It was the adjective that was not calibrated enough not the messenger that delivered the words.

This was President Obama’s excuse – not apology – for saying the Cambridge Police ‘acted stupidly’ in arresting black Harvard Professor Henry Lewis Jr. for disorderly conduct.

It is interesting to observe the number of times Obama has gone abroad and apologized for everything American from former President George W. Bush to our image, but how difficult it is for him to apologize for himself when he makes a mistake.

And Obama clearly made a mistake commenting during his last press conference on the arrest of Professor Gates for disorderly conduct when he admittedly didn’t have the facts and noting his bias because Gates is a friend.  But then he compounded the situation further when he said the police ‘acted stupidly.’

Further the President played the race card by bringing up the issue of racial profiling during his response.  Nevertheless, Obama says he still considers the arrest “an over reaction” but noted that “Professor Gates probably over reacted as well.”

It seems to me that our President and his staff calibrated his words so carefully that the third time he publicly addressed this issue he failed to say, “I’m sorry.”

Following Obama’s surprise appearance at the daily press briefing yesterday, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs mumbled and stumbled for adjectives to respond to the question,” Did you hear the President apologize?”

The best Gibbs could do to get out of the situation was to say he was not going to get ahead of the president on this issue.

It is very clear that Obama stepped into quicksand when addresing an issue to which he didn’t have the facts.  It appeared, however, that the president wanted to address the race issue and in so doing exacerbated the incident making it the lead media story, taking health care reform off the front page.

Obama apparently wants to give this story more legs. He invited both men to the White House for a beer – it may take more than one.