Barack Obama's Teachable Moments: Huffington Post
Friday, July 31, 2009 at 7:53PM Sigmund Freud has described what women want. He was wrong. What Michelle Obama has with her husband is what women want. That is a husband who is capable of reflection, who learns from his mistakes, and who does not feel weak and demeaned by realizing he has been wrong.
What works for Michelle also works for our country. A case in point is President Obama's recent use of the word "stupidly" to describe police action. Unless you have been in Rip Van Winkle mode for the last several days, you know about Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., who was cuffed by police Sgt. James Crowley in an incident of utter confusion and misunderstanding when the Sergeant accused a man locked out of his house of attempting to break in. What led to hot-tempered confrontation and later debate, one that the president weighed in on, was the fact that the man coming home to a door that would not budge was black.
Depending on experience with police and prejudice, most either applauded the president's word choice, seeing it as brave and accurate. Or they seethed, viewing it as disparaging to men and women who daily put their lives on the line.
Soon after the president's comment Cambridge police union members held a news conference calling on President Obama to apologize, and Sgt. Dennis O'Connor, president of the Cambridge Police Superior Officers Association, accused the president of directing the "right adjective" to the "wrong party." Nonetheless, Mr. Gates contended that he was a victim of racism. more
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