Here We Go With The Hissy

You could see this coming the moment Lynn Sweet asked the question. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the wingers put her up to it:

The right is now mobilizing heavily against President Obama's comments last night about the Henry Louis Gates case.

The NRCC has sent out a press release, challenging individual House Dems about whether they agree with Obama that the police "acted stupidly":

The president was slow to point out any wrongdoing in the wake of the Iranian election and his administration was quick to force through a failed stimulus plan even though they 'misread' the economy. This is certainly a questionable rush to judgment coming from a president who hasn't exactly been quick to call out unconscionable behavior by a merciless foreign dictator or gotten his facts straight before advocating a trillion-dollar mistake to address our ailing economy. Is it really presidential for him to cast harsh judgment of a law enforcement official without all the facts?

Meanwhile, Rush Limbaugh is being much more blunt in a racial appeal:

"Last week, we saw white firefighters under assault by agents of Barack Obama and Sonia Sotomayor," said Limbaugh (emphasis his). He added: "Now, white policemen are under assault from the East Room of the White House, by the President of the United States, after admitting he had no -- he didn't know all the facts, what went on in there."

The facts of the case, just by virtue of the police dropping the charges after a day or so, are pretty clear.

I really don't think this will work. I get the idea - to push a white backlash by foregrounding some war on public safety personnel, who are seen as inviolable. Did you know that they've never made a false arrest? But common sense takes over at some point. This may appeal to those with a racial chip on their shoulder, but I don't think anyone without one would argue that cops arresting a guy in his own home is absurd. Libertarians should really reject this, I would think.

And by the way, can we get over the notion that we're in a post-racial society now?

UPDATE: The President:

"I have to say I am surprised by the controversy surrounding my statement because I think it was a pretty straight forward commentary that you probably don't need to handcuff a guy, a middle-aged man who uses a cane, who's in his own home," Obama said [...]

"I think that I have extraordinary respect for the difficulties of the job that police officers do," the president told Moran. "And my suspicion is that words were exchanged between the police officer and Mr. Gates and that everybody should have just settled down and cooler heads should have prevailed. That's my suspicion."

Tweety is going off about a President venturing opinions about a criminal case, when all the charges were dropped. Oh Lord.

...Oh, and Kitty Seeyle is an idiot. "Americans got a rare glimpse Wednesday night of what it means to have a black president in the Oval Office." Yes, and get ready for the white enslavement camps, my bitches! Because first the President considers arresting a man in his own home a stupid act, and then you're all headed to the camps... Up against the wall, whitey!