Obama Speaks on Ferguson Events; Has Nothing to Say About Police Militarization

Here’s President Barack Obama, commenting on the events in
Ferguson with all the engagement of an announcer reading the side
effects of a prescription medication in a television ad:

I thought about highlighting some comments from the four-minute
speech, but it’s just that shitty that I can’t quote anything that
you can’t just make up in your own head. Calls for peace and calm?
Check. Statement that feds are investigating? Check. Declaration
that we all have “shared values” in the face of clear evidence
otherwise? Check. Belief that we’re all equal under the law as
though that has ever been the case for law enforcement officers?
Check.
Here’s an Associated Press story you can skim if you can’t
watch the video.

Completely absent: Any sort of reference to the militarization
of the police, the very thing that has become a central,
fundamental part of this narrative. It’s the one component that is
drawing the left and the right together. And yet, the issue of
these police officers having absurd, unnecessary weapons and trucks
is completely unmentioned. Contrast Obama’s response to
Sen. Rand Paul’s criticism in Time that our police
forces have become a military presence.

It shouldn’t be a surprise, though. Where did the police
department get this equipment? The militarization of the police has
happened with the participation and encouragement of the executive
branch of the federal government. Did anybody actually expect Obama
to suggest the idea that government is too powerful? Don’t be
silly.