On the merits, we’d say Obama got it right. He expressed sympathy with Gates’s position while expressly declining to endorse the charge that the arresting officer had racially invidious motives. When the president made a general statement about racial profiling–a statement that is certainly debatable, but he, like everyone else, is entitled to argue for his side in a debate–he was careful to note that he was speaking “separate and apart from this incident.”