“Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof he was in own home.” — Barack Obama

Seems pretty straightforward no? The Whitehouse says no.

At the end of yesterday’s presser, President Obama made the remark about the arrest by the Cambridge police of Harvard scholar Louis Gates Jr. I would think that in the prep work before the conference that they might have anticipated that this question would come up. I also assume that even the most junior level advisor would know how to properly answer such a question. The proper answer would have been something like “Well I am a friend of Dr. Gates but I am obviously not going to prejudge the situation without all the facts. I assume that the Cambridge police will thoroughly look into the matter to insure that everything was handled properly and if it wasn’t to take the proper steps.” and then to make some general remarks about race in America.

Instead the president, without all the facts and either out of arrogance or naivete, condemned the actions of local law enforcement going so far as to call their action “stupid.”

Due to this blunder, this is now the story of the day with his health care proposals remaining on life support. So now it is tap dance time. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is now cast in the role of Baghdad Bob with the mandate to convey the message – in as straight faced manner as possible – that the obvious meaning of the Presidents remarks is not the obvious meaning of the president’ remarks.

“Let me be clear, he was not calling the officer stupid,” Gibbs told reporters as Obama landed in Cleveland for two health care events Thursday. He said Obama felt that “at a certain point the situation got far out of hand” at Gates’ home last week.

Yeah, except he did. Reading this ridiculous spin it occurred to me that Obama does not only think that the Cambridge police officers involved are stupid, if he expects you to buy this nonsensical spin he thinks you are stupid too.

Nice work Mr. President. What were we talking about again? I think it had something to do with Doctors…