U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about developments in Iraq and civil unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, from the White House in Washington, August 18, 2014. I’ve been surprised, though, by some of the criticism that Obama has taken over the last couple of days by critics who feel that he has somehow shirked responsibility in this situation. MSNBC’s Michael Eric Dyson, a professor at Georgetown University, reproaches the president for not using his “bully pulpit” to “tell us as a nation what happens when festering rage in a community then begins to ignite and then begins to consume not only that community but the people around the nation who are empathetic.” 
 
 Maureen Dowd of the New York Times says Obama has gone from “hot commodity to wet blanket” and demands to know why he won’t “stop going to Beverly Hills to raise money and go to St. Louis to raise consciousness.” 
 
 What distinguishes Obama from these critics, of course, is that he has actual responsibilities, of which the most pressing are to keep a highly dangerous situation from getting any worse and to supervise an impartial investigation of the horrific event that led up to it. At a news conference on Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder said "few things have affected" him as much as his visit to Ferguson, Mo., on Wednesday, when he met with the family of 18-year-old Michael Brown. There is “no excuse” for excessive use of deadly force by police, he observed at a Monday news conference; the family of Michael Brown, gunned down by a white officer under suspicious circumstances, deserves justice. It’s an issue that any president should address.
– In the wake of the Michael Brown shooting, President Obama has taken flak for not speaking more forcefully—or more personally—about it. (Eric Holder, for instance, has recounted his own troubles with police as a black man in America.) Well, the president's critics are wrong, writes Charles Lane at the Washington Post. The last thing we need is more "emotional rhetoric." Pundits are free to say what they want, but Obama "has actual responsibilities, of which the most pressing are to keep a highly dangerous situation from getting any worse and to supervise an impartial investigation of the horrific event that led up to it." At the Root, David Swerdlick makes a similar case, arguing that the president's measured comments have been "exactly right" so far. "Although there are a lot of different voices that can underscore the racial injustice that surrounds Ferguson and the killing of Michael Brown, there’s only one person who can direct FBI resources and order the Justice Department to investigate a civil rights violation: Obama," he writes. "And I’d rather see someone who does understand black anger fulfilling that role rather than focusing on making speeches." Looking for a rebuttal? Maureen Dowd would love to see Obama flash some black anger. "Why should the president neutralize himself?" she asks in the New York Times. "Why doesn’t he do something bold and thrilling? Get his hands dirty? Stop going to Beverly Hills to raise money and go to St. Louis to raise consciousness?" Click for her full column, or Swerdlick's, or Lane's.