Obama’s Ferguson trap: Why he can’t win on race

President Obama tried to strike a careful balance with his White House remarks on Ferguson, expressing sympathy for community outrage over Michael Brown’s killing while also declaring that black crime would not be tolerated.

And he managed to make no one happy.

Dealing with racial conflagrations is especially difficult for the nation’s first black president. Obama pointedly told ABC’s Ann Compton on Monday that he was not going to the embattled Missouri town, and sending Eric Holder instead, because he didn’t want to put his thumb on the scale.