Let’s get over the excessive umbrage

We've all done it. Everyone on the planet has done it. We overreact. We say something or do something we wish we hadn’t done. We assume the worst about another person’s actions and lash out in a less than civil way. It happens to everyone. And we regret it.

The clear message of President Obama’s Thursday night sit down in the Rose Garden with Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Cambridge, Massachusetts police sergeant James Crowley is this: “Let’s get over the excessive umbrage, sit down, and get to know each other.” Michael Kinsley wrote eloquently about this sentiment in a July 31 Washington Post op-ed article.

It’s hard to hate another person when you walk side by side with that person and his family on a presidentially guided tour of the White House, then join that person, the president, and vice president for a cold beer in the Rose Garden. As for President Obama’s own hastily chosen words about someone acting “stupidly,” he’s human too, just like his companions in the garden.

-- Pat Jones