What Can We Learn from Obama’s Thoughts About His Respected Friends Arrest

Here is how I would like to do this. Let’s look at The Good, the Assumptions and The Outcomes.

The Good

Obama can be a compassionate and committed friend. He knew his friend as well as his friend’s reputation and came to his friend’s defense based on what he (thought he) knew. We could always hope for such a friend in our own personal corner of life.

Obama is an educated man and reflects on other external information to review situations in a larger context. A couple of times now a number of radio talk shows from NPR to independent national commercial radio programs have attached themselves to Obama’s reflections on studies that state the idea that Black and Latinos are disproportionately stopped by the police, inferring that this is such a case.

Obama admitted that he knew little about the details of the case. He prefaced everything he said with that statement. I would go so far as to say that it seems to qualify any following remarks in that context.

The Assumptions

Obama said what he heard.

He claimed to have heard that his friend was inevitable inside his home having presented his ID to the police officer who eventually arrested him.

He also stated the assumption that the Boston Police department acted “stupidly.”

The Outcomes

Nothing is resolved yet. We know a few additional facts that we did not previously know. For example, we know, according to Reuters that the man was arrested outside his home, not in it. This simply demonstrates that Obama new less than he previously thought.

We know that Obama jumped to some conclusions about the cause of the arrest, that being racially motivated. According to the admitting of Obama his bias was motivated by those external sources of information that he allowed to influence his line of thinking. Said another way, while he might be right about the event being racially motivated, he could easily as well be wrong and his assumption simply demonstrates that he is willing to jump to certain conclusions based on his bias in the absence of fact.

Before we jump on him for that, I will admit that I do this as well from time to time within my conservative bias. The point is, just as a judge must separate themselves from their bias and review facts in the light of president judgments and the constitution, can Obama successfully do the same in his role as President? Rather than allowing his bias to generate strawmen for the purpose of knocking them down, can he, as President, refrain from building a case for bias and instead demonstrate being a reasonable person willing to wait for the facts? I heard his story of what he thought had transpired. I also agreed with his response to that story. At the same time I also, like many others felt like I was willing to wait for the facts. I didn’t want to jump in and say, “I think that cop was right,” or “Man, that poor respected citizen abused by that policeman.”

Obama could have said, “If what I have heard is the whole story and ends up being true, well, then I think that that police officer acted stupidly.” Moreover, if it were racially motivated I might have used more severe and critical language than simply calling it “stupid.”

But that isn’t what Obama did. Instead he made assumptions and literally claimed the entire police force acted “stupidly.” I am far less a believer that such a statement will come close to being true in this case. Maybe the cop individually acted stupidly, but that leap was clearly irresponsible. I wouldn’t be surprised if we soon read about a detraction on that point; either detraction or a White House redefining of “what the President meant” by that, which is an excuse rather than an apology.

But Obama said he didn’t know much, didn’t he? Well, yes he did. And yet he made the declarative statements he made. In other words, he knew he didn’t know enough, and at that level of knowledge he willingly rendered a biased judgment. I know plenty of people who know the limit of their knowledge and aren’t willing to render such a judgment.

Is this a big deal?

Well in the scope of this situation, I don’t think it is as big a deal as people are making it out to be. It does however raise questions about how Obama comes to conclusions about certain facts or even decisions without the availability of facts.

We already know that Obama isn’t a big reader, so how much insight does the man demand before he is ready to render a decision on big stuff like… the economy, healthcare plan details, local education funding in the multi-billion dollars with unprecedented new federal oversight, cap-and-trade policy, new U.N. Treaties that give jurisdiction over local government at an international level, etc?

My assumptive guess, based on this demonstration of his response in-kind… he doesn’t require nearly as much insight into these scenarios as we previously might have imagined.