U.S. President Barack Obama's remarks on the riots in Baltimore started off well and then went swiftly downhill.

He first noted that Baltimore residents have legitimate concerns about police conduct, but also said that "there's no excuse for the kind of violence that we saw yesterday." He refused to call the looters protesters. "It's people — a handful of people taking advantage of a situation for their own purposes, and they need to be treated as criminals."

So far so good, and especially welcome when some on the left are making excuses for violence.