mandela standing outside that hospital. look at what that one president did for south africa. he created truth and reconciliation commission and led a national conversation. and i have to tell you, brooke, there were white former security guards who protected mandela who were out in the street alongside young black people and others grieving and hoping for mandela s restoration. so president obama can do this. he s very skillful, very smart and has a personal biography that the nation needs now. as i listen to you, emily miller, i m curious of your thoughts. i was reminding myself reading about that summit in 2009 and the uproar over the racial profiling in henry lewis gates and the cambridge police officer and, you know and he was wrong. obama jumped into that case, threw down the race card and once again he was wrong. this is the second time he s done it. i don t know why we re talking about nelson mandela and a prar tied. we do not have apartheid.
in 2009 the president weighed on the henry lewis gates and said the police acted stupidly. the result of that comment was the summit. then in april of last year, president obama called the law misguided. to to following that remark a meeting with the governor jan brewer. but they say this case is uniquely political cal. wisconsin is a state that obama must have in november 2012. i think he is trying to re-energize his base. he is reconnecting with unions, with teachers, with the people that helped him win wisconsin by a mile in 2008. reporter: democratic party officials say their role is being exaggerated and they say it s mostly a grassroots effort. jon: as promised let s go back to madison and listen live to republican governor scott walker. particularly i want to thank
and i think at the end of this, there s going to be some critics saying, look, it was boring, there wasn t anything new. but this white house is probably going to see it as a success because if you look at the whole week, he finally got the message back on the economy. monday s speech in milwaukee. wednesday s speech in cleveland where he really laid out the stakes and had a contrast with the republican speaker john boehner in the house. and today, first, do no harm is the first rule of press conferences. and you ll remember the time when he talked about henry lewis gates last year, had to have the beer summit after he angered the cambridge police. he didn t make any mistakes like that. maybe he didn t break any new ground. but he kept the message on the economy. listen to how he laid out the stakes in the election. if you want the same kinds of skewed policy that is led us to this crisis, then the republicans are ready to offer that. but if you want policies that are moving us out,
plan to close those gaps. you also, sophia agree that this would be a good time for president obama to speak out on race again. what would you like to hear from him? what does he need to say? i chris, i think the most important thing for the president is to think back to just a year ago this time, the whole henry lewis gates flap had happened t beer sum rid as we now call it. during the 2008 primary, he had to make this speech on race because the furor had grown so wide and so out of control and i think it s there once again, which tells us something about where we still are as a nation. so i think what i would like to hear from the president is not a rah rah kind of kumbaya kind of speech but really something substantive along the lines of lincoln s gettiesberg address, no, we re not in a war, we have not seen men die on the battlefield, but it s a source that we re still struggling with
summit with dr. gates and the white house, that same day, attorney general lisa madigan issued a report in chicago where major banks had targeted clusters of black homeowners which broke the basic law and so what we need is civil rights laws enforced and funded for all americans. the impact of the speech will not impact the numbers of home foreclosures, the closing of schools and church foreclosures, the structural gaps require a plan of civil rights enforcement and a budget in addition to a speech and he is so capable of giving an inspiring speech. we need to close the gaps requires a commitment to civil rights enforcement. chris, i agree with the reverend, i think we do need a substantive speech and i agree with him, we don t need rah rah