Barack Obama backed down on Friday from a statement that police had "acted stupidly" in arresting a black scholar in a racially charged case that was rapidly becoming a distraction for Obama.
奥巴马于周五收回他对逮捕一名黑人学者的警察所做的“表现愚蠢”的评价。
The president made a surprise appearance in the White House press briefing room shortly after he spoke by phone to Cambridge, Massachusetts, police Sgt. James Crowley, who had arrested Henry Louis Gates, a prominent scholar of African-American studies at Harvard, last week.
上周，马萨诸塞州剑桥市警察詹姆斯·克劳利逮捕了哈佛大学著名学者亨利·路易斯·盖茨。在与克劳利通话后，奥巴马意外出现在白宫新闻发布厅。
"Because this has been ratcheting up and I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up, I wanted to make clear in my choice of words I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sgt. Crowley specifically," Obama said. "And I could have calibrated those words differently."
奥巴马说：“因为这件事一直在升温，而我无疑也推动了它的升温，因此我想选择更清晰的言辞。我想我不小心给大家造成一种印象，那就是我在讲剑桥警察局，或者说在讲克劳利警官的坏话。我想用不同的词语来校准一下。”
Crowley suggested Obama invite him and Gates, to the White House for a peace-making beer, and a plan was in the works to do so, Obama said.
克劳利建议奥巴马邀请他和盖茨到白宫做客，一起喝喝酒，来和平解决这件事情。奥巴马说相关安排正在进行中。
Obama later called Gates, had a positive discussion, told him about his phone call with Crowley and invited him to join Crowley at the White House in the near future, the White House said.
白宫方面称，奥巴马随后给盖茨打了电话，与他进行了积极的谈话，并把自己和克劳利的电话告诉了盖茨，同时邀请盖茨和克劳利在不久的将来一起到白宫做客。