Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said President Obama’s comments about the controversial killing of Florida resident Trayvon Martin were “disgraceful.”
Obama made his first public comments on Friday about the killing of Martin, an unarmed Florida teenager who was killed weeks ago by a self-identified volunteer neighborhood watchman. The killing has sparked protests around the country and a nationwide debate over race.
In his remarks on the case to reporters Friday, Obama said hoped to see the case investigated properly because “if I had a son, he would look like Trayvon.”
In an interview with conservative talk show host Sean Hannity, Gingrich said he was disturbed by Obama’s comments about race.
“What the president said, in a sense, is disgraceful,” Gingrich told Hannity Friday evening. “It’s not a question of who that young man looked like. Any young American of any ethnic background should be safe, period.”
Martin was killed on Feb. 26 by George Zimmerman, who told police he was acting in self-defense. Martin was carrying only Skittles candies and a can of iced tea when he was shot.
“We should all be horrified no matter what the ethnic background,” Gingrich said of the case. “Is the president suggesting that if it had been a white who had been shot, that would be OK because it didn’t look like him. That’s just nonsense dividing this country up.”
Gingrich added that he thought it was a “tragedy” that Martin was shot, but he said his sadness about the case had nothing to do with Martin’s race.
“It would have been a tragedy if he had been Puerto Rican or Cuban or if he had been white or if he had been Asian American of if he’d been a Native American,” he said. “At some point, we ought to talk about being Americans. When things go wrong to an American, it is sad for all Americans. Trying to turn it into a racial issue is fundamentally wrong. I really find it appalling.”
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19 Responses
Whats really disgraceful is that this guy is still hanging around making believe he has a chance to get the nomination. The President’s remarks were entirely appropriate and every normal person understands his point. This teenage was murdered because he was Black and Obama, as a father, was thinking that it could have been his son. This Zimmerman guy is a sick, self-styled vigilante who called police over 40 times in the past year or so, and repeatedly complains about Blacks in his neighborhood. The kid was not armed, had no weapon, had no history of assulting anyone and whose biggest crime was reacting vocally to being harassed by Zimmerman.
Gingrich would do himself and the nation a service by simply disappearing from the political landscape.
I do not agree. Yes Zimmerman clearly is disturbed and paranoid, and it was a tragedy and a huge waste of life. But Obama is a bigger racist then anyone else he likes to point the finger at. The fact that Obama said he looks just like his son if he had one, continues the presidents division of our country and once again paints minorities and himself like the victim. Someone is shot and killed everyday. Every time a black kid is shot by another black kid in queens or the Bronx, does Obama make a statement? Are those any less of a tragedy? It is because this shooter was not black. ( he was hispanic).
#1 & #2 it sounds like you know so much about what happened there that night i hope you stepped forward to be a witness in this case. oh so you werent there so please zip it shut and keep your speculation to yourself
1.
So how’s that hopey changey thing working for you?
Number 1 is 100% right. Number 2 just misses the point. “murders take place everyday” yes, but the perpertrators are arrested not left to live free.
Ok Eric, get off this blog which is all about people perceptions and opinions of what is going on in the world around us. I am not missing the point. My point is that if this boy had not been black, Obama would not have come out and made a statement, racially charged as it was. Everyone relax. Calm down.
To ML (no.4)
The “hopey changey” thing is obviously not working since its apparently OK to take someone’s life for wearing a “hoody” and being Black.
Who says this kid was such a malach? How do you know? Zimmerman called the police 40 times in the past year? That’s not surprising, since he is in the neighbourhood watch. If he’s patrolling regularly, then I would expect him to call at least once a week, which he’s not quite up to. And of course he complains about black criminals; that’s his job. If criminals were mostly white, he’d be complaining about them, but we all know that that’s not the case.
Remember all the hoopla about Rodney King, where the media and the black politicians made him out to be some kind of innocent victim of racist violence, when everyone who paid even the slightest attention knew that that was not the case at all. What are the odds that the same will prove to be the case here?
so now we see that 5 is the same as 1.
and btw folks, there are reports coming out of FL that the screaming for help heard on the call were coming from the zimmerman guy. what will you do then? will you apologize together with not too sharpton ym’sh?
can zimmerman, the killer, get a fair trial? I doubt it. I think the entire us news scene is disgraceful.
It seems that under Florida law they can not arrest Mr. Zimmerman as he asserts self defense. Can someone explain this law?
Like Gingrich or hate him, his point is well taken. Should we be surprised at the Presidents comments though? The professor and the cops comes to mind right away.
I thought Obama’s remarks where very contained and even appeared not to lean one way or the other in the investigation. However, that strong racial remark did stick out, and it is, perhaps, disgraceful.
In this country Kavod HaMalchus (respect for for the king or leader) is missing. With Bush, every remark or mannerism of his was pilloried by the Left. And now the Right is returning the favor to Obama.
The reality is that Trayvon Martin shares many visual features with Barack Obama. A few years ago, while visiting some ancient Egypt ruins, Obama pointed out that a certain scribe resembled him.
Once all the facts are in, will the president invite Zimmerman to the white house for a beer?
Apushatayid, it’s very poshut. It is wrong to arrest someone unless you have probable cause to believe that he has committed a crime. That is the case everywhere, but in Florida it is the law. Killing someone in self-defense is not a crime. Therefore to arrest Zimmerman the police would have to have probable cause that he did not kill Martin in self-defense. So far, at least, they don’t have that, so they can’t arrest him. Maybe they don’t have it because they haven’t found the evidence yet, or maybe they don’t have it because the evidence doesn’t exist, because the killing really was justified. None of us can possibly know. And all the people howling for Zimmerman’s blood certainly can’t know.
Meanwhile, maybe someone who thinks this was not a good shooting can explain what the #@$% this “malach” was doing in that place at that time. The story is that he had gone out in the middle of the night to buy some candy from a 7/11. So why was he lurking around this building where he had no business being; there is no 7/11 anywhere nearby, and he was not on the sidewalk but up near the building where there have been many burglaries recently. Who can guarantee that he wasn’t planning to break in to an apartment?
Josh31, the president is not a king. The USA has no king, and the entire concept of “kovod hamalchus” is un-American, antithetical to everything the USA stands for.
Respect for the Office of the President of the United States of America is very much American.
Cherrybim, respect for the office is also questionable, but respect for the person of the president is without question unamerican. Americans fought a revolution to get away from kings and the whole concept of melucha.