Obama punching above his weight again.
Via WISTV
COLUMBIA, SC In an appearance that was more town hall than nuanced policy speech, President Barack Obama told students at Benedict College to not become cynical about the possibilities in life despite some of the obstacles.
Appearing shortly after 2 p.m., the President first discussed Saturday’s trip to Selma, Alabama where he will deliver a speech on the achievements and lessons of the 1965 civil rights march that helped to pass the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1965.
For Obama, Selma’s lessons still reverberate in 2015.
“It’s easy sometimes to just pull back and say this is just too hard,” Obama said. “This is part of why it’s so important for us to remember Selma tomorrow. It’s not as hard as it was 50 years ago. It’s not as hard as it was for Jim Clyburn when he was coming up and now he’s one of the most powerful men in the country, growing up right here in South Carolina. So there are no excuses to not put in the effort. There are no excuses to not hit the books[…]
After delivering remarks, the President took questions from the audience on topics ranging from his veto on the Keystone XL pipeline, gun violence, and staying motivated all the way to giving advice to a 10-year-old with presidential aspirations of his own.
But perhaps one of the longest answers the President gave was in response to a young man asking why there were no federal charges issued from the Justice Department against the Ferguson, Missouri officer who fatally wounded 18-year-old Michael Brown in 2014.
Obama explained that the only way Wilson would have faced charges if due process was violated and that the standard of that was very high. He also defended the Justice Department’s findings.
“That was an objective, thorough, independent, federal investigation,” Obama said. “We may never know exactly what happened, but Officer Wilson, like anybody else charged with a crime, benefits from due process and a reasonable doubt standard.”