Civil unrest in London has continued for a fourth day, as police struggle to control the rampant rioting and looting that was touched off last Saturday night after police fatally shot a Tottenham resident during a weapons investigation. Since then, fires have raged and street crime has escalated, primarily in the city's far-flung, poorer sections. The matter has forced Prime Minister David Cameron to make an early return from vacation as London's Metropolitan Police endures criticism that they had more cops on the street during the recent Royal Wedding than they've had as London succumbs to mayhem.
Against this backdrop, were you wondering if President Barack Obama is secretly siding with London's opportunistic looters and arsonists? Probably not, because that sounds crazy! But over at the National Review, Stanley Kurtz is pretty sure that that in the "debate over whether such events should be seen primarily as political protests by the powerless, or as out-and-out lawbreaking and vandalism," Obama "[leans] toward the former." His basis for this is a press release, from 19 years ago.
I found the press release Obama issued to get Project Vote rolling, in the ACORN archives at the Wisconsin Historical Society. (Obama worked closely with ACORN on this campaign, his later denials notwithstanding.) The release quotes Obama explaining the need for Project Vote by pointing to the rioting in Los Angeles. Said Obama in 1992: "The Los Angeles riots reflect a deep distrust and disaffection with the existing power pattern in our society." That's Alinsky-speak for "We've got to use the power of the angry underclass to put capitalism in check."
Yes, I've read that a bunch of times, now, trying to discern any evidence that Obama has ever asserted that rioting and violence was politically supportable. What I see is this sentence -- "The Los Angeles riots reflect a deep distrust and disaffection with the existing power pattern in our society" -- and that's basically a bog-standard sociological statement about discontent in Los Angeles' black community, circa the 1990s. And then there's some other sentence that Kurtz himself invents and sticks in the mouth of Saul Alinsky and/or ACORN. Perhaps the reason I cannot discern the mystery Kurtz discerns is that I've yet to contract a fever today.
Nevertheless, Kurtz neatly avoids saying anything definitive about Obama's leanings, asserting only that 1) some people have compared the London riots to the L.A. riots, and 2) Obama said something generic about the L.A. riots, so 3) Obama may or may not feel the same way about London now. Kurtz goes on:
What he thinks to himself is another matter. Of course, a quick statement like this is much less important than the context provided by a systematic look at Obama's overall political development. Nonetheless, direct quotes from Obama's early political past are few and far between. This one is particularly intriguing.
You know, who doesn't relish the sensation of being "intrigued" by a notion that's constructed out of pure fancifulness and pixie dust? Unfortunately, I must bring this ticklish period of "intrigue" to an end. As it turns out, I can tell you how Obama feels about violent riots, because he made his feelings clear at the Hampton University Annual Ministers' Conference on June 5, 2007:
Much of what we saw on our television screens 15 years ago was Los Angeles expressing a lingering, ongoing, pervasive legacy -- a tragic legacy out of the tragic history this country has never fully come to terms with. This is not to excuse the violence of bashing in a man's head or destroying someone's store and their life's work. That kind of violence is inexcusable and self-defeating. It does, however, describe the reality of many communities around this country.
There you have it. If it's true that Obama feels the same way about today's London riots as he felt about the L.A. riots of yesteryear, then he believes the violence is "inexcusable" and views the tactics of using violence to make a political statement as "self-defeating."
Self-defeating. As in, not likely to result in any positive political outcome for the discontented rioters.
Anyway, that's how "logic" and "being willing to research something for five minutes" works. [Hat Tip: ThinkProgress]
[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]