Friday

April 19th, 2024

Insight

President Obama, Malcontent in Chief, is getting tiresome --- especially given his background

Ron Hart

By Ron Hart

Published December 5, 2014

What now, Obama?

The grand jury decision in the Ferguson, Mo., police shooting case of Michael Brown by officer Darren Wilson was not even close. Twelve people, black and white, came to the right conclusion.

When all the facts came out, race-industry hustlers could hardly argue that the decision was unjust. Even Jesse Jackson, who took very little time away from Thanksgiving with his families, couldn’t quibble.

Trying to incite further violence, Al Sharpton still preached, “Don’t take your gloves off” afterward. He should leave Ferguson, avoid the spotlight, and go someplace where no one will see him: back to MSNBC. Sharpton demands accountability in others, often visits Obama in the White House – and owes $4.5 million in taxes.

The Ferguson police were not invited to Obama’s White House summit Monday on “race discussions.” Obama never listens or discusses; he lectures.

President Obama, the Malcontent in Chief on the Ferguson decision, delivered two minutes of well-written, consoling, teleprompter prose at the summit. Then he went off script and lectured us on race, an issue on which he has been particularly polarizing. This came from someone with a low SAT score who got into Columbia University under affirmative action. He graduated without honors (and Ivy League schools give honors in 90 percent of their classes). As we all know, graduating without honors gets you into Harvard Law School. Just try it.

With Obama’s undistinguished record in work and politics, I just don’t see how he and his wife, who have gone far in our country with the help of affirmative action and a sympathetic white America, can complain about bigotry. It’s tiresome.

If you are going to make a racial stand, the Cambridge professor case, Trayvon Martin and Ferguson are not where you want to hang your hat. You actually make the opposite point. And you look petty, angry and incite racial division.

The Ferguson case has pitted the races against each other as starkly as possible. Michael Brown was the quintessential African American inner-city youth with a troubled past. Darren Wilson traces his family back to England, where white people were invented. Officer Wilson had just come from a police call to a black neighborhood, where he helped a sick 2-year-old baby and its mother. Michael Brown had just robbed a store and assaulted the clerk. The two met by chance. Brown had drugs in his system; Wilson had a great record as a policeman. Whose side are you on? The facts or some trumped-up racial narrative?

Police are not “gunning down black males.” According to FBI statistics, in 2012, there were 12 million total arrests in the United States. During those 12 million arrests, there were only 420 fatal police shootings. White people were shot in 42 percent of the cases; blacks were shot in 32 percent; Hispanics, 20 percent. These percentages are in line with the racial breakdown of crimes committed, and fatal shootings happened in only 0.000035 percent of arrests. It is not an issue. Black on black crime is, however.

The truth is that most Americans are more than OK with what Darren Wilson did. The word “reasonable” is written into most applicable laws on use of force. We realize cops put their lives on the line every day to defend us. There are thugs out there – and, sometimes, they do get killed.

I feel sorry for the African Americans whose businesses were burned by looters and thugs. Beside Wilson, they are the only victims in this case. It’s hard to have a Black Friday sale when, a few days earlier, all your merchandise was free to anyone with a brick in his hand.

Now, Eric Holder and his mini-me, Barack Obama, are going to tour the country to lecture us on race. This from the chief law enforcement officer in the country, who met with Michael Brown’s family and not the law enforcement victim, whom he supposedly leads. This is so important to Obama that he is willing to leave his normal post, Golf Cart One, to talk down to us on race.

Conservatives support manufacturing more oil to fuel America; for Democrats the most reliable source of fuel is manufactured racial outrage. There is a considerable difference between protesting to make your point based on facts, and looting or destroying others’ property. After years of tacit approval by so called “black leaders,” Obama has turned our Midwest into the Middle East.

The only true outrage here is that Darren Wilson no longer has his job and received no severance pay. Lois Lerner, who did Obama’s bidding at the IRS, still gets paid.

Columnists

Toons