Just in case you missed the latest verbal slip-up from our President, here’s a recap.

During the press conference in which President Obama was trying to push for his Health Care Reform package, he got a question regarding the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Gates for disturbing the police.  He said the police acted “stupidly” when they arrested Gates.

If you’ve been under a hill somewhere and don’t know what happened, the police received a call that someone was attempting to break into Gates’s house.  It turns out, it was Gates.  He had locked himself out of his house when he left on a trip out of the country.  He and his driver then broke into the house.

When the police arrived, they asked Gates to step out on the porch.  Gates had a melt down and started saying this was an example of racism.  He asked if the Police knew who he was.  He got the Police Chief on the line to scream at him.  After all this (and this is key for the arrest) Gates followed the police officer out of the house and continued to harangue him on the sidewalk.  The “on the sidewalk” is important because you have to be in public in order to violate laws on public disturbance.   This would include a public sidewalk.

The arresting officer was white, but his account of the incident has been backed by his black partner.  The arresting officer is also the person responsible for training officers when it comes to race matters and every member of the police force have come to his defense.

The President called the arrest an example of stupidity on the part of the police, without having any of the relevant facts.  Probably because it matches his preconceived notions when it comes to matters of race.  If he had been smart and deferred making a statement until he had the facts, he could have avoided angering the police forces of this country and coming off looking like a race hustler.

Of course, it doesn’t help that he spent 20 years in a Church run by Jeremiah Wright.  The fact that Obama’s instict was to believe Gates’s account of race based police harrassment without having any facts to back it up seems to indicate that Obama was indeed listening those twenties years.

It also doesn’t help that Gates’s forte is Racial Profiling, or that his first Supreme Court nominee has a long history of involvement in Racial Politics.

Instead of pushing for Health Care Reform (whatever you may think of the proposals) Obama now has to answer questions on his attitude on race.  Too, bad the media never bothered to ask him during the Campaign.