T H E N O . 1 S T. L O U I S W E B S I T E A N D N E W S P A P E R

Thursday • 08.28.2014 • $1.50

Vol. 136, No. 240 ©2014POST-DISPATCH WEATHERBIRD ®

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Unfit for a king Pickleball craze comes to St. LouisMerger of ping-pong and tennis provides workout at an easier pace.

hEaLTh • B1

St. Peters rethinks red-light cameras • A2

Both sides claim victory in Gaza • A5

Long homer lifts Pirates over Cards • C1

Fisher still angry over ESPN story • C1

the politics of ferguson

Post-DisPatchRepublican Rick Stream talks to supporters at his election watch party earlier this month.

Post-DisPatchDemocrat Steve Stenger speaks on Aug. 5 after his primary victory for county executive.

By sTEVE GIEGErIChand WaLKER MOSKOP Post-Dispatch

CLayTON • County Coun-cilman Steve Stenger, on the night of Aug. 5, profusely thanked Robert McCulloch for the role the St. Louis County prosecutor played in helping the councilman score a decisive vic-tory over the county’s first African-American chief executive, Charlie

Dooley, in the Democratic primary.

Four days later, Fergu-son erupted when Michael Brown, 18, was fatally shot by police Officer Darren Wilson. Now, the events that ripped apart that north St.

Louis County community have in-sinuated themselves into a general election campaign that until Aug. 9

By KEVIN McdERMOttkmcdermott@post-dispatch.com314-340-8268

Now that the unrest in Ferguson apparently has subsided, the bills soon will come due.

For two weeks, law enforce-ment agencies from those in small cities all the way to the Missouri Highway Patrol and the

state’s National Guard sent of-ficers and tactical equipment to the small suburban town. From gas masks to overtime, the costs are being tallied.

Generally it’s still too early to quantify exactly what the total public cost will be for the extra law enforcement since Michael

By JaCQuEs BILLEaud aNd GENE JOhNsONassociated Press

PhOENIX • The accidental shooting death of a firing-range instructor by a 9-year-old girl with an Uzi has set off a powerful debate over youngsters and guns, with many people wondering what sort of parents would let a

child handle a submachine gun.Instructor Charles Vacca, 39,

was standing next to the girl Monday at the Last Stop range in White Hills, Ariz., about 60 miles south of Las Vegas, when she squeezed the trigger. The re-coil wrenched the Uzi upward, and Vacca was shot in the head.

By dOuG MOOrEdmoore@post-dispatch.com314-340-8125

Marches, protests and prayer vigils have been a constant in the region for more than two weeks, and as a grand jury pores over ev-idence in the Michael Brown kill-ing, similar actions are expected to continue.

But other responses to the police shooting, designed to be more long-lasting, have popped up. They include getting more African-Americans engaged in their communities and challeng-ing people to leave their comfort zones and talk about race.

On Wednesday, a storefront on

McCulloch

DaviD Carson • dcarson@post-dispatch.comLAW ENFORCEMENT • St. Louis County so far has spent about $1 million in police overtime responding to Ferguson, officials said. Other departments assisted, and incurred their own costs.

Christian GooDen • cgooden@post-dispatch.com CLEANUP • “The residents there (in the area affected by rioting and looting) need a break, and any support we can provide to help the community heal and get back on its feet should be provided,” County Executive Charlie Dooley said. “It’s the humane thing to do.”

Laurie skrivan • lskrivan@post-dispatch.com SUPPORT • “I lost my job. They kept blocking off the streets. I don’t have a car and I couldn’t get to the bus stop,” said Titilayo Blanchard (left), who took advantage of a free shuttle to the Dellwood Recreation Center. The county is funding services there for residents.

addING uP ThE BILL hEaLING aNd OuTrEaChCOMPLETE rEPOrT

SLU law professors address killing of Brown • A7

Gauen: Collinsville was once close to boiling over • A12

aT sTLTOday.COM/MIChaELBrOwN

Reprints of Post-Dispatch front pages

The memorable photos from our coverage

Timeline: The story as it unfolds

Policing, recovery runs into millions

By ChuCK raasChcraasch@post-dispatch.com > 202-298-6880

washINGTON • A coalition of environmental and food-safety groups is asking the Fish and Wildlife Service to grant endangered species protection to the iconic monarch butterfly, whose U.S. popula-tion, the groups say, last year fell to 90 percent be-low its 20-year average.

In a petition asking for the designation, which would allow the federal government to more

Monarch butterfly

Groups seek endangered status for monarch

See BuTTErfLy • Page a6

As unrest fades, time to count the cost

See COsT • Page a7

Looking for a response that lasts

See HEaL • Page a7

brown kiLLing raiSeS iSSueS in county executive conteSt

embattled Mcculloch is strong Stenger backer.

See COuNTy • Page a6

Shooting by girl, 9, with Uzi stirs debate over rules at gun ranges

See GuN • Page a6

A6 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH M 1 • THUrSDAy • 08.28.2014

was expected to feature Stenger and his Republican opponent, state Rep. Rick Stream, debat-ing their positions on governance and economic policy issues.

One leading GOP strategist this week predicted that the Nov. 4 balloting may balance on Stenger’s connection to McCull-och, who is under fire from U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-St. Louis, and fellow African-Amer-ican politicians who claim the veteran prosecutor has not been aggressive in pursuing justice in cases involving shootings by po-lice.

“The architect of Charlie Dooley’s defeat is now in the cross hairs,” said Republican consultant Jeff Roe, the founder of Axiom Strategies, based in Kansas City. “And the candidate (whom McCulloch) got across the finish line is the only person that voters can take out their frustration on. McCulloch is now an anchor around (Stenger’s) neck.”

Roe is not affiliated with the Stream campaign.

Stenger dismisses the idea that his link to McCulloch, a for-mer Dooley ally who switched sides and appeared prominently in televised commercials on Stenger’s behalf, will spell defeat in November.

“I’m not going to distance my-self from Bob McCulloch,” he said.

Ferguson may have changed the dialogue. And it may produce many new voters to cast ballots in November.

But it hasn’t altered the Stenger campaign’s strategy of turning out the base in a heav-ily Democratic county that de-livered huge margins of victory for Barack Obama in the past two presidential elections.

St. Louis University political science Professor Ken Warren believes staying the course will pay off for Stenger in November.

The Republicans “won’t sneak in,” he said, “because the county is still very, very Democratic.”

However, Stream adviser Da-vid Barklage says Democrats shouldn’t discount the impact that two weeks of Ferguson strife has had on the party base, par-ticularly African-American resi-dents of North County.

“The Democratic brand has been severely hurt,” Barklage said. “If the black community rocked by this tragedy engages

itself in this election, then this represents an opportunity for Rick. Because this has been a failure of Democratic leadership.”

Barklage and others suspect Stream — the term-limited chairman of the House Budget Committee — may benefit in No-vember from cross-party bonds forged with Democratic lawmak-ers such as state Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, a sharp critic of Mc-Culloch.

Warren maintains that the idea of events in Ferguson driving voters to the GOP may be little more than wishful thinking.

“I don’t see it being very par-tisan,” said Warren. “I may be wrong. But I don’t see people scrutinizing the situation so closely that they’ll determine a Democratic county administra-tion was to blame for what hap-pened in Ferguson.”

St. Louis County, he pointed out, has little to do with gover-nance in Ferguson and other mu-nicipalities other than to act as “a general taxing authority.”

If nothing else, Warren pre-dicted, Ferguson will generate a higher-than-normal turnout in a nonpresidential general election.

“It can’t but help that (the Rev. Al) Sharpton talked about voting in his eulogy (for Brown) and that blacks can no longer sit on their butts” on election day, Warren said.

St. Louis County Director of Elections Rita Days confirmed that organizers and volunteers have turned in voter registration forms at a higher-than-average rate in the weeks since Ferguson became an international date-line. Her office will total and re-lease the number of newly reg-istered voters next week, Days said.

When the precinct-level votes of the Dooley-Stenger race are mapped out, the result looks al-most identical to census maps of county demographics. A Post-Dispatch analysis shows that most polling places that Dooley carried were in the inner-ring suburbs of North County, which have higher concentrations of African-Americans. His support faded to the south and west.

South of Olive Boulevard, where only about 10 percent of the county’s black population lives, support for Stenger was overwhelming.

In south and west St. Louis County, Stenger consistently

pulled in more than 80 percent of Democratic votes.

In Ferguson, Stenger received 38 percent of the vote.

Stream, meanwhile, took 90 percent of the polling places countywide in the Republican primary.

Stream and Stenger have both been in Ferguson the past two weeks, but on Wednesday their campaigns offered their first public comments about how they would move forward there.

Stenger, a six-year council-man representing South County, said he would seek a complete review of procedures, policies and equipment by the St. Louis County Board of Police Com-missioners if voters elevate him to the county executive office in November.

The use of military-style equipment and tactics by lo-cal agencies, including St. Louis County Police, became a major flash point in Ferguson.

Stenger said some of the pro-posals that comprised his plat-

form during the primary — no-tably the establishment of “community empowerment” programs employing economic development to address con-centrated areas of poverty, in-equality, transportation jobs and economic development — dove-tailed with the underlying griev-ances that erupted after Brown’s death.

Stream spokesman Michael Hafner said the GOP candidate and his staff were developing a strategic approach to assist-ing Ferguson in the months and years ahead.

Hafner said Stream was ex-pected to begin the first step, a North County walking and lis-tening tour, early next month.

The specter of McCulloch could, meanwhile, hang over the campaign right up to election day. For his part, McCulloch is running unopposed.

But advocates for prosecution in the Brown case distrust Mc-Culloch, in part because his fa-ther, a police officer, was gunned

down in the line of duty when the prosecutor was 12.

Nasheed, citing the prosecu-tor’s support of Stenger in the primary, delivered a petition last week asking that McCulloch step aside for a special prosecutor to present evidence in the Brown shooting to a St. Louis County grand jury.

McCulloch has resisted efforts urging him to recuse himself from the Brown case.

Neither Stenger nor Stream weighed in on that issue.

McCulloch has said the grand jury may not deliver a ruling on the matter until October. If so, the timing would put Ferguson back in the public eye on the eve of an election that Barklage says is cause for introspection for partisans and elected officials in both parties.

Ferguson, he said, “is clearly about deep and long-standing problems that have not been ad-dressed by Democrats or Repub-licans.”

FROM A1

NOTE: Results for some neighboring precincts have been aggregated. Blank areas are non-residential precincts.

SOURCE: St. Louis County Board of Election Commissioners

County Councilman Steve Stenger defeated County Executive Charlie Dooley in the contentious Democratic primary Aug. 5. Stenger got more votes than Dooley in 498 of St. Louis County's 664 polling places where votes were cast. Dooley's strongest support came from polling places north of Olive Boulevard (Missouri Highway 340). On the Republican ballot, Rick Stream took 90 percent of polling places in his easy victory over Green Park Alderman Tony Pousosa.

DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY ELECTION RESULTS FOR ST. LOUIS COUNTY EXECUTIVE

270

270170

70

64

44

55

40

67

364

100

Dooley Stenger

Over 83.3% From50 to 66.6%

From66.6 to 83.3% Over 83.3%From

50 to 66.6%From

66.6 to 83.3%

S T. L O U I S

340

aggressively protect the butterfly and its habitat, the petitioners blamed Creve Coeur-based Mon-santo’s Roundup herbi-cide and Roundup Ready crops for much of the de-cline.

“The vast majority of genetically engineered crops are made to be re-sistant to Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, a uniquely potent killer of milkweed, the monarch caterpillar’s only food,” the Center for Biologi-cal Diversity, the Center for Food Safety and the Xerces Society said in a joint statement that also was signed by monarch scientist Lincoln Brower of Virginia’s Sweet Briar College.

The statement said that the “butterfly’s dramatic decline is being driven by the widespread planting of genetically engineered crops in the Midwest where most monarchs are born.

“The dramatic surge in Roundup use with Roundup Ready crops has virtually wiped out milkweed plants in Mid-western corn and soybean fields,” the statement said.

In an emailed response, Monsanto spokeswoman Charla Lord said: “Sci-entists think a number of inter-related factors are contributing to the de-cline and year-to-year variation of monarch but-terfly populations. While weather events (snowfall and frost) at mountain-top overwintering sites and logging in Mexico continue to be factors, experts are also focusing on agricultural practices and land use changes that have reduced milkweeds along the migration path in central regions of North America.”

She said that Monsanto

would “share the vision to collaborate with other stakeholders to restore habitat that supports the monarch migration.”

Monsanto has been one of the biggest donors to the Missouri Botani-cal Garden, including the Butterfly Garden at the Sophia M. Sachs Butter-fly House. A 2012 com-pany news release said the company and its cor-responding Monsanto Fund had contributed about $10 million to the Missouri Botanical Gar-den over the previous 40 years.

The environmental and food safety groups say that the butterfly’s pop-ulation has fallen from a high of 1 billion in the mid-1990s to about 35 million last year, and that that number is only about a tenth of the 20-year average. The monarch is also threatened by climate change, drought and heat waves, urban sprawl and logging on its wintering grounds in Mexico, the petitioners said.

Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that good weather this year may boost numbers when the group Monarch Watch does its winter survey, but “we’re at risk of losing a symbolic back-yard beauty that has been part of the childhood of every generation.”

Gavin Shire, a spokes-man for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said his agency was required by federal regulations to respond to the peti-tion “to the extent prac-ticable” within 90 days. The agency could decide to extend the review up to an additional nine months before making a decision on the request. The but-terfly currently has no

special protection desig-nation from the FWS.

The Missouri Depart-ment of Conservation has been monitoring the monarch’s decline. The organization’s Tim Smith predicted on the agency’s website in April that “the sight of the beautiful or-ange and black monarch butterfly in Missouri is likely to be less common this year.”

Smith cited a report that monarchs occupied only 1.65 acres of Mexi-can forest last winter, the third straight year of steep declines in its overwinter-ing areas. The largest area recorded was 45 acres in 1996, Smith wrote.

“A number of fac-tors have contributed to the decline of the mon-arch population in recent years,” Smith wrote on the MDC website. “Unusu-ally hot weather in the spring of 2012, unusually cold weather last spring, and the loss of habitat throughout the Great Plains have combined to create hardships for the insects.” He also cited “weed-free farming tech-niques” as a contributing cause for the decline.

The Center for Biologi-cal Security is a nonprofit conservation organization focused on endangered species and wild-place protection. The Center for Food Safety, also a non-profit, advocates sustain-able alternatives to food production. The non-profit Xerces Society ad-vocates for the conserva-tion of invertebrates and their habitat.

In St. Louis, Mayor Francis Slay launched this year a campaign to en-courage more milkweed plants in the city. He said the city would plant 50 monarch gardens on its property, and he chal-lenged the community to plant an additional 200 monarch gardens in 2014 to commemorate the city’s 250th birthday.

Butterfly • from A1

Herbicide kills caterpillars’ only food

County • from A1

County executive race may be affected

Prosecutors said they would not file charges.

Gerry Hills, founder of Arizonans for Gun Safety, a group seeking to reduce gun violence, said that it was reckless to let the girl handle such a powerful weapon and that tighter regulations regarding chil-dren and guns are needed.

Referring to the girl’s parents, Hill added: “I just don’t see any reason in the world why you would al-low a 9-year-old to put her hands on an Uzi.”

Sam Scarmardo, who operates the outdoor range in the desert, said Wednes-day that the parents had signed waivers and were nearby, recording video of their daughter, when the accident happened.

“I have regret we let this child shoot, and I have regret that Charlie was killed in the incident,” Scarmardo said. He said he didn’t know what went wrong, pointing out that Vacca was an Army veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Jace Zack, chief deputy for the Mohave County At-torney’s Office, said the in-structor was probably the most criminally negligent person involved in the ac-cident for having allowed the child to hold the gun without enough training.

“The parents aren’t cul-pable,” Zack said. “They trusted the instructor to know what he was doing, and the girl could not pos-sibly have comprehended the potential dangers in-volved.”

In 2008, an 8-year-old boy died after acciden-tally shooting himself in the head with an Uzi at a gun expo near Springfield, Mass. Christopher Bizilj was firing at pumpkins when the gun kicked back. A former Massachusetts police chief whose com-pany co-sponsored the

gun show was acquitted of involuntary manslaughter.

Two gun experts said Wednesday that the types of firearms a child can han-dle depend largely on the strength and experience of the child — though the no-tion of giving a 9-year-old a fully automatic Uzi made some uncomfortable.

Scarmardo said his pol-icy of allowing children 8 and older to fire guns un-der adult supervision and the watchful eye of an instructor was standard practice in the industry. The range’s policies are under review, he said.

At Top Gun Shooting Sports in Arnold, owner Joe Dix said he did not al-low anyone under the age of 18 to handle a fully auto-matic firearm.

Dix also said instructors always stood behind those holding the gun.

“I’ve seen the footage. I don’t want to be critical,” Dix said. But, “you’ve got to be behind them. You’ve got to be protected.”

Amy King co-owns Bel-leville Indoor Shooting Range with her husband. She said their policy was to determine what gun a child could operate on a case-by-case basis. She said instructors needed to be confident the child could follow instructions and could physically handle the weapon.

“We would have to talk about it before we decided what to do,” King said when asked whether she would allow a child to op-erate a weapon such as an Uzi. “Everything would be done with adult supervi-sion.”

“It’s a shame that this happened. It’s obviously an accident,” added Ste-ven King, Amy King’s husband. “I don’t think I would have let that small of a girl shoot that gun, personally.

“Our hearts go out for him and his family,” he continued, referring to in-structor Vacca. “This poor little girl has to live with that for the rest of her life.”

Lilly Fowler of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

Gun • from A1

Bullet struck instructor as Uzi kicked back

08.28.2014 • Thursday • M 1 sT. LOuIs POsT-dIsPaTCh • A7

Ferguson Police shooting

By KorAn Addo kaddo@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8305

A St. Louis University constitu-tional law professor had a pre-diction for a group of law stu-dents who gathered Wednesday to discuss the aftermath of the Aug. 9 police shooting of Mi-chael Brown.

If charges are brought against officer Darren Wilson, he is likely to be acquitted of any wrongdo-ing, professor Anders Walker said.

“Missouri law is very pro-po-lice,” Walker said, explaining that law enforcement is allowed to use deadly force in a broad range of situations, including situa-tions where an officer feels as if he is in danger or if there is any sort of physical altercation.

Walker spoke at a panel dis-cussion titled “Ferguson, Mis-souri: Concern, Understand-ing and Action,” put on by the school’s Black Law Students As-

sociation and Sustainability and Urban Development students.

In addition to the unlikelihood that Wilson will do any prison time, panelists also discussed police use of tear gas on protest-ers in Ferguson and why police departments should fall under the same accountability struc-ture as school districts.

Walker said there was “ten-sion” between Missouri law and the U.S. Constitution when it comes to the issue of deadly force.

All Wilson would have to do is convince a jury that, at some point, he had a reason to be afraid of Brown, Walker said.

The professor also addressed the issue of whether Brown sur-rendered before he was shot, as some witnesses have said.

Walker referenced a 12-second recording recently made public that purports to have captured audio of the fatal gunshots.

The audio is of a man living in the Canfield Green apartments

where Brown was killed, record-ing a message to a woman on his smartphone. As the unidentified man records his message, six or seven shots ring out, followed by a three-second pause and then four more shots.

Walker said a trial could come down to how that three-second pause is interpreted — whether Wilson paused to re-evaluate the situation as Brown tries to sur-render, whether that is the mo-ment Brown charged the officer, as his supporters have claimed or any number of other possibili-ties.

Deadly force would not apply if it takes place after a suspect has surrendered, Walker told the students.

Professor Emeritus Roger Goldman said that although he didn’t know whether there was any wrongdoing on the part of Ferguson police during the Brown shooting, a legitimate argument could be made that many small police departments

had long histories of incompe-tence and misconduct and many were ill-equipped to handle cer-tain situations.

Goldman said the sole purpose of a number of small town police departments was to write tick-ets to prop up the town’s budgets and pay judges and mayors and other city employees.

These police departments “aren’t fighting crime. They are not capable of fighting crime,” Goldman said.

Goldman said policymakers should take another look at legis-lation that has been proposed in Missouri, Arizona, Rhode Island and Illinois, that would create a set of accreditation standards law enforcement agencies would have to keep up up with or face becoming unaccredited, much like public school districts.

Assistant Professor Brendan Roediger said the protests in the aftermath of Brown’s shooting highlighted that in many police departments comparable with

Ferguson, officers get only one or two weeks of training in how to handle large demonstrations — an inadequate amount, he said.

Roediger spoke of going to Fer-guson and witnessing abusive practices by police firsthand.

“Debates over whether police behaved appropriately are ri-diculous debates,” he said before adding that he’d personally seen officers using tear gas on chil-dren.

Assistant Professor Justin Hansford implored students to think critically about the situa-tion, telling students that many African-Americans believe they have a slimmer margin of error when it comes to interactions with police.

Law student Ashley More and Associate Professor Sue Mc-Graugh told students to seize the opportunity to get involved.

“This is a curse that this hap-pened in St. Louis, and it’s a good thing this happened in St. Louis,” McGraugh said.

SLU law professors address Brown killingPanel discusses application of Missouri law in shootings by police.

Brown was fatally shot Aug. 9 — but no one doubts it’s well into the millions.

The state has budgeted $3.455 million this year to pay expenses that any state agency in-curred during an emergency declared by the governor, in addition to $4 million for emer-gency duties of the Missouri National Guard.

State Budget Director Linda Luebbering said none of that money has yet been allo-cated, but that Gov. Jay Nixon’s decision to declare an emergency and call in the Missouri National Guard means some yet-undeter-mined amount will be. She said it will likely be the first week of September before the amount is set.

The National Guard spent more than a week providing security in Ferguson, but its role was limited to protecting a command center run by the Highway Patrol, the agency Nixon asked to take control of law enforce-ment in Ferguson after rioting broke out.

Highway Patrol Capt. Ronald S. Johnson announced Wednesday that the command center had been dismantled but that state troopers and county officers will keep a “re-duced” presence along West Florissant Av-enue, surrounding neighborhoods and the Canfield Green apartments, where Brown was fatally shot.

St. Louis County so far has spent about $1 million in police overtime responding to Fer-guson, Chief Operating Officer Garry Earls said. That amount includes about $100,000 a day for the first nine days after the shooting.

He said the county incurred many other expenses, most of which were still being tal-lied, for food, equipment, streets work, fuel costs and other emergency services.

“All this workforce out there had to be fed,” he said. “We used up all of our tear gas and pepper spray.”

He said county police experienced equip-ment losses, and he expects workers’ com-pensation claims from officers injured during the rioting.

Earls said the county and other municipali-ties hope the state will defray at least some of their costs.

“If this was a storm, the FEMA folks would have shown up already,” he said, referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “We are searching for the FEMA equivalent (regarding) civil unrest. We’re certainly going to ask the state for that.”

In addition, the county plans to spend up to $1 million to provide support to residents who need help because of the unrest, looting and vandalism in Ferguson and neighboring communities.

That money will be used to help fund and staff a drop-in center for residents in Fergu-son, Dellwood and Jennings at the Dellwood Recreation Center, officials have said. The county will work with nonprofit agencies to provide staffing as well as transportation for residents to the center; advice on how to get utility assistance; legal assistance; counsel-ing; and other services. Other aid will include help removing debris left by protesters.

“The residents there need a break, and any support we can provide to help the commu-nity heal and get back on its feet should be provided, ” County Executive Charlie Dooley said last week. “It’s the humane thing to do.”

St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson said Wednesday that his department spent $740,849 for additional manpower and over-time of officers working 12-hour shifts in Fer-guson. He said his department spent an ad-ditional $161,783 on equipment such as gas masks and shields for officers.

“We will be sending the bill to the state of Missouri,” Dotson said.

Most of St. Louis County’s 57 police agen-cies sent in officers, many on overtime, dur-ing the roughly two-week ordeal. And help came from beyond the county, as well.

SWAT teams responded that consisted of roughly 30 officers from various depart-ments in the region, some of them getting paid time-and-a-half, according to Lt. Dave Tiefenbrunn of the St. Charles County Sher-iff’s Department.

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office sent 16 officers to Ferguson for two 12-hour shifts, at a cost of roughly $15,500 in overtime pay, said Capt. Ron Arnhart. They also took the department’s armored vehicle there. That money came from the sheriff’s office budget.

Nicholas J.C. Pistor, Leah Thorsen, Susan Weich, Joel Currier and Samantha Liss, all of the Post-Dispatch, contributed to this report.

Cost • from A1

West Florissant Avenue opened as the office of #HealSTL, which grew from a Twitter hashtag, and is being devel-oped as an outreach center, including offering voter registration.

It’s on the same busy strip that has been the center of unrest, including looting, tear gas, arrests and a curfew.

“This has been a Twitter story,” said the effort’s organizer, St. Louis Alder-man Antonio French. “It has touched so many people because of social media.”

French said the new group was fo-cused on teaching the community how to get involved in local government. Right now, the startup is being funded by selling $9 T-shirts. But formal fund-raising will begin soon, French said.

Next week, billboards are going up across the region asking “What Can We Do Better?” and “Start The Con-versation,” a campaign launched by the Diversity Awareness Partnership. Meanwhile, a group of prominent young African-American leaders has put together a list of demands, includ-ing the city of Ferguson’s hiring at least 10 more black police officers by Jan. 31.

The city is 67 percent black, but only four of its 58 police officers — 7 percent — are African-American.

“We cannot continue to run from dealing with race in our region,” said St. Louis Treasurer Tishaura Jones, a member of the newly formed Young Citizens Council of St. Louis.

“Uncomfortable” conversations about race have to be had, with the par-ticipation of those who are not typi-cally at the table, Jones said.

Referring to a town hall meeting last week at Harris-Stowe State Univer-sity, she said, “The audience was very diverse, but it was people who already understand it, know about perceptions

and about being more tolerant. We need to find a way to have a conversa-tion with people who don’t get it.”

The council, which also includes state Reps. Michael Butler and Court-ney Curtis and Harris-Stowe President Dwaun Warmack, is planning events for young people to talk about their fears and futures, and to see African-Americans in leadership roles.

The group also is encouraging those on social media to include “#dont-shoot” to their postings to keep the conversation surrounding Brown’s death going.

The hashtag is a reference to a wit-ness account that Brown, who was un-armed, had his hands above his head when he was shot multiple times.

Besides more black police officers in Ferguson, the council wants a civilian review board established by June 30. The group also has called for St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch to step aside in the case.

In a separate effort, the Diversity Awareness Partnership is launching a billboard campaign and offering free training on how best to have discus-sions on race. About 125 people have signed up for the four sessions, some representing corporations and non-profit agencies.

“We have to instill in people that what we’re doing hasn’t worked,” said Reena Hajat Carroll, executive director of the nonprofit partnership initiated in 2001. “If your thinking has never been disrupted, you will continue thinking the same way.”

The goal in the training is to engage, not take a position, Carroll said. “There is no wrong or right.”

The worst thing that can be done is to shut down conversations people might

want to have, she said. She referred to the Edwardsville School District, where administrators told teachers to “change the subject and refocus the students” when Ferguson comes up. Officials said teachers had been inserting their opin-ions into the discussions.

The partnership billboards, which also list the nonprofit group’s website, will go up on Interstates 44, 55, 64, 70 and 170.

Carroll said the Brown shooting was an international story, but it is the region that has to change the dynamic. “We don’t value differences because we don’t understand them,” she said. “We’re comfortable with what we know.”

For Warmack, St. Louis and its race relations were unfamiliar. He came to Harris-Stowe four months ago from Daytona Beach, Fla., although he was born and reared in Detroit, another Midwest city with similar challenges.

“I was told several times before I came here that St. Louis was one of the most segregated cities in the United States,” Warmack said.

After the Brown shooting, the uni-versity held three public forums. About 400 attended the first; 500 came to the second meeting. The meeting on Tues-day night, broadcast live on two local urban radio stations, had 1,000 in at-tendance, Warmack said.

More meetings are forthcoming, he said. And the university is talking about creating a social justice institute. “As the only historically black university in St. Louis, it’s a no-brainer why we have to serve as the intellectual think tank at this critical time,” Warmack said.

Nicholas J.C. Pistor of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

HeAl • from A1

By Joel Currierjcurrier@post-dispatch.com314-340-8256

C L AY To N • Police announced Wednesday plans to scale back their presence in Ferguson after several nights of relative calm there.

Missouri Highway Patrol Capt. Ronald S. Johnson said state troop-ers and county police would main-tain a “reduced” presence along West Florissant Avenue and surrounding neighborhoods to maintain peace in Ferguson.

Johnson said he was hopeful police

can heal wounds in the community ripped open by the shooting of an un-armed teenager on Aug. 9.

“There’s still a lot of work to do,” Johnson said. “I truly believe we’re headed to a good place.”

There have been just seven arrests since Friday night, Johnson said.

St. Louis County police said Wednesday officers made 219 arrests since looting and protesting began on Aug. 10, most for refusal to disperse but also for other charges including burglary and gun and drug crimes.

That total does not include anyone arrested and taken to either the Fer-

guson police station or any other city department.

St. Louis police also have pulled out of Ferguson and have returned to reg-ular duties in the city.

Johnson would not give specifics on numbers of state and county officers or plans for patrolling Ferguson, but he said the majority of troopers who had been in Ferguson were withdraw-ing.

Troopers and county officers will also patrol the Canfield Green apart-ments where Michael Brown, 18, was fatally shot by Ferguson Officer Dar-ren Wilson, Johnson said.

J.B. ForBes • jforbes@post-dispatch.com Rapper M.C. Hammer autographs a 24-year-old cassette tape Antonio French had of Hammer singing “You Can’t Touch This,” at French’s new #HealSTL office in Ferguson on Wednesday. French plans to do outreach, including voter registration, there.

State and county police will scale back presence in Ferguson

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PLATFORM • I know that my retirement will make no di� erence in its cardinal principles, that it will always fi ght

for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fi ght demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfi ed with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty • JOSEPH PULITZER • APRIL 10, 1907

THURSDAY • 08.28.2014 • A13

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More than two weeks ago we issued our first call for a Ferguson Commission to investi-gate the root causes of the massive unrest that followed the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. The commission, we said, should examine the racial divide, the mul-tiple layers of bureaucracy in north St. Louis County, the lack of proper police training and public policies that led to concentrated poverty.

It should be led by the great universities in St. Louis with their academic prowess and trust that runs deep in various levels of socioeconomic strata in our divided com-munity.

We laid the task at the feet of Gov. Jay Nixon because it is a much bigger task than can be handled at the municipal or county level.

Today, we reach higher.The rapidly moving events since the Fer-

guson unrest has died down and the need for local and state political leaders to be focused on immediate short-term problems demand an even bigger player to establish the Fer-guson Commission and make sure that the black community in the St. Louis region is confident its cries are being heard.

For the Ferguson Commission to have the gravitas and authority it needs to be suc-cessful, the White House should make the call for its formation.

Time is of the essence.Here are a number of the things happen-

ing right now as the Ferguson moment turns into a Ferguson movement:

• Protesters have moved from West Flo-rissant Avenue to other sites in the St. Louis region, targeting prosecutor Robert McCull-och’s office in Clayton, the St. Louis City Hall, and the federal courthouse downtown.

• President Barack Obama has ordered a review of the Pentagon’s program to send surplus military equipment to police.

• U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill has called for hearings on the same topic.

• Gov. Jay Nixon has replaced his director of public safety with former St. Louis police chief Dan Isom, who will be the only black member of the governor’s Cabinet.

• Attorney General Chris Koster has announced forums to study the lack of minorities in some police departments in the state.

• Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder has called for leg-islative hearings into the state’s response to the Ferguson protests.

• St. Louis city 21st Ward Alderman Antonio French, a mainstay at the protests, has opened an office called HealSTL, to organize community response in the wake of the protests, including getting more black north St. Louis County residents registered to vote.

• Numerous nonprofit entities have already held or have begun to schedule conversations about the racial divide in the region that the events in Ferguson high-lighted.

These are all, in and of themselves, good

things.But here is the fear: All of these conversa-

tions, headed in different directions under diverse leadership could lead into that uniquely St. Louis solution of compartmen-talizing our issues, drawing lines around them, putting up walls, pointing fingers and never coming together on big solutions.

There are a variety of reasons why Fergu-son went overnight from a cop shooting to an international and, dare we say, genera-tional event. It’s race, it’s poverty, it’s income inequality, it’s police training and milita-rization, it’s the marginalization of north St. Louis County, it’s 150 years of divided government, it’s poor educational oppor-tunities, it’s Trayvon Martin meets Occupy Wall Street meets the Arab Spring.

Without one big prism to take in the energy that exploded in night-after-night of protest, and giving it an opportunity to turn that energy into a rainbow of meaningful solutions, chaos will return and the moment will be lost.

The Ferguson Commission is that prism, and the call to create it has to come from a place trusted by the people in the street and the community leaders who will ultimately be charged with implementing its proposals. That call must come from the White House.

Four years ago, less than a month after the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, President Obama signed an executive order creating an independent commission to investigate the causes of the spill, and to make recommendations on mitigating and avoiding future spills. Like then, the Ferguson event involves multiple jurisdictions. It’s ongoing. It has important implications for the nation. It deserves the highest level of independent scrutiny.

More than that, the root causes of the Ferguson unrest fit into two of the presi-dent’s ongoing initiatives. The White House has already placed a staffer in the office of St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay as part of its Strong Cities, Strong Communities pro-gram. The city and the White House have also had informal talks about bringing the president’s “My Brother’s Keeper” program to St. Louis, to improve the the lives of young boys and men of color, starting with better educational opportunity.

The matrix of societal problems that led to the Ferguson uprising is both more com-plicated and more urgent than the process of dealing with an ecological disaster, which is something both the state and federal gov-ernment are better equipped to handle.

The Ferguson Commission, with a stamp of approval from the White House, can be that focal point that allows multiple efforts, some short-term, some generational, to make real progress, operating either independently or under the commis-sion’s umbrella. It’s not the end but a new beginning. It takes the name of just one of 90 St. Louis County municipalities but it represents a national effort to turn a civil rights era dream into a hopeful reality for America’s next generation.

THE FERGUSON COMMISSION:

FROM MOMENT TO MOVEMENTOur view • White House must step in to bring focus as protests, politicians pivot in many different directions.

Can’t listen to the ACLU to improve policing

Well, I read Deborah Jacobs, the former director of the American Civil Liberties Union here in St. Louis, and her comments were basically laughable (“Improving the police is a challenging long-term endeavor,” Aug. 26). Let’s remember that the ACLU automatically defends cop killers, never saw a police department it could not criticize, never heard of a police tactic that it could not say is against human rights and overall would love to see police departments hand-cuffed or abolished.

You don’t see them getting into a car, responding to an unknown call hoping that there is not a violent criminal on the other end of that call wanting to kill that o� cer. Would you go into that dark alley to investi-gate a potential crime? You know you would not.

Dozens and dozens of o� cers are killed in the line of duty each year, but the ACLU wants to second guess their every activity, every time. Police forces devote their work-ing life to the job of trying to protect the public, and they do it all for far less money than they should because they have a calling for helping people.

Have you ever seen the ACLU engage in a fundraiser for officers? Ever seen the ACLU immediately get out in front of an issue to defend an officer? With regard to the police, the ACLU believes they are guilty until proven innocent and even then they are criticized. Let’s face it folks, when it comes to the ACLU, the only people they truly care about are the criminals. They are the very last people we should listen to when trying to improve our police departments.Marc Schoenfeld • Chesterfi eld

Ferguson has worked tirelessly for diversity, doesn’t deserve ‘ghetto’ labelIn the commentary “Inner-ring suburbs like Ferguson are ticking time bombs” (Aug. 25), Peter Drier and Todd Swanstrom characterize Ferguson as a suburban ghetto. Maybe I don’t know what a ghetto is, but I don’t think a community that includes such amenities as a microbrewery, an upscale wine bar, an organic farm, a horse farm, a sprawling community college campus, a new community center under construction, a farmers market voted as one of the best in St. Louis, and generally nice neighborhoods

qualifies as a ghetto.None of this is to deny that there are areas

of poverty and high minority population in Ferguson; there certainly are. Nor can it be denied that racial profi ling by police likely occurs and it shouldn’t. Nonetheless, the authors seem to have no knowledge of the longtime e� orts of the community in promoting diversity, and make statements about city government that are simply un-founded.

The community has worked tirelessly to make Ferguson a great place to live for every-one. The national media already trashed Ferguson by focusing its coverage only on a minuscule area of the city at its eastern border where the disturbances occurred. The old adage “Words can never hurt me” is simply not true. Words are powerful.Pat Sorensen • Ferguson

In St. Louis and Ferguson, Rickey planned for equality in baseballAs a teacher at a community center and soup kitchen one block away from the old Sportsman’s Park, I enjoyed reading “1921 church meeting inspired Cards logo” (Aug. 21). I taught about Branch Rickey and his stints as the Cardinals and Browns GM when the movie “42” premiered last year.

The last paragraph: “Rickey went to Fer-guson for a meeting. He returned with a

symbol that has meaning — for generations since and generations to come” is inspiring. The “Birds on the Bat” symbolize dignity and integrity, two qualities Branch Rickey wanted to bring to his beloved game. Rickey found racism to be unacceptable and vowed change. But to change the game of baseball, Rickey had to lift minds and to soften hearts throughout our nation’s entire culture.

In Jimmy Breslin’s biography of Rickey, he tells us that Rickey saw an opportunity with the Dodgers to put his “hands into the trou-bled history of America and fi x it, starting in a baseball dugout.” He writes, “But here on a street corner stands Branch Rickey, a lone white man with a fi erce belief that it is the deepest sin against God to hold color against a person. On this day he means to change baseball and America, too. The National pastime, the game that teaches sportsman-ship to children, must shake with shame, Rickey thought.”

The street corners where Rickey first stood and planned for equality in baseball: St. Louis and Ferguson. This fact should inspire many future generations who love both the Cardinals and equal rights.Bill Hebron • St. Louis County

Plan for changing the police is overdueIt is not too soon for the Ferguson police,

the St. Louis County police, and police in every municipality to build community and protect citizens by showing us their plan to reduce racial profiling, end lethal force against unarmed citizens and stop brutality. This plan does not need to wait for a grand jury indictment or a decision not to indict. The plan is already overdue. Show me the plan.Mary Beth Gallagher • St. Louis

Reporting on racial makeup of police departments is irresponsibleThe report “Out of balance” (Aug. 24) has re-established a new low for the Post-Dispatch as the most inane, irresponsible and inflammatory editorialization to date. Most intelligent people of color, be they white, black or other, realize that there is a process to be followed in hiring. The format is designed to help identify the most quali-fied people who have applied for the job. In an objective and overall view, I think it is altogether fair and reasonable to recognize that St. Louis has been well-served, over many years, by its police and law enforce-ment officers, especially when compared to other similar communities throughout the country.

I know that the Post-Dispatch has lost its capacity to function as an independent newspaper and is no longer capable of maintaining a news and editorial philosophy that demands honest and balanced report-ing. Notwithstanding its current reputation, it should show some restraint in publishing articles intended to patronize but that are an insult to the intelligence of the mainstream population and an embarrassment to law-abiding citizens of St. Louis.George Casey • Camdenton, Mo.

Desire for peace and reconciliation

We, the Adorers of the Blood of Christ, extend our deepest prayers and desire for peace and reconciliation in Ferguson and throughout our troubled world.

May the crisis that has unfolded since the Aug. 9 fatal shooting of Michael Brown teach us what we need to know about ourselves and each other. And, may it give us greater capacity to own our individual wrongs, forgive those of others and heal together.Sister Barbara Hudock • St. LouisU.S. Region leader, Adorers of the Blood of Christ

YOUR VIEWS • LETTERS FROM OUR READERS

President Barack Obama meets with Attorney General Eric Holder in the Oval O� ce of the White House on Aug. 18.

AP

A14 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH M 1 • THURSDAY • 08.28.2014

“Cherish therefore, the spirit of the people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them.”— Thomas Jefferson

I am sorry to say, that those who think a quick fix is underway in Ferguson will be disappointed. “The children shall lead us” is true but only to a point. We need to stop running away from the foundation that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. bequeathed to us. Our elders can, have and will give to our young people the instructions that enlighten them to resolving systemic institution-alized disparities in our polity. These issues of race, class and culture clash against the ideals of our founding as a nation. When Jefferson was in the process of laying out the foundations of our republic he wrote:

“The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left up to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate a moment to choose the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them. … Do not be too severe upon the people’s errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I and Congress, and Assemblies, judges, and gover-nors shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual excep-tion; and experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind.”

We may argue that last point of Jefferson, but it appears to many that the police and law enforcement are devouring our own. The problem with America is it has always been schizophrenic: Even as eloquent as Jefferson was, he still owned slaves. Do law enforcement and the courts see the killing of black men as devouring our own kind or do they see us as something else?

According to the Missouri attorney general, the mostly white police force in Missouri stops blacks for traffic violations 86 percent of the time, searches blacks 92 percent of the time, and arrests blacks 92 percent of the time. In St. Louis County municipalities, we now know that court revenue makes up 50 percent of their respective municipal budgets. These police over-sights affect everyone who drives through these municipalities in the region. The difference is that whites are being stopped at a lower rate.

We cannot let the wolves of Wall Street off the hook or the corporations they buy and sell to con-tinue to decimate workers by not paying a livable wage. Nor do the protesters who do not have their high school diplomas get a pass; they will be told to complete their GED and to follow Michael Brown’s example of completing high school education and pursuing a trade or higher education.

We must listen to the words of Jefferson and not become inattentive to the public affairs by registering to vote and voting in all elections. More importantly, we must not bury our heads in the asphalt concrete of denial that race is not a factor. How many young white boys are being killed by trigger-happy police?

Kudos go out to all the peaceful protesters who shine a light on the institutionalization of racism in Ferguson and America. Kudos go out to the faith community that has come out and marched for peace and joined other nonprofit organizations with experience in our continuing struggle for equality, justice and peace to enlighten the young people how to address our grievances construc-tively. And kudos go out to our Regional Chamber of CEOs, who are establishing a fund to help small businesses negatively impacted by the errors of the people to get those businesses up and run-ning again. This goodwill and the work of other groups coming together at ground zero and giving services and food and assistance to the people of Ferguson represent the best of what and who we are as Americans.

The institutionalization of racism must now be addressed going forward. Ferguson is the flash-point but it represents a systemic problem from

Florida, to New York, to Michigan, to Missouri and all over the United States. We need to stop saying we have not improved for hands that were once shackled with handcuffs of chains now wear cuff links with the presidential seal. Heads that were once hanged in the square for fun now hang their hats as head of the Justice Department to indicate that we will not have business as usual, but everyone is going to be treated fairly and with justice.

And even with that progress we still have problems, so we shall enlighten

the people, we shall register and vote, and will shall demand justice for Michael Brown and all unarmed people being gunned down. We are the change that we seek, and we shall work to make America a more perfect union.

Pierre Blaine is working on an untitled book on race, power and culture in America.

The short-term future of politics in the nation’s capital will be determined in large part by which party ends up in control of the Senate. But for a sense of the long-term future of politics in the country as a whole, watch the governors races.

The question to ask: Do voters begin to push back against the tea party tide that swept gover-norships and legislatures into Republican hands four years ago and produced the most radical changes in policy at the state level in at least a generation?

On the Senate races, two things are true. Simply because so many Democratic seats are at stake, the GOP has an edge. Republicans have probably already secured three of the six pickups they need to take control next year. But in the rest of the races, they have yet to close the deal. This year, late breaking news and how well cam-paigns are run will really matter.

But something else is true about the fight for the Senate that is much less relevant in the struggle for governorships. Most of the key Sen-ate contests are in Republican-leaning states where President Obama is not popular. GOP candidates are thus making him a big issue against Democrats. The 36 governors races, by contrast, span red and blue states, and many are in battlegrounds that decide presidential elec-tions.

The Senate elections are backward-looking referendums. The governors races are forward-looking.

The one exception to the Obama rule may be Florida, where the former governor — and former Republican — Charlie Crist swept to a 3-to-1 victory in the Democratic primary on Tuesday over former state Sen. Nan Rich. The primary was taken as a measure of how well-accepted Crist is in his new party, and the result was heartening for the Democrats’ marquee convert.

Unusually for Democrats this year, Crist has hugged Obama close and has hired many of the president’s key operatives to run his campaign. The former governor is essentially deadlocked in the polls with incumbent Republican Rick Scott, and much will depend on the willingness of Democrats to go to the polls in November. Four years ago, turnout was lopsided in favor of the Republicans, as Adam Smith, the Tampa Bay Times political editor, has noted. Crist is one of the handful of Democrats whom Obama may really be able to help this year.

Tuesday’s other major gubernatorial primary was in Arizona, which offers exactly the opposite lesson. Republicans chose the tea party’s favor-ite, state Treasurer Doug Ducey, a former partner and CEO of Cold Stone Creamery. Ducey got 37 percent in a six-way race, and vastly outspent second-place finisher Scott Smith, the former mayor of Mesa and the moderate in the race. Smith supported Gov. Jan Brewer’s expansion of Medicaid (she endorsed him over Ducey) and also the Common Core education standards.

It was striking on Tuesday night that Smith’s concession speech sounded a lot like the victory speech of Democrat Fred DuVal, who won his party’s nomination unopposed.

“We had a vision about bringing people together,” Smith said. “We gave them a message maybe that wasn’t red meat. Maybe it didn’t fit the primary campaign mode. But it was the truth.”

DuVal, who badly needs votes from indepen-dents and crossover Republicans, played down party altogether in his primary-night address. “What’s missing are leaders who care less about party politics and more about building a future together and growing our economy,” DuVal said. “We’re going to stop fighting and start fixing Arizona for Arizona families.” Ducey, who was endorsed by Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin, will be pressed to occupy some of the center ground that DuVal hopes to make his own.

The tea party has opened opportunities for Democrats elsewhere to frame this year’s choice as being between right-wing ideology and prob-lem-solving. In Kansas, a poll released this week showed Democrat Paul Davis with an eight-point lead over Republican Gov. Sam Brownback. A Brownback loss would be a devastating blow to the tea party’s approach to policy. In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker, another hero to the right, is in a dead heat with Democratic businesswoman Mary Burke.

Democrats also have a very good chance of ousting Republican governors in Pennsylvania and Maine, although they face tough challenges to their own incumbents in Illinois and Con-necticut.

In 2010, an electorate heavily populated with tea party supporters expressed rage against gov-ernment at all levels. In 2014, voters may decide that rage has its limits and that government has work to do.

Copyright the Washington Post

George Gale of Columbia, Mo., says, “I found the commentary written by Eric Vickers, the black St. Louis attorney, more than perplexing. His advocacy of civil disobedience as a resolution to inertia relating to black problems simply doesn’t seem to con-nect.”

MORE LETTERS ONLINE

Read and talk about this letter and more letters online at STLtoday.com/letters

President Barack Obama golfs

Saturday at Farm Neck Golf Club on

Martha’s Vineyard.

OTHER VIEWS

BY PIERRE BLAINE

E.J. DIONNE • ejdionne@washpost.com

Nation’s ideals • Listen to the words of Jefferson and pay attention to public affairs.

Elections • For a sense of the long-term future of politics, watch the governors races.

Address the institutionalization

of racism

2014 and the limits of rage

Having once served a president, I don’t begrudge any president a vacation. There is, in fact, no escape from this relentless job. A change of scenery does not involve a change in responsibilities, or even a release from the essence of the president’s routine. The intelligence briefings stalk him. Presidential respites are measured in hours, not days or weeks — say, a few hours on a golf course. And the public would be selfish and shortsighted to demand those downtime hours, which are necessary for humans to func-tion.

The problem for President Obama has come in managing the sym-bolic aspect of his office. Playing a round at the Farm Neck Golf Club was appropriate. Giving a speech after the murder of James Foley was necessary. It is the immediate juxtaposition of beheading and golfing that should have raised questions.

Those questions would have been so obvious to any reasonably com-petent deputy press secretary that the incident raises further issues: Is there really no one on the White House staff with the standing to confront Obama when he is about to make a self-evident mistake? Is he surrounded by sycophancy? Or has re-election liberated Obama from all consider-ations of symbolism or appropriateness?

One gets the impression of a particular message being sent. The presi-dent is so aggressively indifferent to appearances that he doesn’t really seem indifferent at all. He appears to be telling the media, his political crit-ics and the world: You can criticize me, vilify me, challenge me; but you are powerless, at least, to change my tee time. It shows resilience. Yet there is a fine line between not giving an inch and not giving a damn.

Our view of presidential character is often conditioned by the direction of events. When a president is succeeding, he might be regarded as prin-cipled. When he is failing, the same leader may be viewed as stubborn. A president who is considered flexible in success might be called slippery in failure. A leader’s virtues can become his weaknesses — or maybe they are inseparable. Our admiration becomes our indictment.

President Obama rose to prominence, in part, because of a certain aloofness and emotional distance. The contrast to his opponent in the 2008 election, John McCain, was particularly vivid during the financial collapse. McCain seemed excitable and unsteady; Obama was cool and self-contained.

In political success, Obama’s manner was reassuring. As his failures have multiplied, he seems disconnected and tone-deaf. It must be frus-trating for the president to know he is actually the same leader, and tempt-ing to display a defiant unconcern.

But this is not just a matter of image management. Obama now faces the defining crisis of his presidency — the rise of a terrorist state at the heart of the Middle East with global ambitions of violence — which sud-denly demands a different set of attributes: resolution, clarity, inspiration. The traits and views that aided his political rise — an emotional and geo-political disengagement — are not sufficient to the moment. Even some of his traditional supporters have begun to fear that the president’s golfing has become not merely a respite but a symbol of detachment.

As the president has vacationed, senior officials have talked of efforts to “stall,” “contain,” “degrade,” “defeat” and “destroy” the Islamic State. These words actually mean very different things, indicating either a major internal administration debate or utter confusion. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel describes the Islamic State as an “imminent threat to every interest we have.” But a senior defense official was recently quoted as say-ing, “There is no policy” to deal with this imminent threat.

In his public statements, Obama has carefully avoided resolving or clarifying his administration’s ultimate policy goal. He has consistently downplayed America’s incremental (but escalating) military actions. He has promised to be “relentless” toward some unspecified end. He has argued that the Islamic State has “no place in the 21st century” — as though the appeal of radical Islamism should have faded like bell bottoms and disco.

For years, Obama has reacted to events in the Middle East, and lately been at their mercy. Now he must provide some assurance that he is shap-ing events with a strategy that culminates in the end of the Islamic State. As a matter of policy, this will require recognition that Iraq and Syria are one theater in a long-term struggle that does not fade when we ignore it. As a matter of leadership, it will require a certain trumpet, for a change.

Copyright the Washington Post

MICHAEL GERSON • michaelgerson@washpost.com

Politics • Traits and views that aided Obama’s political rise — an emotional and geopolitical disengagement — are not sufficient to the moment.

Too DETACHED

to lead?AP

Thomas Je� erson