The House is considering a resolution demanding that Pres. Obama apologize to Sgt. James Crowley for saying he “acted stupidly” in the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) will introduce a House resolution on Monday demanding Obama retract and apologize for remarks he has made about Cambridge Police Sergeant James Crowley this past week.
Obama had said at his prime time press conference Wednesday that Crowley had “acted stupidly” in the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, a racially-infused case which has sparked a national debate on race and policing.
The president refused to back down on his involvement in the case, but appeared in the White House briefing on Friday to say he had called Crowley to explain that never meant to insult the officer. (Obama also called Gates on Friday.)
McCotter’s resolution would demand Obama “retract his initial public remarks and apologize to Cambridge, Massachusetts Police Sergeant James M. Crowley for having unfairly impugned and prejudged his professional conduct in this local police response incident.”
The resolution will come after an escalation in the Cambridge case the past two days after the president’s initial statements on the matter. The nation’s largest police group, the Fraternal Order of Police, blasted Obama for his remarks about Crowley and the Cambridge police.
There are no words or expressions that are adequate to this. Jaw-dropping? Too cliched for something like this. Has this ever happened before? That one political party in Congress has proposed a resolution to demand that the President of the United States apologize to a private citizen for offending him?
Are there absolutely no grown-ups left in the Republican Party? None? Aside from anything else, Pres. Obama did apologize, in effect. He acknowledged, very clearly, that he made a mistake in using those words. My God, even the police union is satisfied with what he said!
Standing two dozen strong before a sea of TV cameras at the Hotel Macklowe, Steve Killion of the Cambridge Police Patrol Officers Association declared:
“Cambridge police are not stupid. I think the President should make an apology to all law-enforcement personnel throughout the entire country.”
Dennis O’Connor, president of the police supervisors union, said Obama needed to say he was sorry.
“We hope that they [Obama and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick] will reflect upon their past comments and apologize to the men and women of the Cambridge Police Department,” he added.
It worked.
Within an hour after phoning Crowley, Obama called an impromptu news conference of his own in Washington.
Stepping before a surprised White House press corps, he said he regretted his July 22 statement and called Crowley an “outstanding police officer and a good man.”
“I want to make clear that in my choice of words, I think I unfortunately … gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sgt. Crowley specifically,” the President said.
“I could have calibrated those words differently, and I told this to Sgt. Crowley.”
The back-pedaling seemed to mollify the union officials who had blasted him.
“It’s gone some way toward mending the fence with the patrol officers, even though I haven’t spoken with any of them yet,” Killion told the Boston Globe after Obama’s remarks.
“He acknowledges he made a mistake,” Killion said.
“He wasn’t there. None of us have the facts. He didn’t have the facts. We don’t have the facts. We don’t know what Professor Gates said, what Sgt. Crowley said.”
He said he was “absolutely pleased” with Obama’s call to Crowley.
“I think it was a good thing for the President to do. He’s the commander in chief, he’s in charge,” he said.
Thank you, Mr. Killion — would you mind calling Thaddeus McCotter and ask him to give the message to his fellow House Republicans?
PAST CONTRIBUTOR.