Rep. Williams should apologize to the president
President Barack Obama’s plans to address an interfaith memorial service Tuesday at the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas underscores the nation’s grief after a gunman killed five Dallas police officers and injured seven, as well as two civilians. Obama will also meet with families of victims.
Former President George W. Bush, attending with his wife, Laura, is also expected to speak. Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, are also scheduled to attend.
No doubt, other national, state and local dignitaries will also be there. The event is closed to the public.
U.S. Rep. Roger Williams, R-Austin, whose congressional district stretches from far south Fort Worth to the Hill Country, should be there, and he should find a way to apologize personally to Obama for a remark he made about the president last week.
Williams issued his own statement of condolences to the family members on Friday, but as in most of his statements from his Washington office he insisted on also including a political message.
“The spread of misinformation and constant instigation by prominent leaders, including our president, have contributed to the modern day hostility we are witnessing between the police and those they serve,” Williams said.
It is true that Obama spoke Thursday in Warsaw, hours before the Dallas shooting rampage, about police killings of two black men, Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La., and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minn.
He called those killings “symptomatic of the broader challenges within our criminal justice system, the racial disparities that appear across the system year after year, and the resulting lack of trust that exists between law enforcement and too many of the communities they serve.”
He immediately added, “To admit we’ve got a serious problem in no way contradicts our respect and appreciation for the vast majority of police officers who put their lives on the line to protect us every single day.”
Those are entirely reasonable things for the president to say.
Obama spoke again on Friday, calling the Dallas shootings “a vicious, calculated and despicable attack on law enforcement” for which there is “no possible justification.”
Williams should heed the words of Gov. Greg Abbott.
“In the coming days, there will be those who foment distrust and fan the flames of dissension,” Abbott said on Friday. “To come together — that would be the greatest rebuke to those who seek to tear us apart.”
Williams should not foment distrust or fan the flames of dissension.
This story was originally published July 11, 2016 at 4:56 PM with the headline "Rep. Williams should apologize to the president."