Jul 27, 2009
Mr. President – Please Stay on Point
UPDATE – August 18, 2009 – There’s nothing like parody, especially from Jon Stewart, to highlight my point, which is to stay on point. Watch this video.
UPDATE - July 30, 2009 - A new poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 41 percent disapproved of Obama’s handling of the Gates arrest, compared with 29 percent who approved. The poll also found that nearly 80 percent of Americans said they are now aware of Obama’s comments on the matter. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
July 27, 2009
From a public relations perspective, President Obama’s recent remarks that Cambridge police “acted stupidly” regarding the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Gates just flies in the face of message consistency. Healthy public debate was just beginning on the President’s health care ideas, and he alone stopped it dead in its tracks.
Why is he answering questions completely unrelated to his health care messages of the news conference anyway? Our commander-in-chief isn’t unfamiliar with staying on message. It helped get him elected. Like most elected officials, the President fully understands the bridge technique taught in the most basic media training. In such training, I always advise my clients to only speak on matters on which they are accurately and intimately familiar. When the conversation is about Topic A, don’t switch to unrelated Topic Z when there’s no reason to – it just dilutes your message on Topic A.
Hopefully, the President will learn from this experience. His agenda for this country is extensive and far reaching. None of us have time for unnecessary distractions that take away from that agenda.
Ouch – embarrasing. Such a great point Susan! I often find this to be an issue that clients struggle in both PR and their marketing campaigns. It’s a huge hurdle!
Agreed – he really botched staying on message with this. He is not the only guilty party though; the media really botched this. Who really cares about the issue – it’s like fighting over a nickel while someone is taking your wallet. This whole affair diminished the my already suffering opinion of major media. I am especially upset that it was made into a racial issue when I feel it was clearly an issue of police arresting someone in their own home for a crime that never occurred. He was not physically threatening, therefore, the police had no grounds to arrest him. I have the right to say whatever I like to police on my private property. Where are the “liberty” and “freedom” crowd on the right when the President from the left is preaching their message? I repeat, this whole affair ultimately had nothing to do with race except in major media.
Excellent point, Jon, and just another reason why the President should have known better than to take the bait on national television.
This president is arrogant and condesending. The facts are that 74% of black males do not have fathers living at home,and the majority of crime in this country is committed by black males. Was the Cambridge police guilty of racial profiling? I think not, they were just doing their job. Obama could have addressed the real issue. We have just begun to see the racial bias of this president.
Considering that the President knew the question was going to be asked (in his requirement for media questions to be submitted beforehand), I think he couldn’t wait to use the words “acted stupidly”. He contradicted himself by admitting he didn’t have all the facts; he was relying on what he “had heard” and “reports”. In a court of law, isn’t that called hearsay? Who died, and made Obama judge and jury? The only one who’s racial profiling is him.
This is the first time I have seen the President verbally injure himself. Clearly an emotional issue for him.
And as we all know letting your emotions take over in a highly charged media environment can and does backfire.
Interesting point Gary… police are doing their job when they arrest people, who have committed no crime,in their own home. This is a constitution issue, not a race issue. Your post makes it pretty apparent that you have your own bias to deal with.
Jon,
The reports were that Gates was beligerent and argumentative with police. He should have been arrested. You and I would have been arrested. There’s no bias, it is what it is.