The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that, if nothing else, “America’s police still have an ally in the Oval Office.”
Really?
According to the Post, “President Obama has long had nice words for law enforcement in his speeches.”
Again, really? The president has to say certain things about the police force. Otherwise, he would have anarchy on his hands. But to say they've been "nice" might be a stretch.
In the April 2016 executive branch report entitled, “Economic Perspectives on Incarceration and the Criminal Justice System,” Obama makes a point of indicating that hiring more police deters crime.
The Post reports Obama is calling for the hiring of “tens of thousands” of police officers -- which is great for law enforcement, but definitely fishy considering the Obama administrations actions lately in the realm of criminal justice.
- Obama essentially banned the use of “restrictive housing.” For those of us that don’t know presidential “PC” speak, “restrictive housing” is the term Obama uses instead of the dastardly “solitary confinement.”
- Obama’s Department of Justice is ramping up its use of the term “justice-involved individual” rather than calling a criminal an actual criminal.
- The Obama administration also released in a report that the Fair Housing Act is to include fines against landlords who “discriminate” against ex-convicts.
Obama also showed no quarter and gave no leeway to police in 2014 when rioters destroyed the city of Ferguson, Mo.
“There’s no excuse for excessive force by police or any action that denies people the right to protest peacefully,” said Obama.
Did you see peaceful protests in Ferguson? If they did happen, they were brief and relatively unaired. Are the police not allowed to protect the community from what Obama calls “peaceful protests?”
Police officers have not always taken kindly to remarks by the commander-in-chief. The executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, Jim Pasco, said this to The Hill about Obama's remarks after the rioting in Ferguson ramped up in 2014:
I would contend that discussing police tactics from Martha's Vineyard is not helpful to ultimately calming the situation […] I think what he has to do as president and as a constitutional lawyer is remember that there is a process in the United States and the process is being followed, for good or for ill, by the police and by the county and by the city and by the prosecutors’ office.
The Post also gives examples of people who do not agree with the president that we need more police officers.
According to the Post, Georgetown University legal scholar Paul Butler has been critical of some of Obama’s stances on policing.
Butler said, “The recommendation to increase the number of police is blind to history, and it’s blind to the present moment.”
This only perpetuates any illusion that Obama has always been on the side of law enforcement. Obama’s assertion that we need more police officers is just like his economic policy: Just throw more money at the problem, and it will go away.
Maybe instead of hiring more police officers, which would not be the worst idea in the world, Obama and the rest of the liberal-elite should let the officers do their job without fear of constant scrutiny?