Exactly.
This thread is ridiculous, I can't believe some people's reactions. I haven't seen even one attempt at a reason why Obama shouldn't have said anything.
There's a misconception that the President should be completely impartial and stay out of every public event in the country that does not earn unanimous scorn (like Sandy Hook and the Marathon Bombings) in fear of "adding fuel to the fire." The problem comes in in a situation like this where there have already been riots, a lot of aggressive dialogue on the subject, and a pretty firm division. Even the government itself can't agree 100% of the time, and there are going to be moments where the President is going to act against the grain a little bit.
I personally think he did well in bringing this up; evading it any longer would just be ignoring an elephant in the room that would only serve to mess up things later on down the line.
And when people like me say he should do the same thing against the big banks, or the drug war/private prisons, or any other common sense ethical argument people say he can't do that because something something fox news would cry. "Play into the oppositions hands"
He can't lose either way. Liberals will give him an out all the time.
I have no idea who you might be talking about in this scenario, but that is a problem in of itself because such people would be giving deference to
Fox News out of all things.
But overall, yeah, it would have been great if he spoke out about things like Bank scandals, privatizing prison, Operation Fast & Furious debacles with drug wars, etc. But just because he doesn't say something then does not mean he shouldn't say something at all when the opportunity arises.
