Barack Obama, Outside Agitator
By
Patrick J. Buchanan = Tuesday
- September 29, 2014
In his U.N. address, President Obama listed a parade of horrors
afflicting our world: "Russian aggression in Europe," "terrorism
in Syria and Iraq," rapes and
beheadings by ISIL, al-Qaida, Boko Haram.
And, of course, the Ferguson Police Department.
That's right. The president could not speak of war, terrorism and
genocide without dragging in the incident in a St. Louis suburb where a white
cop shot and killed a black teenager:
"In a summer marked by instability in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, the world also took
notice of the small American city of Ferguson, Missouri -- where a young man
was killed, and a community was divided."
What, other than its racial aspect, can explain why Obama is so
hung up on Ferguson? At the Congressional
Black Caucus dinner Saturday, he was back stoking the embers.
"Too many young men of color feel targeted by law
enforcement, guilty of walking while black or driving while black -- judged by
stereotypes that fuel fear and resentment and hopelessness."
Obama is here implying that Michael Brown was profiled, judged
"guilty of walking while black," when shot and killed.
But that is false, and Barack Obama knows it is false.
Brown had just knocked over a convenience store after collaring
the clerk and was walking in the middle of the main street in Ferguson, blocking traffic,
when officer Darren Wilson confronted him.
Did Wilson shoot Brown in a
racist rage? Or did Wilson, face battered and
eye socket smashed in a fight with the 290-pound, 6'4" Brown, empty his
gun in self-defense?
We do not know. And neither does Barack Obama.
For weeks, a grand jury in St. Louis County has been hearing
testimony, trying to sort it out. But by implying the shooting was done for
racial reasons, that Brown may have been "targeted" for "walking
while black," Obama is stoking the fires of racial resentment.
Why is he parroting a party line about America that he knows is more
myth than truth? White cops are not the great lurking danger, nor the leading
cause of violent death, of black teenagers and men.
That role is fulfilled by other black teenagers and other black
men. And the statistics on the ugliest forms of racial violence in America -- interracial
assaults, rapes, murders -- reveal that such crimes are overwhelmingly
black-on-white.
Obama said that "young men of color" are too often
"judged by stereotypes." But behind those stereotypes are FBI
statistics that show that black males between 16 and 36, two percent of the U.S. population, commit a
vastly disproportionate share of all violent crimes.
Where are the stats to sustain Obama's stereotype of cops?
And what did the Ferguson police do to deserve
to be invoked as exemplars of what is wrong with law enforcement in America, while the Ferguson protesters get a
presidential pass?
Since Michael Brown was shot in early August, rocks and Molotov
cocktails have been thrown at Ferguson cops, stores have
been looted and smashed, police have been cursed and threatened, and a mob
tried to shut down I-70 at rush hour.
And what are the outrages perpetrated by Ferguson's cops?
After a riot in Ferguson, the next night St. Louis County cops showed up in
riot gear, helmets and body armor, with an MRAP.
Now some Ferguson cops are wearing
wristbands reading, "I am Michael Wilson," to show solidarity with
their fellow cop who is in hiding for fear of his life.
This set off Eric Holder's minions in the civil rights division at
Justice, whence one Christy Lopez fired off a letter to the Ferguson police chief saying
the bracelets "upset and agitated people."
So what. If police baiters can raise hell in solidarity with
Brown, cannot cops peacefully wear wristbands in solidarity with Wilson?
Last week, Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson released a video,
apologizing to Brown's parents for their son's death, and for not moving the
teenager's body from the street for four hours.
Unartful, perhaps, yet it seemed sincere.
The response: The Ferguson mob cursed the chief and Brown's father
brushed him off saying, "an apology would be when Darren Wilson has
handcuffs, [is] processed, and charged with murder."
Understandably, this is what Michael Brown's father wants. And
this is what the protesters demand. But that is not the way the law works in America, where crowds get the
indictments and convictions they demand under a threat of civil disobedience or
violence.
Saturday night, a Ferguson cop was shot in an
incident unrelated to August. But Chief Jackson and State Highway Patrol Capt.
Ron Johnson have told the Washington Post their officers have been repeatedly
threatened and, since August, have come under gunfire.
If a St. Louis officer is wounded or
killed in revenge for Brown, President Obama will deserve a full share of the
moral responsibility.
It is time he started acting like a president of all the people,
and dropped this role of outside agitator.
Visit Pat Buchanan's Official Website at Buchanan.org
-- Sign up for Pat's email updates, follow on Twitter, FaceBook and Pat's YouTube Channel.... Plus all of his syndicated columns and more!
-- Sign up for Pat's email updates, follow on Twitter, FaceBook and Pat's YouTube Channel.... Plus all of his syndicated columns and more!
