narratives currently running regarding Ferguson. Turn back to GOD. REPENT. He is waiting to hear our call to him.
That mural in the Denver airport does not have to be your future.
Dude shut the fuck up and go find a billy graham crusade.
You were doing ok until you got all religious retarded....
I want to be one of the first to go on record to predict Capt. Ron Johnson will soon be on his way to meet with President Obama. This will allow the President to make a forceful statement flanked by Johnson and community leaders as to how tragic this all is and chalk it up to racism pure and simple. Many Americans who have been the target of a swat team raid, myself included, will point to a larger factor and one that the President has been complacent in and even encouraged to develop and that is the continued militarizing of Americas police forces.
This has continued during the six years Obama has been in office. Police have moved from the mission of "to serve and protect" to waging a war against enemies like terrorism, drugs, alcohol, and crime. Sadly, the American people have been caught in the crossfire. Spinning this event with a message that serves the President does not lessen the role of Obama and the NSA in moving us further down the path to becoming an Orwellian state. More on this subject in the article below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2014/08/obama-to-meet-with-ferguson-hero....
What do we expect from a community organizer (euphimism for race-baiter)....??
I'm moving on to the next story now....
Yawn ................
Enough of ferguson already.
Ebola is more exciting.
"open and transparent" FLOL