It was damage control at the highest level of the U.S. government.
"If you got to do a job, do it yourself," said President Obama as he made a surprise Friday afternoon appearance in the White House briefing room.
The job he felt compelled to perform was to try to defuse the "media frenzy" over his comment that Cambridge police "acted stupidly" last week in arresting his friend, Harvard Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
"I could have calibrated those words differently," said the president in a six minute statement.
He said he "unfortunately gave an impression" that he was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sgt. James Crowley, the officer who arrested Gates.
He said he called Crowley to explain his poor choice of words, and then told reporters, "he was an outstanding police officer and a good man." - CBS News Story
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