The Dallas Memorial: Obama Ruins It

This won't be long. I had debated whether even to comment on this since so much already has been said. On, however, reading the text of what Obama said at the Dallas memorial for the five police officers murdered by Black Lives Matter (BLM), I wanted to add my own thoughts.

You, of course, can read his comments and reach your own conclusions. We still have that much liberty left. Anyhow, I found the speech, well, appalling.

He apparently starts off well enough with some words, that I am not sure given what else he has said and done, he actually meant,

We’re here to honor the memory, and mourn the loss, of five fellow Americans -- to grieve with their loved ones, to support this community, to pray for the wounded, and to try and find some meaning amidst our sorrow. 

For the men and women who protect and serve the people of Dallas, last Thursday began like any other day. Like most Americans each day, you get up, probably have too quick a breakfast, kiss your family goodbye, and you head to work. But your work, and the work of police officers across the country, is like no other. For the moment you put on that uniform, you have answered a call that at any moment, even in the briefest interaction, may put your life in harm’s way.

He then tells a little about each officer who was murdered in the rampage. That's all fine and appropriate. It doesn't take him long, however, to fly into progressive land.

And then, around nine o’clock, the gunfire came. Another community torn apart. More hearts broken. More questions about what caused, and what might prevent, another such tragedy. 

I know that Americans are struggling right now with what we’ve witnessed over the past week. First, the shootings in Minnesota and Baton Rouge, and the protests, then the targeting of police by the shooter here -- an act not just of demented violence but of racial hatred. All of it has left us wounded, and angry, and hurt. It’s as if the deepest fault lines of our democracy have suddenly been exposed, perhaps even widened. And although we know that such divisions are not new -- though they have surely been worse in even the recent past -- that offers us little comfort. 

Faced with this violence, we wonder if the divides of race in America can ever be bridged. We wonder if an African-American community that feels unfairly targeted by police, and police departments that feel unfairly maligned for doing their jobs, can ever understand each other’s experience.

And he's off,

[A]s for those who use rhetoric suggesting harm to police, even if they don’t act on it themselves -- well, they not only make the jobs of police officers even more dangerous, but they do a disservice to the very cause of justice that they claim to promote.

We also know that centuries of racial discrimination -- of slavery, and subjugation, and Jim Crow -- they didn’t simply vanish with the end of lawful segregation. They didn’t just stop when Dr. King made a speech, or the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act were signed. Race relations have improved dramatically in my lifetime. Those who deny it are dishonoring the struggles that helped us achieve that progress. 

But we know -- but, America, we know that bias remains. We know it. Whether you are black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or of Middle Eastern descent, we have all seen this bigotry in our own lives at some point. We’ve heard it at times in our own homes. If we’re honest, perhaps we’ve heard prejudice in our own heads and felt it in our own hearts. We know that. And while some suffer far more under racism’s burden, some feel to a far greater extent discrimination’s sting. Although most of us do our best to guard against it and teach our children better, none of us is entirely innocent. No institution is entirely immune. And that includes our police departments. We know this.

Was this the place for this cheap analysis?

This ceremony was for the fallen officers not for the dead in Minnesota and Louisiana under conditions not yet fully investigated. This ceremony was not about slavery and Jim Crow. I am going out on a limb here: much like the nonsense about Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown once the facts come in, I suspect the initial narrative about what happened in Minnesota and Louisiana will prove false. Whatever else Obama might claim later, in this speech he justifies the claims of the racist terrorists of BLM, and dismisses their violent rhetoric as merely "suggesting harm to police." He, of course, will be meeting at the White House in the next day or so with BLM and other race baiters, such as Sharpton and Jackson, as he continues his efforts to divide, confuse, and radicalize America.

The worst, most destructive president in our history.