Gates-Gate Redux

Whew, Finally. The Beer porch takes place.

Here’s the Officer’s video:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I would like to applaud President Obama for bringing Sergeant Crowley, me and our families together. I would also like to thank the President for welcoming my father, Henry Louis Gates, Sr., who for most of his life has been a Republican! My dad turned 96 this past June, and the fact that he worked two jobs every day is the reason that my brother, Dr. Paul Gates, and I were able to receive such splendid educations. I am honored that he chose to join me at the White House, along with my fiancée, my daughters, and my brother.

Sergeant Crowley and I, through an accident of time and place, have been cast together, inextricably, as characters – as metaphors, really – in a thousand narratives about race over which he and I have absolutely no control. Narratives about race are as old as the founding of this great Republic itself, but these new ones have unfolded precisely when Americans signaled to the world our country’s great progress by overcoming centuries of habit and fear, and electing an African American as President. It is incumbent upon Sergeant Crowley and me to utilize the great opportunity that fate has given us to foster greater sympathy among the American public for the daily perils of policing on the one hand, and for the genuine fears of racial profiling on the other hand.

Let me say that I thank God that I live in a country in which police officers put their lives at risk to protect us every day, and, more than ever, I’ve come to understand and appreciate their daily sacrifices on our behalf. I’m also grateful that we live in a country where freedom of speech is a sacrosanct value and I hope that one day we can get to know each other better, as we began to do at the White House this afternoon over beers with President Obama.

Thank God we live in a country where speech is protected, a country which guarantees and defends my right to speak out when I believe my rights have been violated; a country that protects us from arrest when we do express our views, no matter how unpopular.

And thank God that we have a President who can rise above the fray, bridge age-old differences and transform events such as this into a moment in the evolution of our society’s attitudes about race and difference. President Obama is a man who understands tolerance and forgiveness, and our country is blessed to have such a leader.

[…]

Having spent my academic career trying to bridge differences and promote understanding among Americans, I can report that it is far more comfortable being the commentator than being commented upon. At this point, I am hopeful that we can all move on, and that this experience will prove an occasion for education, not recrimination. I know that Sergeant Crowley shares this goal. Both of us are eager to go back to work tomorrow. And it turns out that the President just might have a few other things on his plate as well.

via The Root –  Henry Louis Gates Jr. on his meeting with Sgt. Crowley at the White House..

Great, now can we just please move on to something a bit more important? Like that fact Obama’s Poll numbers are dropping, or the fact that Obama’s HealthCare plan is going down in flames? Or at least something, at bit more substantive?

Because the silly stuff has about me got me great to take vacation from Blogging; Seriously.

Web Traffic to Obama White House Website has dropped

This is an interesting story:

The traffic at President Obama’s official White House Web site–whitehouse.gov–has fallen from a post-Inauguration peak to nearly the same level it was during the waning days of the Bush administration.

The dramatic drop in traffic has happened despite the Obama Administration’s complete redesign of the site.

According to the web-traffic tracking site Alexa.com, whitehouse.gov was almost the 500th most popular Web site in the world in February. Since then, it has fallen to the 3,732 ranked Web site in the world. Traffic to the site has fallen 51.6 percent in the last three months.

People are also spending less time on the site than they did before. Time spent on a Web site is often used as a barometer for how interested visitors are in a site’s content. Time spent on whitehouse.gov declined 15 percent since May to an average of 2.6 minutes per visitor

via CNSNews.com – Traffic to Obama’s White House Web Site Has Plummeted.

Because I am not on Brent Bozell’s payroll; I will say this, in fairness to the President the election season is over and now people are just not paying attention the White House and the President as much. So, I am not going to chime in with the partisan narrative here. However, it is notable to point out that overall traffic to this blog has had a remarkable uptick since Obama’s poll numbers have began to drop off. Which tells me that some people; who are possibly just regular independent voters are wanting to read critical reporting of the President. Instead of being spoon fed the constant political commercial that they are given at MSNBC, CNN and some of the other networks as well.

The bottom line is this: While I would not make too much of ado over this, it is interesting to note that Obama’s polls are dropping and that some people are just getting tired of Obama’s campaign speeches.

Awesome Video: Police Officers, Black and White, Stand behind Sergeant Crowley

Despite what I wrote about a certain racist bigot earlier. This is quite awesome.

This comes via Hotair.com:

One word; Awesome. Big Grin

Others:

FORE! Obama Plays Golf again… Media Swoons..

Seriously, why does the media care about this?

President Obama has become quite the golf fanatic since he began his presidency.

The commander in chief is out on the links again today, playing a round at Andrews Air obama golfingForce Base. This is the 10th time in as many weeks that Obama has found time to squeeze in some golf (all weekends, except for one Monday.)

In fact, the White House press corps has come up with a nickname to refer to the President’s golfing habits: “The First Duffer,” as they refer to him in pool reports when he’s hitting the links.

Today, Obama is playing with White House aides Ben Finkenbinder and Marvin Nicholson, as well as David Katz, the official photographer for his 2008 campaign.

In the past, Obama has played with U.S Trade Representative Ronk Kirk, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, and personal aide Reggie Love, among others.

via The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room » Obama plays golf….again.

You know, I hate to sound like such an a-hole, especially this early in the morning and all.  But can anyone tell me why the media gives two shits about the President playing a game of golf? I mean, seriously! Who cares!?!?! I really do not and I am almost positive the American people really do not care either. Yeah, I know the media savaged Bush for doing it and they were right to. That is because Bush was playing golf, while people were fucking dying in Iraq and I believe during Katrina too. So, it was justified, I felt. But with President Obama, it is different. Because nothing major is happening, it is more like silly fawning over a new boyfriend or something. It is, I feel, on the verge of getting quite old.

When I say nothing major is happening; what I am saying is this. The Iraq war is about wound down, Afghanistan is not going nearly as bad as Iraq. The whole background picture is different. All I am saying folks, is that the media needs to get out of this damned fawning mode and get back to serious reporting.

Others: Gateway Pundit, THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS and Don Surber

Video: Henry Gates Jr. goes on N-Word Tirad

The Video:

A video has surfaced on YouTube of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. delivering a church speech in which he uses the N-word, rails against “racist historically white institutions in America” and accuses Newt Gingrich of attempting to block blacks from entering the middle class.

Gates became a lightning rod of racial controversy when President Obama defended the professor handcuffed in his home last week by police in Cambridge, Mass.

“We are trying to end what we call the one n-gger syndrome – you know, this place ain’t big enough for more than one of us,” said Gates in the video, which was filmed in 1999 in the All Souls Church in Washington, D.C.

via WorldNetDaily: Shock video: Professor Gates goes on N-word rant.

Very interesting. “Racism for me, but not for thee.”

Typical, So very typical for African-Americans and for Liberals. Notice how he goes off on Clarence Thomas?

Update: HotAirPundit has more on the Story:

“Without affirmative action we would have never been able to integrate racist historically white institutions in American society”

“I taught at Duke for one long painful year, I don’t even like the airplane to flyover North Carolina…Because of racism I never would have been allowed to compete with white boys and white girls”

Contract with America and Newt Gingrich “set up barriers so no more of you all could get in here”
Gates Attacks:
White racist institutions
White racism
Duke (majority white college)
North Carolina
Clarence Thomas
Newt Gingrich
Contract with America
Uses the N-Word…

So much for Dr. Kings vision of a colorblind society
I doubt if most people after watching this would want to go have a beer with him…

This is one of Obama friends. Like Mr. Pundit said here, this guy and Jeremiah Wright most likely were friends. Lord knows, they think much alike. I wonder if President Obama will throw Mr. Gates under the bus too?

Secretary Clinton: Iran's Pursuit of Nukes 'Futile'

If you would have told me, a year ago, that I would be praising Hillary Clinton for something she said; I would have asked you what kind drugs you were on and to share some of it with me! (I kid about the drugs, but this still is a very good story.)

First the Video:

Quote:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that Iran will never achieve its goal of obtaining a nuclear weapon, declaring to Tehran: “Your pursuit is futile.”

“What we want to do is to send a message to whoever is making these decisions, that if you’re pursuing nuclear weapons for the purpose of intimidating, of projecting your power, we’re not going to let that happen,” Clinton said.

“First, we’re going to do everything we can to prevent you from ever getting a nuclear weapon. But your pursuit is futile, because we will never let Iran — nuclear-armed, not nuclear-armed — it is something that we view with great concern, and that’s why we’re doing everything we can to prevent that from ever happening. … We believe, as a matter of policy, it is unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons.”

As a security summit in Thailand earlier this week, Clinton raised the possibility of a “defense umbrella” over the Middle East to protect other nations from a nuclear-armed Iran, marking the first time a senior administration official has publicly broached the prospect of the Persian nation succeeding in building a nuclear weapon.

Clinton said the Obama administration might still engage with Iran’s regime, even though she thinks the people there “deserve better than what they’re getting.”

via Hillary Clinton: Iran’s pursuit of nukes ‘futile’ – Mike Allen and Daniel Libit – POLITICO.com.

The only question that I might have is this; Does President Obama agree with this position? Another concern that I have is that this could be a signal of War drums beating. I am sure that the Secretary knows, that our forces are still fighting in Afghanistan and that we do still have forces in Iraq and that the job there is still not entirely done yet.

However, I do commend Secretary Clinton for her tough stance towards Iran’s terrible President and Islamic Oligarchy.

I just hope that President Obama agrees with Secretary Clinton and does not try and back-peddle that stance and play the role of terrorist appeaser. If he does, it would mean the total discrediting of Secretary Clinton and further more of America’s leadership role in the World.

Update: No Quarter, who is a Pro-Hillary liberal Blogger; links in. Hey, we might not agree on politics. But I’ll any kind of linkie love that I can get! 😛 😀

Update #2: John over at Powerline disagrees:

In other words, negotiating with Iran at this time would indeed betray the protesters, but we’ve done this before and want to do it again now.

Fair enough, perhaps. Our experiences with the Soviet Union and China do establish that we have at times negotiated with repressive regimes. But it doesn’t follow that we should negotiate with Iran at this time.

In any event, this much is certain: our negotiations with the Soviet Union and China did not cause either power to eschew nuclear weapons. Indeed, to my knowledge negotiations have never induced any nation that was aggressively pursuing nukes to change its mind. That kind of persuasion takes a massive show of force (Libya and arguably Iraq) or regime change.

Thus, while the administration may have its own motives for negotiating with Iran, there is no reason for Israel to believe that such negotiations will protect Israel’s interest (potentially a life-and-death one) in preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Clinton’s case that Israel should rely on U.S. attempts to pursuade Iran not to go nuclear, rather than taking matters into its own hands by attacking Iran, is not a powerful one.

Thank You Jonathan Klein

I am very glad to hear this:

CNN/US president Jonathan Klein is rebuffing the mounting criticism of the network over Lou Dobbs’ continued airing of “birther” theories, saying that Lou runs “his own show” that merely hosts “panels” with birther theorists and asserting that CNN respects viewers enough to let them “make up their own minds.”

Klein, in an interview with me just now, also took a shot at Dobbs’ critics, saying they’re politically motivated: “I understand that people with a partisan point of view from one extreme or anther might get annoyed that certain subjects are aired.”

CNN is under mounting pressure to get Dobbs to stop giving airtime to birther theorists and suggesting there’s something to their case, which he’s been doing even though the network has repeatedly debunked the theories. Jon Stewart recently mocked Dobbs for not even watching his own network. Media Matters has blasted CNN for “mainstreaming the fringe.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center called for Dobbs’ firing today, and MoveOn is demanding CNN apologize for Dobbs’ “helping to spread hate and fear.”

“Look, Lou’s his own show, and CNN in general has repeatedly and thoroughly reported on the facts behind this situation,” Klein said to me, adding that Lou had merely hosted “a few conversations with people representing a wide range of opinions.”

Klein said that Dobbs has repeatedly stated that he believes that Obama was born in Hawaii, and has simply been examining the “phenomenon that for some people this won’t go away.”

via CNN President Brushes Off Criticism Of Lou Dobbs’ Continued Floating Of “Birther” Theories | The Plum Line.

I publicly thank Jonathan Klein for not knuckling under to the liberal fascists, who would like to censor, repress and destroy those who are not drinking Obama’s Kool-Aid. I too personally, would like to see Obama Original long form Birth Certificate. Although, I won’t hold my breath seeing that the Birth Certificate was discarded in 2001, when the hospital records went digital. That is, if that was actual hospital he was born in.

On one hand, I think this story is a good thing.  I believe that President Obama should be forced to release his original long form Birth Certificate. But then again; if he does and it does in fact show that Obama was born in Hawaii. Would not that totally destroy or at worst; discredit the right wing media?  These are the questions that keep me awake at night. Why would the media or any other outlet pursue something that could in fact bury them, if it turns out that they were totally wrong about it? On the other hand, if Obama is truly a citizen, then why is he spending all the millions that Obama has paid to keep his Birth Certificate private?

The man is a public figure, he is the President of the United States of America. President Obama should release the long form Birth Certificate to end this madness for good.

Video: The President Backpeddles

First the Video:

Via The Politico:

President Obama made a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room Friday in an attempt to tamp down the escalating controversy over his comments on the Monday arrest of Harvard Prof. Henry Louis Gates by the Cambridge, Mass., Police Department.

Just hours after Cambridge police union officials called on Obama to apologize for saying the officers involved in the incident with Gates behaved “stupidly,” Obama conceded that he erred in his “choice of words.”

Obama said he spoke to James Crowley, the sergeant who arrested Gates, “and I have to tell you that, as I said yesterday, my impression of him is that he was an outstanding police officer…and that was confirmed in the phone conversation.”

“In my choice of words, I unfortunately gave the impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically,” Obama said, walking back his sharpest criticism.

But, the president said: “I continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Prof. Gates out of his home and to the station. I also continue to believe, based on what I heard, that Prof. Gates probably overreacted as well.”

Let me get this straight; The President is saying that he should not have called the Police Department stupid? But he still things that both guys overreacted?  In other words; they are not stupid, but they both hotheads. All one has to do, is go over to the smoking gun and you will see what happened.

The simple truth is Gates knew that he could provoke a situation because he was black. Just that simple. If the President believes anything other than that. He is much more stupid that I thought. The simple truth is that Obama is siding with this idiot because he is black. So, Obama is totally biased in this situation.

The truth is this, the Media threw him a curve ball and he took the bait and inserted himself into a local situation and in that process has made himself look very small and petty.

So much for a Post-Racial President!