President Obama has revealed much more than he intended about his priorities in a pair of statements made public Friday and Saturday.  On Friday, in an interview with departing CNN anchor Candy Crowley, he addressed black activists protesting against cops and expressed sympathetic impatience (via Joel Gehrke, National Review):

There’s no reason for folks to be patient. I’m impatient. That’s why in the wake of what happened in Ferguson and what happened in New York, we’ve initiated task forces that in 90 days, are going to be providing very specific recommendations,” he told Candy Crowley during an interview that aired iday on CNN’s State of the Union. “On the other hand, I think an unwillingness to acknowledge that progress has been made cuts off the possibility of further progress. If – if critics want to suggest that America is inherently and irreducibly racist, then why bother even working on it? I’ve seen change in my own life. So has this country. And those who would deny that, I think, actually foreclose the possibility of further progress rather than advancing it.

But addressing the heinous assassination of Officers Liu and Ramos, there was no sense of urgency in a statement issued Saturday, as the president was briefed before enjoying himself on a golf course in Hawaii and issued this statement.

I unconditionally condemn today’s murder of two police officers in New York City,” Obama said. “Two brave men won’t be going home to their loved ones tonight, and for that, there is no justification. The officers who serve and protect our communities risk their own safety for ours every single day – and they deserve our respect and gratitude every single day. Tonight, I ask people to reject violence and words that harm, and turn to words that heal – prayer, patient dialogue, and sympathy for the friends and family of the fallen.

The expressed impatience when cops kill perps strikingly contrasts with the patience when an assassin executes innocent cops.  Patience or lack thereof is an indicator of priority, obviously.  But there is something even worse lurking in this statement.  Andrew McCarthy of National Review points out the stunning presumption behind this call for dialogue:

Dialogue is an exchange that takes place when there are competing points of view and it is reasonable to believe that both of them may have a point.

Does the president really think there are two sides to this story?