"Why was he holding back?" The New York Times sniped at President Obama from the left on the front of Tuesday's edition. Reporters Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael Shear were disappointed by the insufficiently fiery leftism displayed by the president over the recent incidents of black men being killed by police officers, even suggesting it would threaten his presidential legacy, in "Unrest Over Race Is Testing Obama’s Legacy."
Their story was powered by liberal black activists attacking Obama from the left as being insufficiently critical of the apparent widespread racism on local police forces, with no conservative criticism or commentary offered or apparently even sought.
As crowds of people staged “die-ins” across the country last week to protest the deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police officers, young African-American activists were in the Oval Office lodging grievances with President Obama.
He of all people -- the first black president of the United States -- was in a position to testify to the sense of injustice that African-Americans feel in dealing with the police every day, the activists told him. During the unrest that began with a teenager’s shooting in Ferguson, Mo., they hoped for a strong response. Why was he holding back?
Mr. Obama told the group that change is “hard and incremental,” a participant said, while reminding them that he had once been mistaken for a waiter and parking valet. When they said their voices were not being heard, Mr. Obama replied, “You are sitting in the Oval Office, talking to the president of the United States.”
For Rasheen Aldridge Jr., 20, a community organizer from St. Louis who attended the meeting, it was not enough. “It hurt that he didn’t seem to want to go out there and acknowledge that he understands our pain,” Mr. Aldridge said in an interview. “It would be a great mark on his presidential legacy if he would come out and touch an issue that everyone is scared to touch.”
But Mr. Obama has not been the kind of champion for racial justice that many African-Americans say this moment demands. In the days since grand juries in Missouri and Staten Island decided not to bring charges against white police officers who had killed unarmed black men, the president has not stood behind the protesters or linked arms with civil rights leaders. Although those closest to Mr. Obama insist that he feels a new urgency to capitalize on the attention to racial divisions, few dispute that he is personally conflicted and constrained by the position he holds.
Given those "civil rights leader" would include the racially inflammatory Al Sharpton, perhaps Obama was wise not to "link arms."
The Times, while criticizing Obama from the left for lack of passion, still managed to flatter the president with its choice of adjectives.
The son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya has struggled with questions about his own racial identity -- described in his book “Dreams From My Father” -- but Mr. Obama is by nature cool and cerebral and rarely shows emotion in public.
....
Mr. Obama has stepped up some of his rhetoric. In a huddle with Ms. Jarrett and Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. in the Oval Office last month, the president ripped up the beginning of a speech he was about to give on immigration and added a pledge to advocates for change that “your president will be right there with you.”
His administration has also pushed for sentencing guidelines that are more fair to African-Americans, reached out to young black men with the “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative and created a task force to address tensions between black Americans and law enforcement agents. A number of civil rights leaders, however, say the president has not done enough.
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At this point, Mr. Obama’s response to Ferguson, Staten Island and the unrest across the country has diminished his image with important groups, according to new polling figures. Half the respondents in a Pew Research Center survey conducted Wednesday to Sunday disapproved of the president’s handling of race relations, compared with 40 percent who approved -- a reversal from August, when 48 percent approved and 42 percent disapproved. While the majority of African-Americans still said the president had handled race relations well, support among them had dropped 16 points since polling in the summer.
For now, civil rights leaders continue to lobby Ms. Jarrett and other White House aides to pressure the president into seizing on the post-Ferguson anger. But Mr. Obama is limited in how directly he can engage. He sent representatives to the funeral of Michael Brown, the 18-year-old shot in Ferguson, and the youth’s parents said they thought it was better for Mr. Obama not to pay his respects in person rather than risk creating more chaos.
The story ended with an awkward metaphor urging Obama to become more fiery, and to join the activists' battle against the police.
In Ms. Jarrett’s view, Mr. Brown’s death has unleashed a new energy among African-Americans on an issue that Mr. Obama is ready to embrace. During the Oval Office meeting last week, she said, the president urged the young activists to keep up the pressure on society.
Ms. Jarrett said he had told them, “Shoot for the sky.”
