Obama: "I have to tell you that, as I said yesterday, my impression of him is that he was an outstanding police officer...and that was confirmed in the phone conversation.
"Because this has been ratcheting up, and I helped to contribute to the ratcheting up...in my choice of words, I unfortunately gave the impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically," he continued. "I continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Prof. Gates out of his home and to the station. I also continue to believe, based on what I heard, that Prof. Gates probably overreacted as well."
"Because of our history...African Americans are sensitive to these issues." (2:35 p.m.)

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More details: Obama called Crowley around 2:15 p.m. after returning from the Department of Education and they spoke for five minutes. Crowley suggested he and the president have a beer some time and Obama thought that was "a good idea."