Obama to Police: No Blue Lights at the White House For You

police
AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

President Barack Obama ignored a prime-time TV request from Texas’ Lieutenant Governor that he treat police with as much respect as he gives gays and women.

“I’m concerned that police officers across the country, they know you support law enforcement, of course,” Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R), said to Obama during the choreographed ABC News town-hall event for Obama.

The Thursday night event, titled “The President and The People: A National Conversation,” was scheduled as widespread attacks against police — dubbed the “War on Cops” — continue around the country.

“But do [police] really, in their heart, feel like you’re doing everything you can to protect their lives? … Consider when you go home to the White House to put on the blue lights; the police have asked you to do that. You’ve done it for other groups. It would send a strong message,” Patrick asked Obama to his face.

In 2015, Obama lit up the White House in the rainbow colors favored by the gay lobby. In 2013, he lit  up the White House in pink for breast-cancer groups.

On Thursday, Obama simply ignored Patrick’s blue-light request, and then changed the subject.

“I appreciate the sentiment. I think it’s already been expressed,” he said, apparently referring to his rhetorical support for police. Then he turned sarcastic, adding, “but I’ll be happy to send it to you in case you missed it.”

Patrick pushed back, saying “Mr. President, I know you have [expressed rhetorical support]. I just want them to know it in their heart,” referring to his blue-light request.

Obama continued to ignore the request, and again changed the subject.

“Let me respond to the points that you’ve made,” he said, to avoid responding to the blue-light request.

He continued; “The second point is that I’ve also insisted throughout all these processes that law enforcement is deserving of due process just like everybody else. So no matter how powerful videos may be or what’s been said, everybody deserves to be treated fairly by the justice system,” he said as he returned to his safe-zone — the claim that police discriminate against Africans-Americans.

“The data shows that there are disparities in terms of how persons of color and whites are treated in the aggregate,” he continued, leaving Patrick’s request on the floor.

In recent days, following the murder of five cops by an African-American radical at a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Dallas, Obama has sharply stepped up his apparent support for police.

For example, he expresses that rhetorical support while he’s telling his BLM allies that criticism of cops will damage his political campaign. For example, at the Dallas commemoration for the five dead cops, Obama warned his supporters that “for those who use rhetoric suggesting harm to police, even if they don’t act on it themselves, well, they not only make the jobs of police officers even more dangerous, but they do a disservice to the very cause of justice that they claim to promote.”

Also, he wraps his support for cops within his his political claim that attacks on police are caused by “institutional racism” within police forces.

For example, Obama invited a few cops groups — plus tens of his radical allies – to a closed-door meeting on July 13, where he and his allies pushed police groups to accept unprecedented federal control over the nation’s 18,000 state and local police forces. At the end of the meeting, he told reporters that the attendees are “thinking each and every day about how we can prevent the tragedies we saw in Baton Rouge and in Minnesota and in Dallas.”

At the end of his July 13 statement, Obama also threatened the cops around the nation that they’ll face more street pressure if they don’t agree to his demands. “I think it is fair to say that we will see more tension in police — between police and communities this month, next month, next year, for quite some time,” he said.

So far, Obama’s Black Lives Movement has proved a roaring political success for Obama because it has increased African-Americans’ focus on the pending 2016 election.

To see Obama’s comments in video, click here.

Follow Neil Munro on Twitter here.

 

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