Having trouble saying the magic words, "I'm sorry"? Put the Sorry Times to work for you!

President Acting Stupidly can't quite bring himself to apologize to Sgt. Crowley and the Cambridge Police for saying they "acted stupidly", but fortunately he has the NY Times on his side to pretend he did.

Here is the Times story, which specifically notes the non-apology:
He did not apologize but softened his language. “I continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Professor Gates out of his home to the station,” he said. “I also continue to believe, based on what I heard, that Professor Gates probably overreacted as well.”

Statement from Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

"It was very kind of the President to phone me today. Vernon Jordan is absolutely correct: my unfortunate experience will only have a larger meaning if we can all use this to diminish racial profiling and to enhance fairness and equity in the criminal justice system for poor people and for people of color.

And to that end, I look forward to studying the history of racial profiling in a new documentary for PBS. I told the President that my principal regret was that all of the attention paid to his deeply supportive remarks during his press conference had distracted attention from his health care initiative. I am pleased that he, too, is eager to use my experience as a teaching moment, and if meeting Sgt. [James] Crowley for a beer with the President will further that end, then I would be happy to oblige.

In 2005, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., known to all as "Skip," set up the nonprofit Inkwell Foundation, named after a famous beach/gathering place for African-Americans on Martha's Vineyard.
Public records indicate that the charity, domiciled in Gates's Cambridge home, has been dormant since its inception. Jill Butterworth, a spokeswoman for the state Attorney General's Office, says Inkwell has never filed the required, annual form PC, for public charities. "They are currently not in compliance," Butterworth said. "It's possible they are inactive or have dissolved. We are checking into it." Gates declined to comment.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr controls a tax-exempt, non-profit charity, Inkwell Foundation, Inc, that managed to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in direct support in one year, yet only gave out $27,500 in grants, the bulk of which went to Gates' employees and Harvard colleagues. Also, as recently as September 2008, the Boston Globe reported that Gates' charity was not in compliance with the law for failing to register the proper paperwork, despite the charity existing since 2005. The charge at the time was that it was "bogus," as you'll see below. In fact, the state Attorney General's office told the Globe the charity was likely either inactive, or dissolved. Yet, documents below show the charity is healthy, wealthy and active.

Is it possible that Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was acting strange when law enforcement showed up at his door because he didn't want the story below to come out? It may take a tax lawyer to answer that question, but based on this research, it can't be ruled out.

A black police officer who was at Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s home when the black Harvard scholar was arrested says he fully supports how his white fellow officer handled the situation.

Sgt. Leon Lashley says Gates was probably tired and surprised when Sgt. James Crowley demanded identification from him as officers investigated a report of a burglary. Lashley says Gates' reaction to Crowley was "a little bit stranger than it should have been."

Asked if Gates should have been arrested, Lashley said supported Crowley "100 percent."

Gates has said he was the victim of racial profiling.

In an attempt to tamp down the escalating controversy over his comments on the Monday arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. by the Cambridge, Mass., Police Department, President Obama made a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room and placed calls to both Gates and Cambridge Police Sergeant James Crowley, who arrested the Harvard professor.

Taking the briefing-room podium just hours after Cambridge police union officials called on Obama to apologize for saying the officers involved in the incident with Gates behaved "stupidly," Obama conceded that he erred in his "choice of words."

The police sergeant who arrested Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. last week in his own home may be considering a defamation lawsuit against Gates who has implied his arrest was racially motivated.
<p>Alan McDonald, who represents Sgt. James Crowley, said the veteran cop who teaches a <a href="http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/07/black-caucus-chair-obama-right-on-target-about-gates.html" target="external">racial profiling</a> class for rookie police officers has not ruled out filing a defamation of character or libel lawsuit.
</p><p>
"He is exploring all of his options,'' McDonald told ABC News.
</p><p>
Though charges were dropped, Gates has loudly asserted <a href="javascript:openPopup('http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=8143760', 'popup', 1010, 700, 'status=1, resizable=1');">his arrest</a> was a result of racial profiling.

President Obama spent most of his press conference tonight denying what President Kennedy famously affirmed — that to govern is to choose. Obama promised us health care this is at once better and cheaper, with both more regulation and more freedom to choose, featuring an assurance that government won’t limit our care and a commitment to a government panel that will save money by restricting care.

The juvenile happy talk reached its peak with this presidential statement: “If there's a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half price for the thing that's going to make you well?” Now, there’s good idea. Why hasn’t anyone else thought of that? For this reform, we need to spend $1 trillion?

On a Boston radio program this morning, Bill Cosby suggested that President Obama spoke too soon on the controversial arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates.

“I’ve heard about five different reports [on the details of the arrest],” Cosby said on Boston’s WZLX. “If I’m the president of the United States, I don’t care how much pressure people want to put on it about race, I’m keeping my mouth shut.”

“I was shocked to hear the president making this kind of statement,” Cosby said referring to the president’s remarks during last night’s press conference.

President Obama today stood by his comments that the Cambridge, Mass., police department acted "stupidly" in its arrest of Henry Louis Gates, telling ABC News that the Harvard University professor should not have been arrested.
"I have to say I am surprised by the controversy surrounding my statement, because I think it was a pretty straightforward commentary that you probably don't need to handcuff a guy, a middle-aged man who uses a cane, who's in his own home," Obama said.

President Obama's Wednesday night criticism of Cambridge, Mass., police has drawn a rebuke from the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP).

The criticism comes after Obama said Cambridge police officers acted "stupidly" when they arrested Henry Louis Gates, a friend of the president's, after he broke into his own home. Gates was arrested on disorderly conduct charges, which were then dropped. The president said it highlights ongoing problems with race relations in the U.S.

President Obama was in Shaker Heights, Ohio, today, pitching his healthcare proposal at a town-hall meeting, taking questions from voters concerned about escalating costs and cuts in reimbursements.

While Obama was touring the Cleveland Clinic with Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, leaders in the Senate pulled the plug on the president's hopes to complete reform before Congress takes its August recess.

“Working with Republicans, one of the things that they ask is for more time,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters. “The decision was made to give them more time … I don’t think it’s unreasonable. This is a complex, difficult issue.”

Over on the House side, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was open to putting off a vote on that side until after the recess. And good thing too, because the House Energy and Commerce Committee — home to many of the Blue Dog Democrats who are dubious about the high price tag on reform — canceled its hearings on the topic again today.

Gee, I’m really sorry I decided to skip this for “Ghost Hunters.” Watching The One explain how the medical industry has designs on your body parts would have been much better in hindsight. To think: The day is coming when instead of forcing you to take unnecessary tests, doctors will force you not to take necessary ones because they no longer have the resources to process them. Take that, profit motive.

This is what happens when you take health advice from a guy with a lifelong smoking habit. Exit question: Any truth to the rumor that Obama’s going to impose a new surtax on fatties? “But let me be clear: The time has come to put away the fudge.”

He's still in the thrall of Orszagism! Here we're dramatically changing insurance (no more "preexisting conditions") and insuring the uninsured and creating a health care exchange and promoting a public option and generally telling everyone they can stop worrying about whether they will have coverage. It's all going to be deficit neutral over a ten year period. Why do we have to also dramatically change the "health care delivery system" at the same time (in order to save even more money after ten years)? Doesn't that undermine the reassuring message that if you like your health coverage, nothing will change?

Minutes before a press conference where President Barack Obama could have been asked about the issue, the White House released a list of visits by health care executives.

The Secret Service had earlier rejected a request for the same information, asserting executive privilege. The issue could have been an embarassment for Obama at the presser in light of his promises during the campaign to make public White House visitors and to conduct deliberations about health care in public.

The public interest group which requested the records, Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, filed suit earlier Wednesday over the denial.

Some inconsistencies on the visitor issue remain. Chiefly, rejected requests from CREW for visits by coal industry executives and from MSNBC for all visitors to the White House since Obama took office.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Wednesday acknowledged for the first time that a pre-recess vote on healthcare reform is unlikely.

“We’re going to take a little longer to get it right,” Durbin told The Hill when asked about the oft-stated goal of a vote on or before Aug. 7, when a monthlong Senate recess begins. “Initially we had hoped for a full vote by then, but I don’t think it’s going to be possible.”
Delaying the vote until after Labor Day would all but erase hopes of getting a bill to President Obama by mid-October, since the House and Senate versions would have to be reconciled in conference negotiations — assuming they pass their chambers.

Durbin said the bill was still largely on track, however, denying that momentum has stalled.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger defended a video on his Twitter page which shows him brandishing a huge hunting knife as he talks about the state's budget crisis.

Schwarzenegger, under fire for a budget plan announced this week that will see 15 billion dollars in spending cuts from services such as education and health care, said the light-hearted video was intended as a bit of fun.

Grassley said he spoke with a Democratic House member last week who shared Obama's bleak reaction during a private meeting to reports that some factions of House Democrats were lining up to stall or even take down the overhaul unless leaders made major changes.

"Let's just lay everything on the table," Grassley said. "A Democrat congressman last week told me after a conversation with the president that the president had trouble in the House of Representatives, and it wasn't going to pass if there weren't some changes made … and the president says, 'You're going to destroy my presidency.' "

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., today insisted everything is smooth sailing with the House bill that would require every American to have health insurance or pay a fine;create a government run health plan to compete with private insurers to drive costs down; and impose an up to 5.4% new tax on top wage-earners.

“I have no question that we have the votes on the floor of the House to pass this legislation,” Pelosi told reporters.

But a leading conservative “Blue Dog” Democrat told ABC News that claim is questionable.

“No, I don’t think they have the votes,” Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., said, arguing if that were the case he and the other six Blue Dogs on the House Energy and Commerce Committee who have been holding up the bill in committee would be under far less pressure.

Buried in the final paragraph of the Post's A4 story on the state of the health care debate:

Finance members said the committee was leaning against requiring employers to provide health coverage, although it would impose a fee on individuals who do not purchase insurance. They also said the panel had rejected the government health plan that Obama wants to create and would instead adopt a cooperative model, similar to rural electricity providers.

So the public plan is dead? Remember that 50 members of the House Progressive Caucus had pledged to oppose a bill that had a watered-down public plan, never mind legislation that didn't include it.

At 5:54 pm ET the news came: "The Energy and Commerce Markup of H.R. 3200 – America’s Affordable Health Choices Act for 7-22-09 has been CANCELLED.

Not a good sign for the Democrats trying to report the bill out from committee onto the floor for a vote. Seven conservative blue dog Democrats on the committee have said they can't vote for the bill in its current form. Some of those Blue Dogs came to the White House today for a 2 1/2 meeting, an hour of which was with President Obama.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told The New York Times Obama intends to use the news conference as a "six-month report card," to talk about "how we rescued the economy from the worst recession
" and the legislative agenda moving forward, including health care and energy legislation.
++++++
Huh?
Unemployment continues to soar and California is insolvent.
What are you talking about, Mr. President?