It was inexcusable for the President of the United States in one breath to acknowledge he had “not seen all the facts” then in another to accuse the Cambridge Police of “acting stupidly.”  I hope this casual doublespeak is not becoming a hallmark of Obama’s presidency, as it was on full display at last night’s press conference.

So Obama wasn’t there, but he can conclude the police were stupid? Even given the police report indicating that Gates was angry, belligerent, and throwing out racial barbs and profanities? And what Obama and other opportunistic commentators like Michael Eric Dyson forget is that Gates was not wrongly arrested for breaking and entering. He was arrested for disorderly conduct. This tends to happen when you are pugnacious towards the police and refuse their instructions. Also calling them racist and insulting their mother doesn’t help. You would expect a Harvard professor to know better.

If the police came to my home after I had just broke in, I would be glad that someone had called and they showed up. I would expect to be questioned about my actions and to prove it was my house. It seems as if Gates thought his status as a Harvard professor should have sufficed for the police investigation. But wouldn’t that be profiling? Somehow the well-educated have a higher tendency toward truthfulness? In fact it was Gates, not the police officers, who was exhibiting racial profiling. For Gates to assume the police were questioning him simply because he was black speaks to his preconceived biases. He had a narrative in his head and charged with it full speed ahead: “they are questioning me because I’m black.”  For Michael Eric Dyson to get on TV and argue this case is some sort of metaphor for the black experience betrays the facts of the incident; it is just another chance for him to sermonize on perpetual victimhood and get some air time. He is one of the most overrated voices on television whose synonym-clad sentences and triplespeak are painful and nauseous to any thinking listener.

President Obama is supposed to be the President for all Americans. Instead of rising above the situation, he needlessly injected himself into the debate and sided with Gates and trashed the police officer who handled the arrest. It was a shortsighted and pitiful display, especially given how often President Obama attempts to channel Abraham Lincoln. Obama should remember how Lincoln asked all Americans to unite, “with malice toward none, with charity towards all.” The president left us last night with plenty of malice, and no charity.