I tried to listen to the president’s press conference today but my son decided to babble loudly during the entire thing until he caused me to lose my patience. I see that Obama received a lukewarm response from left side of the aisle. I basically accept Ezra Klein’s explanation for this, but it leaves me a little dissatisfied. I remember when “I got this” described Obama perfectly. It’s hard to accept “I can’t touch this” as a substitute.
I’m glad the president isn’t narcissistic and recognizes the limits of his powers. “First, do no harm” is a wise maxim for a physician or a president. I think there are real limits to how much benefit the country can get from the insights of the president on issues of race. But I still believe there is a way for him to talk about Ferguson that wouldn’t prejudice the case or exacerbate the divide. He used to be the guy who knew how to do that when no one else could. I’m sad that he can no longer do it, or, at least, that he no longer believes he can do it.
I don’t like to see the assholes win.
This is gobbedly gook from you.
Give me a list.
You want to join those getting down on the President.
Give me a list of five things that you believe the President should be doing with regards to Ferguson that he’s not doing.
These are not highly visible things, and the President might already be doing them.
But that is a beginning list of what I would have him do, given how far this situation has been screwed up by the Missouri politicians.
THANK YOU
THANK YOU
THANK YOU
I’ve been going around the net, looking at criticisms of the President, longing to see an actual LIST.
I don’t know if the President is doing any of these, but at least you have a list.
It’s impossible to know whether any of the items on this list are actually under way. “Silently,” this and “privately,” that?
By definition, we can’t know if that’s happening or not.
2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 are NOT being done.
We don’t live in fantasy land.
More than likely Obama will eventually speak to the family, but not now. Not while looting is taking place.
.
There is no way that kind of stuff stays private for long no matter what.
Being done as we speak. Holder will be in Ferguson Wednesday
I can live with this. Things the POTUS can do. I’m a little tired of talking and people just wanting to talk. The man’s in a position to get things done. We’ll start getting ahead when we get more concerned with what people are actually doing and less concerned with what they are/aren’t saying.
I don’t know for sure, but seeing as how AG Holder will be there Wednesday and DOJ is allocuted 40 agents and such (I’ll try to find tweet) to go to Ferguson and knowing that the DOJ agreed to conduct another autopsy which the Brown family asked for, I suspect 1 & 4 are actively happening.
2, 3, 5, 6 Could be happening but not too sure, plus wouldn’t they also require elected Dems to help and listen to POTUS? I swear I read an article that had some Dem quotes in them still complaining about aloofness on POTUS part.
There you’ve hit the contradiction in American politics that has not yet been dealt with. Klan-fearing white Democrats. Well, that’s hyperbole at the moment but that’s surely what it looks like to them in their distancing themselves from the President–avoiding the label of being an N-L.
right here we see a case of the two things.
on the left you have Clair McCaskill, who has been doing really good with this.
on the right you have Jay Nixon who has been a complete disaster and continues to be a big disappointment.
Difference…Claire has won her elction and is good for now. Nixon seemed to have bigger aspirations, so he’s scared to death of the racist. Funny enough, that fear has cause him to do stupid things which have basically ended his higher aspirations.
Cowardice always does in crisis situations like this one. So does having sold out to the forces of resegregation.
“Oh my daughter! Oh my ducats!”
I’m sure of one of my Senators. But each of us should be bombarding each of our elected reps and senators with demands continuously. A majority of Representatives already voted several years ago against an amendment by Alan Grayson (D-FL) to restrict the militarization of local police. But Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) is drafting a new bill. We have to pressure Speaker Pelosi to make all Dems vote for it and any GOP reps that have an ounce of human commonsense.
I recall,asking Santa for lots of things to.
Sorry to go all Ron Fournier on you, but I just find it frustrating and sad that we’ve reached this point.
well, the problems were there already – 1. race and the police and 2. militarization of police depts,; maybe crisis/ opportunity as they say
That’s not Fournier. He’s not sad, just “concerned”.
Anything he said today would get him blamed for whatever happens in the streets of Ferguson over the next 48 hours. I can go ahead and write the lead for the network and cable news.
“Some are saying that the President’s responses in his press conference today only fanned the flames of rage in Ferguson. After tonight’s continuation of violence in the streets, many are wondering if it was appropriate for the President to weigh in, once again, on the hot-button issue of race.”
Along with that would be your standard issuance of polling which would ask a bunch of leading questions that will be used to verify all this conventional wisdom emanating from the television media.
The President just can’t win.
ding. ding. ding. ding. ding. ding.
There is a reason that Obama can’t touch this. The right-wing Wurlitzer is waiting to pounce. If there is violence from the stupid Nixon decision to deploy the National Guard, President Obama cannot and likely will not federalize them to put them at the service of protecting the community instead of protecting corrupt police and politicians.
And in Ezra Klein’s statement about the President’s words dividing people instead of bringing them together, he neglects the billions of dollars that rich people have spent on the right-wing Wurlitzer to make that effect happen. Nor does he mention folks like Donald Trump even once.
Obama’s failure to effectively speak out on Ferguson is not Obama’s failing or, in this case, the failing of his communications operation.
He cannot because the Democratic leadership nationwide, from Tim Kaine and Creigh Deeds to Jay Nixon, have backed this nation to the edge of a race war.
President Obama will not light the fuse for that war. Jay Nixon should have had more consciousness of what he has been doing relative to racial politics. It has gone beyond bumbling to dangerous.
My bets are that the Ferguson community is together enough to defuse this situation–if the politicans will let them and if the Missouri National Guard doesn’t do anything stupid. The Saint Louis County Police however seem as determined as South Carolina’s Arsenal Cadets in 1860 to see something go up in flames. They are like firefighters turned arsonists.
I really hope your optimism ends up being vindicated. But the community can only temper the situation so much. I’m not sure what they would consider a fair and equitable solution. From what I have observed, I am not sure that the vast majority of people will be satisfied unless the police officer is charged with a very serious offense and sits in jail until his trial. And just reading the tea leaves, getting from here to there is a major reach, if not a near impossibility. The police incompetence, coupled with the governor’s ham-handed responses and the very muddy water that now surrounds all the various autopsies make the situation ripe for a reckoning that will satisfy almost no one within the community. And now we have the National Guard setting up shop, another completely unpredictable variable that could light the fuse on this tense powder keg.
The investigation will take months. And I just do not see this situation staying on a low simmer for an extended period of time. The likelihood of an explosive and violent end seems to me to be very high. I would like to think that our vaunted American system would work through this and that a just resolution will be reached, but our history and our current political climate adversely stack the deck against anything resembling a satisfactory end.
The likelihood of an explosive and violent end triggered by the Saint Louis County Police Department is very high. They showed up tonight without badges and at least one was carrying a can of Sergeant Pepper Spray sized mace.
My optimism goes to the community reaction. This is a suburban community despite the poverty. It has suburban and working class values, and the churches that go with them. It contains local entrepreneurs. And over the past week they have been brought together in trying to keep the peace against cops itching for a fight.
My view of the situation right now is very pessimistic and, considering the multiple instances of cops killing innocent people this month, there could be a national boil over if it’s not handled correctly.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s article is right on target IMO.
I agree that the community is key. Not sure if it’s true, but I heard someone on TV tonight say that this incident was “the first murder of the year” in Ferguson. That tells me that there is a reason there is such a visceral reaction among its citizens. Murder is just not on their communal radar screens. So with these circumstances, reactions are going to be all the more fervid.
There is also the fact that as far as I have read, looters arrested have all been NON-residents of Ferguson, outsiders. Wonder if St Louis cops aren’t calling in the chits on any black troublemakers they know? “Come to Ferguson for a looting spree. We’ll go easy on afterward.”
It has gone beyond bumbling to deliberate provocation.
It started with deliberate provocation.
Some things are hard to understand. How does one justify firing six bullets at someone walking down the middle of the street? Why would you not use a taser? Why has he not been charged with anything at all ? Sounds near side of crazy.
St. Louis County grand jury begins hearing testimony Wednesday…
The other avenue that leads towards a charge and an arrest is the local prosecutor filing an information.
And that’s not going to happen. We’ve heard from him already.
A prosecutor that doesn’t want to prosecute. A prosecutor that throws the trial. Trayvon Martin all over again.
No, it sounds deliberate, just like the decision to store their dashboard cameras instead of installing them in police cars.
One of the defining lines between White people of conscience and Black folk is this: too white people are still saying “this is unbelievable, it is just crazy”, “the cops are incompetent”. Black folk, including our President know better.
Well we do know why and no, it’s not crazy. A year or two here in my town a white cop was recorded on his own dash camera whaling the Hell out of a middle-aged white drunk. So no racial element. It made all the news services (they love video) you could see him clearly swinging the baton two-handed. I was surprised his skull didn’t crack. He was relieved pending investigation, then fired. It took a while. Criminal charges were never pursued but a lawsuit was filed by the victim and I’m sure the village will wind up paying.
They need to talk about Wilson, probably arrest him. The grand jury thing doesn’t work when so many think he should be charged. Six bullets needs some sort of explanation from the police. My initial reaction was murder but that is just emotional. Others are thinking the same thing especially after years of being thought of as worthless.
I suspect the Co. Atty. is saving Wilson for the Grand Jury- Wilson will come out of the safe house with weepy blue eyes, traumatized and frightened that anyone would think he meant to kill.
As usual John Oliver nailed this pretty well last night. I think Kareem Abdul-Jabbar did a good job as well in the Times article. He could be right. This is about class warfare and not black v white. Anyway it is about time we thought about it.,
Kareem Abdu-Jabbar’s The Coming Race War Won’t Be About Race is one very fine piece. He knits together an amazing number of threads.
Too few consider the impact of inequality and poverty on people’s lives. Yes, Kareem is right here. This will continue and there will be more Fergusons. And we will all continue to be outraged but poverty leads to it all.
Give Finn a hug and enjoy his babbling. Mine is now 15 and feeling the full force of his teenage years. Sigh.
Ta-Nehisi Coates: Reparations for Ferguson