Obama Speaks with Police Officer

President Obama attempted to put an end to the controversy over his “stupidly” comment by picking up the phone. Obama hosted a press conference on Friday afternoon to announce that he called Sgt. James Crowley, the officer who arrested Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.—and who the president said “acted stupidly.” The president said that he regretted giving “an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department and Sgt. Crowley specifically,” and that “I could have calibrated those words differently.” However, he said that “I continue to believe based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction.” The president also discussed inviting Crowley and Gates over for a beer.