Police spokesman responds to Obama: The ‘true travesty is sitting in the White House’

March 6, 2014 by Michael Dorstewitz 59 Comments

When President Obama called the U.S. Senate’s rejection of his pick to head the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division a “travesty,” a fraternal order of police official remarked Wednesday, “the true travesty is sitting in the White House.”
Maureen Faulkner, the widow of a slain Philadelphia police officer callously killed by an unrepentant Mumia Abu-Jamal, granted Fox News an interview to express her thanks to the Senate for its vote. The nominee, Debo P. Adegbile, volunteered to represent Abu-Jamal and called his role “a great honor.”
Faulkner said the vote left her in tears.
“I just have gratitude for the senators who were brave enough to vote and do the right thing,” she said during a telephone interview played on “The Kelly File.”
Guest host Martha MacCallum then brought on Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police political director Richard Costello, who was also pleased with the vote.
He referred to the Abu-Jamal case as a 30-year-long “circus of evil, a carnival of the bizarre.” He said those associated with the case “have been forced to endure every left-wing hate group in America championing the cold-blooded killer of a Philadelphia police officer as some kind of twisted hero.”
When MacCallum observed that the president called the senate vote “an absolute travesty,” Costello noted that a U.S. senator said he was voting his conscience after having spoken to Faulkner.
“If President Obama thinks that voting your conscience is a travesty,” he said, “then I submit that the true travesty is sitting in the White House.”
This answer elicited a string of tweets. Here are just a few:

Wow! Richard Costello of the Philly Fraternal Order of Police, "The true travesty is in the White House." #KellyFile
— Leo Knight (@primetimecrime) March 6, 2014

#kellyfile Richard Costello speaks for me and all members of the FOP!
— Nate (@ItsElementary__) March 6, 2014

Watch the exchange via Fox News, then check out “Chris Christie’s 4-word answer that made town hall crowd go crazy.”