John Kass has a tough evaluation of Obama's Trayvon Martin speech on Friday

I would add the fact that President Obama also raised the point about him being racially profiled when he was younger.  In addition, after the Obama administration has been saying this past week how inappropriate it would be to speak out on the Zimmerman case while DOJ was trying to decide whether to prosecute Zimmerman, he goes and speaks out on the case. 

Q    Even though the jury in this case has spoken, the Justice Department is still considering whether to file criminal civil rights charges.  Does the President feel like that decision needs to be made quickly in order to have some kind of finality to this case?
MR. CARNEY:  This is a decision made by the Justice Department, by career prosecutors, and all questions about how that process is undertaken should be directed there.  And that is not something the President involves himself in.  As the Justice Department said yesterday, they first acknowledged last year that they have an open investigation into Trayvon Martin’s death and they are continuing to evaluate that evidence.
Q    But since the President did speak about this case last year in pretty personal terms, did he have any personal reaction to the verdict?  Does he have any personal feelings on the need for the Justice Department to make a decision on this quickly?
MR. CARNEY:  Well, he has no opinion to express about the disposition of how the Justice Department would look at this.  He did speak about it in personal terms, and I think his statement yesterday reflects how the loss of a young person is a source of great anguish and pain for the parents of that person, for the community where that person lived -- that young person lived, and for the whole country, because the loss is greater when a young person dies because the potential of that life is so unfulfilled.
So I think that’s how the President viewed it then and views it now. . . .

John's piece has this, but the whole piece is worth reading.  From the Chicago Tribune:

. . . He stood in the White House briefing room, and through the magic of his own silky rhetoric and skill with metaphor, he was able animate the body of a slain African-American teenager, Trayvon Martin.
Obama pronounced the killing as racially motivated, though he didn't use the words. He didn't have to, such is his prowess. It was so smooth that few noticed. He put the killing in a racial context, and that was enough.
"You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me, 35 years ago," Obama told reporters at the White House on Friday, addressing last weekend's acquittal of Martin's shooter, George Zimmerman.
Could Obama have been Trayvon Martin 35 years ago?
Perhaps. If so, then any of us could have been Trayvon Martin. And I could have been Trayvon Martin. Racial motives weren't established at trial. And reportedly, the FBI still hasn't found racial motives in George Zimmerman, who is Hispanic. . . .

A transcript of Obama's appearance can be seen here.