WASHINGTON - - President Barack Obama backed off Friday from his contention that police acted "stupidly" in arresting a black Harvard University professor on disorderly conduct charges at his own home, hoping to tamp down an escalating racial dispute that has diverted attention from his policy agenda.
The president, making a rare, surprise visit to the White House press briefing room, conceded that he had chosen the wrong words in saying the Cambridge, Mass., police had blundered.
"This has been ratcheting up, and I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up," Obama said of the racial controversy. "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 and Sgt. [James] Crowley specifically. And I could've calibrated those words differently."
Obama also phoned both the arresting officer and the professor, Henry Louis Gates Jr., on Friday, inviting them to the White House to discuss the disagreement over a beer.
The president stopped short of apologizing for his remark about the police, which he had made at a prime-time news conference on Wednesday. But he said that in his conversation Friday with Crowley, he acknowledged that "I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically - and I could have calibrated those words differently." At his news conference Wednesday, Obama used stark language in blaming Cambridge police officers for an arrest that he said should never have happened. Over the next two days, he tempered his position, saying Gates might also have been at fault.
"I continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Professor Gates out of his home to the station," Obama said. "I also continue to believe, based on what I heard, that Professor Gates probably overreacted as well." What led Obama to this point began with the report of a break-in at Gates' home on July 16. Cambridge police arrived on the scene and questioned Gates, who had been locked out of his house after returning from a trip to China and was trying to force open a door.
In his police report, Crowley said the professor was "very uncooperative" and accused him of being a "racist police officer." For their part, Gates's supporters say he posed no threat and was treated with more suspicion because of his race. Gates was arrested on disorderly conduct charges, which were later dropped.
