did he apologize to you? well, you know, he didn t say i m sorry, in those words. i really didn t want to hear the president of the united states say i m sorry to shirley sherrod. i felt he was saying that in his talk just by simply calling me. i felt it was, in a way, saying i m sorry. because he didn t have to do it. shirley, this is the second time that race has crossed the administration s path in a big way. the other was in cambridge with skip gates and that police officer. both times this administration has badly fumbled the issue. what does that say to you about this administration s ability to talk about race? you know, i guess because he s a black president, for some reason they feel you can t talk about issues that affect just black people.
obama to be the person to help kind of navigate us through these shoals. after that race speech toward a more perfect union in philadelphia, think that really settled it for many americans. so the think the obama administration should actually be more confident about having the president be able to speak exclis italy to the issue of race. boyce, when you talk about confidence, the henry gates controversy was not you really can t blame the conservatives for that and the president said when asked at a news conference the cambridge police acted stupidly, then he said before knowing the full story of what happened. in this situation you had the naacp and some would argue the department of agriculture by extension of the administration also being quick to rush to judgment turning out that they ended up doing more damage, regardless of where the tape originally came from, just about how the administration deals with race. 2 for 2. it s actually turned out to be much worse for the preside
gender resentment, on and on. i know of a study where they said black vice presidents are not able to get further in their corporations because they don t personally identify with the corporation the way many white men do. but you couldn t possibly get to that level of personal identification with the corporation or perhaps with america as a nation because you know that it s not there for you. you still feel like a second class citizen, and when he you see what happens with shirley sherrod or skip gates, then you start to say, yes, this is true. but how much of it is a self-fulfilling drama? yor in other words i have a fear that i will be discriminated against because i m black or minority. and i m not saying there s not discrimination. if i m walking in with the fear that they re going to judge me because i am different, how much of it becomes self-created? i don t think that the
they were talking about it at the white house. when he was asked to address it at a press conference that s when he took skip gates side. it was later he realized he made a mistake by doing that and showed up at the briefing room in a surprise appearance, if you will, to announce this beer summit. clearly there was a personal connection when it came to that story and realized he made a mistake and he had to come out and correct that mistake. this go-around with mrs. shirley sherrod is mark ed edly different. he doesn t have a relationship with her, dunce know her. he wasn t involved with this initially. this is something happening through the agriculture department. he wants involved in pushing that resignation. when he was briefed and realized his own secretary was in trouble, he took up for the secretary and defended him and his decision. it wasn t until later when he was briefed again and they brought this full tape disclosure of the naacp, full tape, hay did this reversal. and mad
let s bring in cnn white house correspondent suzanne malveaux. what s the filter process? how is it decided whether the president gets involved in a race issue or not? reporter: first of all, in covering the president during the campaign, it is very clear that this president does not want to talk about race. reticent to jump into it. he was really forced during the campaign to talk about it in a way because of his reverend wright controversy. once he did it, however, he tried to do it in a thoughtful way, a way that would make people take away their own prejudices and think about their own feelings about this. he does want to do it at some drive-by way. what happens is that it is a case by case basis. you brought up the example of sergeant crowley and skip gates. in that situation, that circumstance, president obama knew skip gates, professor gates. first lady knows a lot of his friendsin and siders knew about the controversy.