Krauthammer: Obama, Beer Summit, and Teachable Moments

Looking back on 2009, Charles Krauthammer, on Special Report with Bret Baier, gives his thoughts on Obama and the Beer Summit.

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CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: It was a classic example of the Obama style. Here he starts out by making a mistake. He accuses the cops of acting stupidly. It's sort of instinctive, sort of a prejudice against the cops and in favor of a professor. If you're a professor like him, if you live in academia the way he did, it's sort of an instinctual response.

He realized immediately it's a mistake. And what he does is he tries to act the philosopher king and he rises above it and he says, 'And now we're going to teach the nation,' whereas he was the one who made the mistake.

It's the same way with the Philadelphia race speech. It was discovered, of course, in the campaign that he had had a gaffe of twenty years by being in the church of a raving racist, Jeremiah Wright. And then he gives a speech which essentially scolds everyone, including his own grandmother, of latent racism, except himself. And he rises above it. He says it's a teachable moment, and he gives a speech that had liberals feeling thrills up their leg, and comparing it to Lincoln and Cooper Union.

It's a clever pose but I think it wears thin. He makes mistakes like others. They're usual instinctive liberal mistakes, and then he pretends that he's going to now teach us about this. I found it slightly annoying, and I wonder if the rest of the nation over a time won't also.

I found it more than slightly annoying.

Obama screwed up. He required a learning moment. He didn't offer the nation a teachable moment.

Obama executed his knee-jerk liberalism and he received a week of bad press and national humiliation in return.

He does have so much to learn.