Now we can finally assign blame in Baltimore

“I think we, as a country, have to do some soul searching” about the rioting in Baltimore, President Barack Obama said Tuesday.

Bunk. “We, as a country” are not to blame.

First and foremost, blame resides with the thugs who looted stores, burned buildings and automobiles, and assaulted police officers and shopkeepers.

Next in order of culpability are the politicians whose belated and timid response allowed the thugs to run amok. The conduct of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has been especially appalling.

When violence broke out April 25, city officials protected those who protested peacefully the death in police custody of drug dealer Freddie Gray, the mayor said, “and we also gave those who wish to destroy space to do that as well.”

I doubt that was what she meant to say, but when rioting broke out again Monday night, Ms. Rawlings-Blake ordered the police to stand down, a “senior law enforcement source” told Fox News.

Shopkeepers recounted how call after call to the police for help went unanswered.

How Mr. Gray suffered a severe spinal injury shortly after his arrest is not yet clear.

If police are responsible — six officers have been charged — it isn’t likely racism was a motive. Baltimore’s police chief is black. So are 48 percent of Baltimore police officers.

Ms. Rawlings-Blake didn’t ask Gov. Larry Hogan for help from the National Guard until 6 p.m. Monday — three hours after he’d urged her to ask for it. She announced a curfew that afternoon, but (bizarrely) delayed imposing it until Tuesday night.

Dozens of businesses were looted, 19 buildings — including a senior center and a drug store — were burned down, and 24 police officers and others were injured before the curfew was imposed. Much of that could have been prevented if Ms. Rawlings-Blake hadn’t been so grossly negligent.

Those who make excuses for the rioters — and for the public officials who failed in their duty to protect their victims — also deserve a substantial share of blame. By apologizing for calling the thugs “thugs,” Ms. Rawlings-Blake demonstrated anew her unfitness for office.

“The system” failed the poor blacks of west Baltimore, said many of the talking (and mostly empty) heads on cable TV. There’s some truth to that. Crime and unemployment are sky high. Schools are awful. Social service agency chieftains do more to promote their own welfare than that of the community.

Ms. Rawlings-Blake is a Democrat. So are all 15 members of the city council. Baltimore hasn’t had a Republican mayor since Theodore McKeldin left office in 1967. Maryland has had just two Republican governors since 1969. Democrats have controlled both houses of the legislature since 1992. “The system” that has failed poor blacks in Baltimore was designed and administered by Democrats.

Ms. Rawlings-Blake is black. So is the president of the city council, a majority of its members and the state attorney. Blacks in Baltimore aren’t oppressed by The Man. In Baltimore, politically connected left-wing Democratic blacks are The Man.

Those — especially those in journalism — who claim (white) racism is the root cause of the rioting in Baltimore, or make excuses for the rioters, have much to answer for.

Democrats fan racism among blacks to keep their stranglehold on the black vote, argued radio talk show host Larry Elder, who is black. Tell people they are victims, and they’ll act like victims, he said.

Former Rep. Allen West, R-Fla, who is black, said “a culture of dependency as promulgated by the race baiters and new plantation overseers of the inner city” is chiefly to blame.

Failed liberal policies have “mired black people in generational poverty, kept their kids in failing schools, chronically unemployed, they can’t find meaningful work, having to live in crime-infested neighborhoods,” said Milwaukee County (Wisconsin) Sheriff David Clarke, a Democrat who is black.

To change things, all three pointed out, blacks must stop voting for the politicians and policies which have failed them.

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JWR contributor Jack Kelly, a former Marine and Green Beret, was a deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration.