From: www.eurweb.com

     *After stepping into a pile of you-know-what with his "the police acted stupidly" comment regarding the arrest of black Harvard professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates by a white police officer, President Obama finds himself backtracking but not completely apologizing.

     When the day (Friday) began the White House said it would have nothing else to say about Obama's "stupidly" comment. However, when the Cambridge police dept. and Massachusetts police officers, both black and white, demanded an apology form the prez, the situation at the 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue obviously changed.

     Friday afternoon Mr. Obama found himself in front of a surprised White House press corps to make this announcement:

     "Because this has been ratcheting up, and I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up, I wanted to make clear in my choice of words I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sgt. Crowley specifically," Mr. Obama said of the man who placed the handcuffs on Prof. Gates. "And I could have calibrated those words differently."

     Mr. Obama, now calling Sgt. James Crowley a "good man," steered debate away from race and towards a simple confrontation between two men - a respected academic and an armed police officer - who each expected more deference than either got when they met on the porch of that now famous yellow house in Cambridge, Mass.