The Ability To Focus: A Quality of True Leadership

A Prime Time Press Conference, OSTENSIBLY called to place Health Care Legislation front and center was, in the end, derailed and sensationalized by the President. Crazies, LED BY THE PRESIDENT attack the officer yet condone the intemperence of an out-of-control, hootie, tootie Harvard Professor. The 'if that were a white man' cacophony has DISPLACED COMPLETELY the focus on health care legislation for which normal television schedules were pre-empted.

Any reasonable homeowner appreciates prompt response to a call to investigate a burgulary report! The Officer encountered an individual representing himself as the homeowner, pompously declaring that he was a distinguished, highly paid professional, but who behaved as a disrespectful, disruptive, angry bully! In the responding officer's experience, an innocent resident forced to break into his own home by a maintenance issue is sheepish and reassuring. Instead, the Officer, bound by duty to protect and defend, was confronted by a hostile attempt to prevent the investigation. Professor Gates twisted the police call into a RACIST confrontation. His demeanor - under the circumstances - didn't add up to what the trained, experienced Policeman customarily finds IN THAT NEIGHBORHOOD. Though he claimed to be a distinguished Harvard Professor, a resident of this secure Cambridge community, he makes an uproarious accusation against the very professional counterpart of his who is there to protect his property.

A legitimate home-owning citizen, AT HOME IN HIS NEIGHBORHOOD would have calmly assured the Officer that he appreciated the diligence, promptness and professionalism with which the department responded, and IN RETURN, would treat the public servant - sworn to protect and defend him - with THE SAME PROFESSIONALISM! To me, a cranky old guy's hair-trigger outburst insulting me at an emotional level threatening to alarm the neighbors says:

SOMETHING IS UP HERE. Is a perp holding a gun on the homeowner to get rid of the cop?

I say to the President ..."Experience has taught me ..." and here's a poor waaht girl's experience through which I filter the incident:

At Kaufmann's, a team of shoplifters loudly disciplining their child, once created an urgent situation as a distraction to imbalance me - the $6 dollar/ hour sales clerk trained to respect the CUSTOMER. This woman simply picked up a $450.00 Croscill bedding set FROM THE SHELF IN MY DEPARTMENT and plunked it down on my counter asserting that it had been a gift. She had neither shopping bag nor receipt, but she wanted to return it for the money. Snapping her fingers, she demanded that I speed it up because she "didn't have time." She raised a rukus, kept yelling at the 4 year old child and accomplice, pitching a fit that I wasn't working quickly enough to ring up her return. My manager came on the scene, gave the woman a store credit in the amount of the FULL, not SALE price of the item, and after 20 minutes of work, the thieves walked out of the store with paper that represented more value in my employer's store, THAN I EARNED IN A MONTH! A "perk" of my job was the employee discount processed via store credit card, but my income didn't qualify me for an account. That is to say, my employer wouldn't issue me credit for items I purchased in their store, when they could have readily deducted it from my paycheck. Instead, they issued a prepay card so that I could pay cash in advance of a purchase on my account then go to the department, pretend to purchase the item on my credit card and receive the employee 'discount' at the end of the month as credit on my account. Kaufmann's Associates were held to a strict dress code. Nonetheless, we were required to pick up the slack for the downsized housekeeping staff by climbing on ladders in heels and dress clothes to dust our displays while customers looked up our skirts. The Security Director, who had closed circuit cameras trained on my work station once stopped me leaving the store with a bag of dust rags I was taking home for laundering after my shift. On the selling floor, he detained me while he RUMMAGED THROUGH THE DUST RAGS expecting to catch me shoplifting, in the presence of my customers! Point of Personal Privelege!! Am I a trusted professional, or am I the unwitting foil for authority figures violating my trust with a slick spin? Months later, that security director was arrested for the theft of $85,000.00 worth of electronics his partners boosted out the freight exit while they were supposedly minding the store.

The President's response to the final question of the Press Conference, purportedly staged to focus on the President's priority; Health Care Reform, successfully eclipsed the Health Care issue. Emotional, heated outbursts fueled unfounded accusations of racism. In my view, it was Gates who was grossly unprofessional. The President manufactured a distraction. In my experience, the reciprocity of professional courtesy is the common ground upon which we work. We achieve results via civil exchange. How do you, another "Professional" get in my face and call me names, insult me and bring up the history of race relations when I'm there as a professional public servant, risking my own security, to defend yours????

Gates: YOU FIGHT LIKE A WOMAN!!!

Obama: So much for your health care message. Once again, you managed to make it all about race, inflame the media and your racially charged minions, to take the heat off yourself for your poor leadership.