‘First Wimp’ charge as Obama backtracks on Gates arrest

The row over the arrest of the black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates shows no signs of abating, with President Barack Obama tying himself in knots over the issue. Asked on Wednesday what he felt about a fellow black man - one of America's most revered scholars - being arrested after forcing open the jammed front door of his own home, Obama was clearly upset and said the police officer had "acted stupidly".

But on Friday, as bloggers and commentators continued to keep the issue alive - some saying the President should "butt out" of the row between Gates and the Cambridge, Massachusetts police - Obama suddenly tried to backtrack.

At an unscheduled appearance before the White House press corps, he admitted he had spoken too hastily in "maligning" the white police officer involved, Sgt James Crowley, and had invited Crowley and Gates to join him at the White House for a beer and to make peace.

If this was designed to bring closure to the episode, it failed miserably. Many commentators still felt Obama, like other liberals, had rushed to judgment when the details of the arrest remained unclear. A black officer who attended Gates's home with Sgt Crowley after the reported break-in said Crowley had done nothing wrong and he supported him 100 per cent. Sgt Leon Lashley said: "I was there. He [Crowley] did nothing wrong. There's nothing rogue about him. He was doing his job."

But Obama has also been attacked by commentators who felt he was right to speak out on behalf of Gates and to be angry about what looked like a classic case of racial profiling. So why couldn't he stick to his guns?

Michael Russnow, writing for the Huffington Post under the headline 'Was it moderation or is Obama becoming the First Wimp?', said he was excited by Obama's initial intervention because the President usually "plays to the middle ground", and he had finally said "something direct and from his heart".

Russnow, a TV screenwriter and Democrat, wrote: "He [Obama] was right. The policeman, Sgt James Crowley, was wrong." But as soon as the case became controversial, Obama softened his tone. "It was as if he said, 'Oh, my God, it doesn't matter that I was right, but this will take media space away from my health care issue, and I don't want to make people think I was playing favourites with people tied to my race'."

A Rasmussen poll released on Friday showed Obama's approval rating had slipped below 50 per cent for the first time. If he continues to put his popularity ahead of his beliefs, Russnow claims he is likely to end up a one-term president. ·