Cop comment throws message off track

President Obama’s effort to regain lost momentum on healthcare reform collapsed when he instigated a public-relations nightmare by wading into a local law enforcement incident.

Obama, whose eloquence helped catapult him to the White House last year, uncharacteristically veered way off message on Wednesday night by saying that a Cambridge, Mass., policeman acted “stupidly.”

Obama’s comments about Officer James Crowley, who arrested Obama friend and prominent black Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates for not producing identification after breaking into his own locked home, drew the ire of Republicans, a major police officers’ union and the officer himself on Thursday.

{mosads}After Crowley responded to a breaking-and-entering call, Gates accused the officer of racism when the officer asked him for identification at his own home. Crowley arrested Gates for disorderly conduct.

The question about the incident came at the end of a press conference in which the president did little to make news or move the ball forward on healthcare. His comments about the Cambridge Police quickly filled that vacuum.

Asked about the exchange, Obama admitted to being “a little biased” because Gates is a friend of his.

“Now, 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, No. 1, any of us would be pretty angry,” Obama said.

Obama went on to say “that the Cambridge Police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home.”

He added that “there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That’s just a fact.”

In an interview with ABC News on Thursday, Obama stood by his comments even though he said he understands Crowley is an “outstanding police officer.”

“I have to say I am surprised by the controversy surrounding my statement because I think it was a pretty straightforward 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,” the president said.

With the healthcare debate at a critical point, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was inundated by questions aboard Air Force One about the comments regarding the police officer.

According to a White House transcript from Gibbs’s conversation with reporters on the plane, he was asked 14 full or partial questions about Obama’s remarks and seven about the healthcare town hall in Ohio to which the president was en route.

Gibbs said the president does not regret his comments, and that in the exchange between Gates and Crowley, “cooler heads on all sides should have prevailed.”

“He was not calling the officers stupid, OK?” Gibbs said.

{mosads}Crowley, who is reported to be an expert on avoiding racial profiling, told Boston radio station WBZ that he supports “the president of the United States 110 percent.” But in this instance, Crowley said, Obama was “way off base.”

The Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), which endorsed Obama’s Republican rival Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) last year, said the president should not have weighed in after acknowledging he didn’t know what had happened in Cambridge.

“That being the case, it’s unfortunate that he chose to say anything,” FOP executive director Jim Pasco told The Hill. “He wasn’t there, and he doesn’t know what happened.”

Pasco said it appears that Gates was the “provocateur” because he called Crowley a racist instead of producing identification as requested.

Obama’s press conference was not viewed as a success on Capitol Hill, where Democratic leaders indicated there is no chance the Senate will pass healthcare reform before the August recess and House Democrats are unsure of whether they will pass a bill before leaving town.

While many criticized the president for his remarks, some on Capitol Hill came to his defense.

Congressional Black Caucus  (CBC) chairwoman Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) called the arrest of Gate “an example of…the racism that continues to exist” in America.

Lee said the president was “right on target” with his remarks.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), another  member of the CBC, told The Hill that Obama was “eloquent, articulate and clear” in addressing the arrest of Gates.

Jackson Lee said that “the behavior and the actions [of the police] were inappropriate.”

“To respond to a good Samaritan’s call of a potential break-in — we don’t mind that,” Jackson Lee said. However, she added, when the police encountered Gates, he “was not in the attire of burglar.”

Even though the president acknowledged he did not know all the facts, the congresswoman said Obama’s comments about the case were “based on the integrity of Dr. ‘Skip’ Gates.”

Michael M. Gleeson contributed to this article.