Proving once again how desperately he needs a teleprompter to avoid inserting his size 12 oxfords into his mouth, Barack Obama couldn’t resist commenting on what should have remained a local issue, and, in so doing, proved himself every bit as arrogant as the overpaid, tenured twit he was defending. I refer, of course, to the case of the president’s good friend, elitist Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who turned a routine police call to his home into an ugly racial incident. This was followed by a totally inappropriate comment from the President of the United States when he told the press that the police had “acted stupidly.”

Since then, it has become obvious that is was Barack Obama who “acted stupidly.”

Regardless of the color of your skin, what is the appropriate response when your neighbor calls 911 after seeing someone trying to break into your home and it turns out to be you? Embarrassment? An apology to the officers for wasting their valuable time? Perhaps a feeling of gratitude and a desire to thank the neighbor for being so vigilant? Professor Gates apparently felt none of these emotions. Instead, he went straight for the race card because, you see, he is black and the police officer who confronted him is white. Ergo, there must be discrimination involved.

There was, indeed, discrimination involved, but it had to do with class, not race. A wealthy Harvard professor was belligerent, insulting and unruly because a working class cop dared to confront him in the line of duty. Then, after admitting he really didn’t know all the facts in the case, the president told the press and the nation that the police “acted stupidly.”

The year is 2009, not 1959. Do Gates and the president realize how ridiculous it sounds when a man is asked by a police officer to do something and he replies with the question, “Why, because I’m a black man in America”? America has bent over backward to get past our racial history. More than half a million men died fighting a Civil War that ended slavery. The Constitution was amended, statutes were adopted and the authority of individual states was overridden by the federal government when local officials refused to abide by those laws. As pundit George Will has pointed out, Cambridge, Massachusetts, is a city governed by a black mayor in a state with a black governor in a country with a black president! Can we finally get past the race baiting?

Professor Gates has stated that he will “accept” an apology from Sgt. James Crowley, the veteran police officer who was maligned by Gates and the president. How benevolent! Crowley, to his credit, has said that an apology will not be forthcoming because he has done nothing wrong.

Meanwhile, even though the president seemed at a loss to understand why most of the country disapproved of his comments, he finally admitted that he could have “calibrated” his words differently, whatever that means. By then, he had spoken on the phone with the police officer he had insulted and assured us that they are going to have a beer together at the White House. Isn’t that nice?

North Korea is threatening to nuke us the moment they can figure out how to shoot a missile straight. Iran also wants to destroy us. Osama bin Laden is still on the loose. Unemployment is in double digits, or soon will be. Tax dollars are being squandered that our grandchildren haven’t even earned yet. And Barack Obama is going to have a beer with a cop and a college professor at the White House. Does this man even understand his job? He seems to think he was elected to be our moralizer-in-chief.

After a mere six months in office, the American people are seeing the real Barack Obama. The huckster who sold us a line of socialist snake oil disguised as magic elixir is starting to show his true colors. What we witnessed at the president’s press conference is the community organizer who spent most of his adult life sitting under the tutelage of an America-hating bigot masquerading as a Christian minister. Look for him to continue “acting stupidly.”

© 2009 by Doug Patton