"I don't know - not having been there and not seeing all the facts - what role race played in that, but I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home,"

Gates, Obama allowed, "is a friend, so I may be a little biased here. I don't know all the facts."

But Sgt. Crowley also said this:

"I support the president of the United States 110 percent. I think he was way off base wading into a local issue without knowing all the facts as he himself stated before he made that comment," Cambridge Sgt. James Crowley told WEEI-AM today.

On Thursday, leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus said they requested a meeting with Obama after watching the president negotiate with the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats.

"We felt it was important that more than one voice be heard," said Donna Christensen, the congressional delegate for the U.S. Virgin Islands who is leading the caucus' health care efforts. "When we hear phrases like squeezing more savings out of the system ... we're concerned that what may be taken out will be provisions that are critical to our communities."

The mostly liberal black caucus wants to make sure that any reform retains core provisions such as a public health insurance option that guarantees coverage for everyone.

"We don't want to see them negotiated or eroded away," said Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill. ink

He didn't know anything so he should have kept his mouth shut.

what we all do know is that prof. gates was arrested, in his own house, for...........well, being in his own house and yelling at the police. hence, the dropping, nearly immediately, of the "disorderly conduct" charges stupidly leveled against him, by a police officer who is apparently not very bright, and doesn't know when to just STFU.

the last time i checked, yelling at a cop, while in your own house, having committed no obvious crime, is not a crime itself. this guy basically got ticked, because prof. gates, for whatever reason, wasn't being sufficiently deferential.

the cop, his attorney, his union president and his fellows would do themselves, and the city, a huge favor, by zipping their lips.

I would have preferred that he put off the address until he had something concrete to sell to the American people. Everyone already knows our system is trashed. We've known that for years. What I want to know is what positive steps Washington is going to take to fix it.

Until there's proof of this cop doing anything other than asking this man for indentification, then my opinion on this will remain outrageously politically incorrect.

Obviously, on this issue, we have a President who, for the first time in our history, has a real and lived perspective on racial profiling and this kind of thing.  That, to many, is what is really shocking it seems.  It was fine when we had uptight white guys as Prez, who never had to face it, talking about it like it never happened to anyone, but to have a black guy talking about from the POV of firsthand experience, well, it's just not polite.  Now, he probably should have ducked the question, but he didn't, and the answer he gave was the first of its type EVER given by a president on such a topic.

  First, I think his comment only says he doesn't have enough facts to determine whether racism was involved. He does seem to suggest that he knows enough facts to conclude it was stupid for police to arrest a man for being upset the cops were hassling him in his own home when he had done noting wrong. That would mean to me that obama thinks it is stupid for police to arrest any person of any background for such behavior under such circumstances.

   Second. I appreciate a President (or any otyher pol) who will speak his mind in plain, direct language and have no problem with his stating the cops acted stupidly.

  Why should he not comment on something making national headlines which involves what is viewed as a pervasive problem simply because in this particular instance a friend of his was involved?

  What's wrong with the President saying he doesn't think police shoulfd trump up charges if they anger someone by invading his home and demanding he provide information he is under no obligation to provide.

Gates, Obama allowed, "is a friend, so I may be a little biased here. I don't know all the facts."

And neither does anyone else except the people involved.  You don't know the charges were "trumped up" any more than you know the only reason the police wanted to arrest him was because he's black.

President Obama's primetime press conference on health care attracted 16.5 million viewers across ABC, NBC, and CBS, the three broadcast networks that covered the even live Wednesday, according to Fast Nationals which are subject to change. It was the least-watched of Obama's three primetime press conferences to date-18.8 million tuned into his Apr. 29 presser while 29.4 million watched his first in late March.

As expected, Fox's So You Think You Can Dance topped the press conference's rating on any one network, with viewers spread out across NBC, ABC and CBS. Dance averaged a 2.8/10 and 7.3 million viewers.

The federal government is not going to pull back on its efforts to curtail marijuana farming operations, Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy, said Wednesday in Fresno.

The nation's drug czar, who viewed a foothill marijuana farm on U.S. Forest Service land with state and local officials earlier Wednesday, said the federal government will not support legalizing marijuana.

"Legalization is not in the president's vocabulary, and it's not in mine," he said.

Kerlikowske said he can understand why legislators are talking about taxing marijuana cultivation to help cash-strapped government agencies in California. But the federal government views marijuana as a harmful and addictive drug, he said.

"Marijuana is dangerous and has no medicinal benefit," Kerlikowske said in downtown Fresno while discussing Operation SOS -- Save Our Sierra -- a multiagency effort to eradicate marijuana in eastern Fresno County.