CNN: President Obama should apologize to members of the Cambridge Police Department for saying they acted stupidly, the president of the city’s police union said Friday. Dennis O’Connor, president of the Cambridge Police Superior Officers Association, said at a news conference that Obama should not have criticized officers’ actions in last week’s arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. Sgt. James Crowley, the officer who arrested Gates for disorderly conduct, has previously said he was dismayed by the president’s remarks and that Obama had offended police in Cambridge and elsewhere. MORE
PHAWKER: So, let us get this straight. The Cambridge Police arrest a highly-respected black 
intellectual/Harvard professor in his own home for, best we can tell, being ‘uppity,’ take him away in handcuffs even though he walks with a cane, throw him in the pokey for four hours and then let him go with all charges dropped because somebody higher up finally figures out that it looks really bad when you arrest a highly-respected black intellectual/Harvard professor for the crime of being black in his own home — AND THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NEEDS TO APOLOGIZE?!? In the immortal words of Forrest Gump: Stupid is as stupid does.
UPDATE: President Obama said Friday that he “could have calibrated” his words more carefully in the racially-charged controversy over the arrest of a Harvard professor, making a surprise appearance at the daily White House briefing to try and cool the tensions surrounding the case. Mr. Obama said he had talked to the arresting officer and hoped the case could become “a teachable moment” to be used to improve relations between minorities and police officers. MORE