As if he does not have enough problem trying to sell health care reform, Obama gets side-tracked into making a comment STUPIDLY! You know he fumbled badly when Al Sharpton praised him! Why was he answering a question about Henry Louis Gates when he doesn't know all the facts as he even admitted? This does not seem like the politically savey Obama we know. I think the pressure of trying to pass health care reform is getting to him. I don't see how he is going to get a good bill to pass. The energy bill, which was suppose to be less controversial, ended up much weaker and with lot of junk added on. And those junks were put in by members of his own party. With lots of people having a stake on how the health care bill shapes up and Republicans determine to make this Obama's Waterloo, I can see why Obama is stressed out.

Having said that Obama stupidly let the conversation drift away from his agenda, I would like to point out that I thought the police acted stupidly from the information I have read. First of all a neighbor called the police because he or she thought that Gates was breaking in his own house. I can't imagine that a 58 year old white or Asian male would be suspected of breaking in by his neighbor even if they don't know each other. If I was Gates and I came home from a long trip and had trouble getting into my house, I think I would be in a pretty foul mood. I admit I have a slight temper. Okay, my wife would say very bad temper. If after I finally get into the house and the police shows up and demand to know if I lived there, I would be pretty pissed. I can see if Gates was a young man but he is older than me! In what way can the neighbor or police think that he is robbing the house? Now, it is very likely things escalated because Gates cursed out the cops. I may have done the same. But there was no report that he was violent. In what way would the cops felt threatened by a man in his late 50's without a weapon? So why was he hand-cuffed? What was he charged with? And why were charges dropped if he did something that required him to be hand-cuffed.

By accounts so far, the cop involved was a good cop who trained others about racial profiling. And it is possible that Gates was out of line with his emotions. But I would have to ask: Would Gates have been led out of his own house in hand-cuffs if he was a 58 year old white professor at Harvard? I suppose it could have been worse. Remember the guy in Texas who shot 2 men in the back because he felt threatened that those guys had broke in his NEIGHBOR's house? So Gates is lucky he does not live in Texas. His neighbor could have shot him and got off for self-defense!

The death of Robert McNamara last week went pretty much unnoticed by the general public as all the media was focused on Michael Jackson's death. Obviously 99% of Americans know who was Michael Jackson but I would bet that less than 10% know who was McNamara. McNamara was Secretary of Defense under Kennedy and Johnson. He was considered the architect of the Vietnam War and many historians hold him responsible for the disaster of this war. To me there is a similarity between him and a more recent Dept. of Defense official.

I am talking about Paul Wolfowitz, the undersecretary of Defense under Bush. While Donald Rumsfeld was the Sec. of Defense, I think Wolfowitz had more influence on Bush to start the Iraq war. McNamara used the Gulf of Tonkin incident to escalate the war. The information on that incident is questionable. Wolfowitz used weapons of mass destruction and link to al qaeda to get support for the Iraq war. Those information turned out to be false. McNamara underestimated the support the Viet Congs had. Wolfowitz underestimated the support for the insurgents. McNamara argues for Vietnam war with the Dominoes Theory. Wolfowitz argues for spreading democracy to the Middle East.

One last thing: When it appeared that these men had failed, they were both given the job of president of World Bank. I wonder who thinks that people who fight bad wars would be good at loaning money?