A deliberate error?

Much has been said about Obama’s Health Care press conference this past week.  I have had several reactions to it from a content standpoint and have gone back and forth on the meaning and depth of damage Obama did to himself by getting into the Gates arrest issue.  However, I have come to the viewpoint that he stepped into this error deliberately, knowing that it would cause controversy.

One of the beliefs I have about Obama is that despite his age, he remains an “untested” person.  In other words, he has not had great traumas or failures by which to guage how he will react in a time of crisis.  By his age, most adults have had several failures and crisis by which to judge how they react when faced with the difficult times that inevitably find all of us at some point in our lives.  Yet, when looking at his past, one sees a series of coincidences and happenstance that have protected this man from harsh reality.

- Poor grades at Occidental (I am supposing that if he were a world-class scholar, that transcript would have been available long ago), no problem, he has well positioned supporters and easily meets the “affirmative action” standards for Harvard law.

- Lack of legal genius, no problem, he’s well liked enough to be the first African American president of the Harvard law review — are we still looking for a single article from the man during his term there?

- tough primary challange in Illinois, find your opponents divorce records.  tough senate race against a republican.. open the divorce records again.

- running as the most leftward of any Presidential candidate ever?  rely on a compliant and supplicant press, while blaming the previous President.

etc. etc.

So now he’s in the Whitehouse, and for the first time finding his poll numbers slipping.  While this man may be many things, he is no immune to being thin-skinned about being “liked”.  Add in the primary two initiatives in his domestic  agenda and a bit of desparation can be seen to be awakening in the man.  Yet, this former community activist (agitator) sees an opportunity.  Exactly the kind of thing that used to galvanize his support back in Chicago, and a situation fitting with his pre-existing beliefs about African Americans and police officers in this country.

So he sets up a queston about it with one of his pet journalists and after a lackluster performance (you know he could tell it wasn’t his best night in front of the cameras) he called on that journalist and tried to change the direction.  Yes, he knew this question was out there, and he deliberately called on the question as his way of trying to outflank the opposition (as we know, anyone who opposes him must be racist.. what better way to expose the real reason for their opposition to his health care plan?).

In the course of anwering the question he deftly avoids directly calling the police officer “racist”, but does call him stupid in the course of tying the officers actions to what he sees as racist treatment of blacks by police officers.  It’s a safe situation, or so he assumes.. it ALWAYS worked in Chicago, and it’s a he-said, she-said situation with facts that could be bent according to the right political shading and according to the emotions of the moment.  Sure he was a bit glib and lacked care in his words, but that was never a problem before.

Yet, dear president forgot or didn’t realize, a couple things.

1. He’s not in Chicago anymore.  whereas 75% of Chicagoans might agree or not care enough about an issue like this, the rest of the country is not nearly so compliant.  yet, even here Obama may have calculated this into his equation.  There remains enough yuppie, white-guilt to support him on this issue in many neighborhoods whether or not the facts seemed different, and his hard core supporters routinely believe any sort of feverish conspiracy theory – so long as conservatives, the police, the military, etc are the authors of whatever atrocity they want to believe.
2. The officer had a mic on during the exchange….

This last point is likely the most important of them in the aftermath.  Obama’s half apology would never have come, whatever the outcry from the right if the mic and a tape of the exchange did not exist.  My guess is that the mic tipped the balance, leading the fool to issue his half apology.

So here’s the situation now.  A deliberate error to change the subject led to a bigger unforced error that makes the press conference an utter wasteland for Obama.  No greater support for the health care package, lower support for the “post-racial” President who can’t seem to stop viewing everything with a racial lense.

For the opposition, well, the real lesson is to keep up the heat – and, indeed, to intensify it.  This is not a man who deals with pressure well.  Put the pressure on now and make it clear that Congress has to begin treating him as the lame duck in the equation -sooner rather than later.  In any case, I’d rather the crisis of confidence for this empty shell of a man come now from domestic battles rather than later in the context of a foreign policy crisis.

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