July 24, 2009

Winner: Officer Crowley -- Loser: President Obama

Here's a lesson for future James D. Watsons:

When You Tell the Truth ... Don't Apologize

Defeated by Cambridge Police Officer James Crowley's stubborn courage, Obama made an unscheduled appearance at a White House press briefing today to say:

I wanted to address you guys directly because over the last day and a half obviously there's been all sorts of controversy around the incident that happened in Cambridge with Professor Gates and the police department there.

I actually just had a conversation with Sergeant Jim Crowley, the officer involved. And I have to tell you that as I said yesterday, my impression of him was that he was a outstanding police officer and a good man, and that was confirmed in the phone conversation -- and I told him that.

And because this has been ratcheting up -- and I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up -- I want to make clear that in my choice of words I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically -- and I could have calibrated those words differently. And I told this to Sergeant Crowley.

I continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Professor Gates out of his home to the station. I also continue to believe, based on what I heard, that Professor Gates probably overreacted as well. My sense is you've got two good people in a circumstance in which neither of them were able to resolve the incident in the way that it should have been resolved and the way they would have liked it to be resolved.

The fact that it has garnered so much attention I think is a testimony to the fact that these are issues that are still very sensitive here in America. So to the extent that my choice of words didn't illuminate, but rather contributed to more media frenzy, I think that was unfortunate.

What I'd like to do then I make sure that everybody steps back for a moment, recognizes that these are two decent people, not extrapolate too much from the facts -- but as I said at the press conference, be mindful of the fact that because of our history, because of the difficulties of the past, you know, African Americans are sensitive to these issues. And even when you've got a police officer who has a fine track record on racial sensitivity, interactions between police officers and the African American community can sometimes be fraught with misunderstanding.

My hope is, is that as a consequence of this event this ends up being what's called a "teachable moment," where all of us instead of pumping up the volume spend a little more time listening to each other and try to focus on how we can generally improve relations between police officers and minority communities, and that instead of flinging accusations we can all be a little more reflective in terms of what we can do to contribute to more unity. Lord knows we need it right now -- because over the last two days as we've discussed this issue, I don't know if you've noticed, but nobody has been paying much attention to health care. (Laughter.)

I will not use this time to spend more words on health care, although I can't guarantee that that will be true next week. I just wanted to emphasize that -- one last point I guess I would make. There are some who say that as President I shouldn't have stepped into this at all because it's a local issue. I have to tell you that that part of it I disagree with. The fact that this has become such a big issue I think is indicative of the fact that race is still a troubling aspect of our society. Whether I were black or white, I think that me commenting on this and hopefully contributing to constructive -- as opposed to negative -- understandings about the issue, is part of my portfolio.

So at the end of the conversation there was a discussion about -- my conversation with Sergeant Crowley, there was discussion about he and I and Professor Gates having a beer here in the White House. We don't know if that's scheduled yet -- (laughter) -- but we may put that together.

He also did say he wanted to find out if there was a way of getting the press off his lawn. (Laughter.) I informed him that I can't get the press off my lawn. (Laughter.) He pointed out that my lawn is bigger than his lawn. (Laughter.) But if anybody has any connections to the Boston press, as well as national press, Sergeant Crowley would be happy for you to stop trampling his grass.

All right. Thank you, guys.

Obviously, this isn't much of a real apology, but the basic fact remains that the President's racial prejudices just got stared down by the Policeman who had the facts on his side.

My guess is that one reason Obama backed down was because the police dispatch operators have tapes of much of the confrontation. They haven't been released yet, but they would be interesting to hear.

Teachable moments? The first is that Obama's comments at his news conference on the "stupidity" of the Cambridge Police Department were, despite all his lawyerly stipulations, a textbook example of racial prejudice in action. He had prejudged these specific events based on his deeply held views on the general racial situation in America.

As in Ricci, we see the value of civil servant unions in standing up to racialized politicians. Crowley's cop union stood shoulder to shoulder with him and helped him face down the Governor and the President. Government employee unions are expensive, but they do have an interest in standing up for civil service rules in fighting the new racial spoils system perpetrated under the guise of "civil rights."

Another lesson is that as the Establishment has ratcheted up Racism into the worst sin imaginable in the history of the world, it has not correspondingly ratcheted up the seriousness of the consequences of falsely accusing somebody of "racism." It was clear from even Dr. Gates's self-serving account that his accusations of racism against Officer Crowley were the product not of evidence but of his understandably tired, overexcited brain intersecting with his business interests as a prestige media race man. Crowley refused to buckle under to extraordinary pressure, going all the way up to the President, thus setting a new standard for how to respond to false charges.

It's time to pressure Obama to publicly call on his friend Skip Gates to withdraw his charges of racism against Officer Crowley on the grounds that the epidemic of false charges of racism must be halted.

Now, that would be a Teachable Moment!

There are two distinguishable issues in this mess:

- The false accusation of racism by Professor Gates against Officer Crowley (which, in Obama's usual lawyerly way was more or less endorsed, in so many words, on national television by President Obama). Gates's prolonged attempt over the last week while vacationing on Martha's Vineyard to make money off his defamation of Officer Crowley by promoting his future television program about it, should, at minimum, lead to Gates's public shaming.

- The question of whether Crowley over-reacted to Gates' unhinged temper tantrum and false accusations of racism. As I've said, I sympathize with Gates' frustrations. While traveling a couple of years ago, I was forced to stay up all night through airline incompetence (after four hours standing at an airport ticket counter, I finally figured out that two airlines had merged and the desk agents, who were all from the acquired airline, didn't know how to operate the computer system of the acquiring airline). Therefore, I came close to throwing a hissy fit of Gatesian proportions when I tried to go through the security checkpoint only to find out that the airline had now flagged my ticket for public interrogation in a glass box. I did manage, barely, to not step over any lines. If I ever do, I hope, for my own personal sake, that the cop I insult is more of a wishy-washy type than Officer Crowley.

Should "contempt of cop" be an arrestable offense? This appears to be a gray area in the law, and perhaps necessarily so. In theory, it would be nice if you could relentlessly scream insults at a cop in public under the First Amendment, but the Second Amendment gets in the way. There are a couple of hundred million guns in America, which means that cops feel they always have to stay in control of the situation psychologically, because, otherwise, the confrontation might escalate to the point where somebody winds up with a hole in him. (Usually, it's not the cop but the enraged suspect who ends up in the morgue.) Moreover, letting one probably harmless maniac like Gates get away with abusing cops sets a dangerous precedents for the less harmless maniacs.

An interesting psychological point is that the same stubborn professionalism that helped make Officer Crowley a hard-ass toward Professor Gates has made him a heroic public citizen in his refusal to be browbeat by President Obama. He's shown more spine than James Watson or Larry Summers.

By the way, I'd like to use this Teachable Moment to flog my reader's guide to what the President considers the Teachable Moments in his own life: America's Half-Blood Prince: Barack Obama's "Story of Race and Inheritance."

It makes a great gift! (Well, your mileage may vary.)

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

82 comments:

  1. Other losers:
    Effete "mainstream conservatives" who must have been constipated over the racial drama:

    From Lawrence Auster's blog, add Heather MacDonald and Rich Lowry to a long list of conservatives who have disgraced themselves.

    MacDonald suggested Crowley snapped. There is absolutely no evidence this officer snapped, but that he acted reasonably and rationally. He is supported 100% and I hope these tapes get released to diminsh these pseudo intellectuals.

    They're too liberal to accept that while they don't like race, race sure is interested in them; to render race mute, they have to make the cop guilty, even a little bit.

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  2. At this point it looks like Obama's ill-advised decision to comment on this story may end up being a huge help to Sgt. Crowley. If the president's trying to get this story to go away for the sake of his own popularity and his PR work on health care, I hope that means he'll speak privately with Prof. Gates and Gates' supporters in Cambridge and tell them to take things down a notch.

    I read somewhere a statement from Gates' colleague/lawyer promising that they'd be digging up and distributing dirt on Sgt. Crowley, and it made me a little sick to my stomach. Especially since the statement said that Crowley has a bad record with "young people," which makes me wonder if we're going to be treated to a parade of Harvard undergrads complaining that Crowley wasn't sufficiently deferential to their over-entitled selves, and refused to read them their rights/produce a search warrant/show probable cause while he ticketed them for public intoxication, told them to turn their music down, etc.

    Now that that kind of antagonistic approach will have the national press corps using Obama's next health care event to ask him why his friend Professor Gates can't live-and-let-live, Obama-style, maybe this whole thing will just blow over. Certainly it'll be hard for Gates to go down that road now without looking like a complete ass (to everyone, not just to people who were predisposed to assume that he was the bigger/only ass in this whole affair).

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  3. gotta say, i like the fact that obama is willing to admit when he's wrong. it's a breath of fresh air from Bush who wouldn't back down for anything, even the real weighty issues.

    obama knew he shouldn't have gotten involved, and realizing that, he made amends to help keep this situation from getting bigger than it should.

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  4. You know, it's getting harder and harder to tell the real news from The Onion nowadays.

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  5. "... I think that me commenting on this and hopefully contributing to constructive -- as opposed to negative -- understandings about the issue, is part of my portfolio."

    (WTF?) Is there nothing he can't fix?

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  6. I'm the same Anonymous whose post starts "At this point..."

    I wrote that comment before the last paragraph of the post was appended. I'd just add that I doubt it'll be necessary to publicly pressure Obama to publicly pressure Gates--I assume that Obama is already privately pressuring Gates and telling him, more or less, that continuing to pursue this issue is just going to make everyone--especially Gates and Obama--look foolish. When you combine private pressure from the president with the apparently universal agreement that Crowley is an excellent and unusually racially-sensitive cop, and add to that the overwhelming likelihood that release of the police tapes will humiliate Gates by portraying him as totally unhinged, I have a feeling Gates may mysteriously change his approach to this situation starting in the next day or two.

    My only interest in this story is that Sgt. Crowley escape looking like the good man and good cop he seems to be. So, while it might be nice to see Gates take a slightly harder fall for his behavior here, I think Crowley, his friends and family, and the Cambridge police will be better served by everyone just shutting up and moving on. Pressuring Obama to denounce Gates seems like a way to keep the controversy brewing, which probably isn't in Crowley's best interests.

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  7. Intra Soviet Squabble7/24/09, 2:39 PM

    "Government employee unions are expensive, but they do have an interest in standing up for civil service rules in fighting the new racial spoils system."

    Huh? Are you ever, as a conservative, capable of seeing the bigger picture, Bearded One? Cop Crowley, as your "winner", is only such because, with his diversimity classes and sensimitivity training and keen training on how to detect racism, he's just another member of the club. The loser isn't Obama. It's us. As usual.

    Luckily this comment will turn things around.

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  8. Crowley refused to buckle under to extraordinary pressure, going all the way up to the President, thus setting a new standard for how to respond to false charges.

    My thoughts exactly. I have always been sickened by the grovelling by someone accused of racism, then they would be eviscerated then fired anyway. I always wanted for someone to stand their and firmly say, "no, I won't apologize" as Crowley did. They blinked, as I always thought they would. A huge bravo and thank you to Sgt Crowley!

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  9. outlaw josey wales7/24/09, 2:48 PM

    This episode is going to be catnip, eh Steve? I'm sure there will be at least 5 more posts about this story.

    There seems to be an implicit assumption that the cop did the right thing, but is it possible that a white cop could do something wrong against a black man? You argue that liberals always answer yes to that question, but this crowd wants to always answer no.

    Setting aside what you think about Gates' career, should he have been arrested for yelling at a cop? Many cops are on a perpetual power trip, and heaven help you if you don't immediately comply with their "request."

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  10. Steve,
    I thought a lot about your comments on unions (during Ricci) in the last couple days as this episode dragged on. I especially agree with you in light of the fact that, excepting Rush Limbaugh, Mike Gallagher, and too few others, mainstream conservatives were happy to impugn this man's character in order to make this go away and/or seem thoughtful.

    Lesson: No matter how liberal and virtuous one is in dealing with NAMS, you still can't win unless you
    a. Don't apologize
    b. have union support

    The liberals will try to destroy you and the "conservatives" will let them... a little bit.

    I'd like to get Lucius's comments on unions. I was sorely disappointed recently when he had a lot to say, but for another time.

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  11. OT (but on-topic as far as this blog goes!): Researcher Condemns Conformity Among His Peers by Nicholas Wade

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  12. I don't know Steve, I hate to say it but this apology was pretty classy. The original statement may have been clumsy but Obama regained some stature with this retraction.

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  13. The fact that Obama, the prez of the USA, keeps himself busy with this shit tells you the US has become a banana republic. With black pols its race here and race there. But the important stuff like developing a country, securing the economy and the manufacturing base, improving education and providing personal and national security flies out the window. Mugabe is the perverted version of this mentality, and Mandela is basically a Mugabe-light or Obama-heavy whichever way. These people are so full of themselves, yet display their African village mentality every other day. The prez of the US of Ey should be f. keeping himself busy trying to figure out what the muzzies really want, how to get off the Saudi teat, how to get the f. out of the ME and how to stop a nuclear war between Pak and India, for instance. I'm not even going to bother with NK or Russia or China because obviously that is beyond Obama's radar. Mass. is more in his league. Basically he has shown himself to be the major black pol in the US, nothing more.

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  14. You are wrong, wrong, wrong. Government employee unions as balancing the scales of justice? In what alternate universe are you residing?? Hahahaha, this is the same as expecting education professionals to have a a real difference of opinion.

    This is simply Democrat eating Democrat, and I love it.

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  15. Steve,

    You've given Gates lots of slack on the account of his coming back from a business trip to China. But if I understand the situation correctly, Gates had come from China the day before, spent a night somewnere around NYC/NJ and then came to Boston the day of the incident.

    I'm sure Gates had traveled business or first class, not coach. Having made many of those trips on business myself (China, India, Europe, LatAm), flying business class is not that tiring, especially if you have good in-flight routine.

    Bottom line, I know what it's like coming back from intercontinetal trips, and I never felt the urge to yell at police upon return.

    My 2 cents...

    D. from Seattle

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  16. SWPL folks don't see it the same way

    from http://www.theawl.com/

    President Apologizes For Telling It Like It Is
    Thank God we still live in a country where a small group of resentful hypocrites can yell loudly enough that the President of the United States is forced to express regret over making a suggestion that perhaps arresting an old black man with a cane for the crime of being in his own home was not the wisest thing in the world. Good for you, America!

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  17. Outlaw:

    There seems to be an implicit assumption that the cop did the right thing, but is it possible that a white cop could do something wrong against a black man? You argue that liberals always answer yes to that question, but this crowd wants to always answer no.

    There seems to be an implicit assumption that OJ killed his ex-wife. But is it possible that OJ could ever be wrongly accused of a crime in his lifetime? Huh? Huh? Bunch of bigots.

    Many cops are on a perpetual power trip

    Questioning a black man while looking for black suspects is "profiling," but equating "many (white) cops" with perpetual abuse is speaking truth to power. (Never mind that the POTUS joins you in speaking that "truth.")

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  18. Kind of off topic:
    A perceptive commenter said in another thread that the aspect of Gates's age had gotten little mention and that as we age, we become much more sensitive, etc.

    I agree wholeheartedly. My mother who works with the elderly as a nurse (truly loves it; knew at age 17 that her calling was working with them) has drummed this into my head since childhood. A little personal, but she and my aunt talk often of the day they realized "Mom", my grandmother, had become "elderly" (I was a teenaged witness). They were playing Trivial Pursuit, gossiping and laughing, etc. They began gently ribbing my grandmother about an answer she had given, and which was typical behavior for them, when suddenly my grandmother got up and yelled that they were "just stupid" and quickly left the room crying. She was about 57-59.

    Along with Steve's comments in the past about "Elderly Tourette's", I think it is far more likely that rather than being conspiratorial, Gate's is more paranoid and sensitive due to age as well as much more likely to reveal his true beliefs and biases.

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  19. PeterW:

    I don't know Steve, I hate to say it but this apology was pretty classy.

    Sincere apologies are classy. Obama seems sincere here, but the wording is designed to be the least apologetic possible while still sounding kinda sorta apologetic.

    That's probably as much as we can ask for from the Leader of the Free World, though.

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  20. I am a cynic. I see Axelrod using the apology to get this off the front page and I see Obama's need to be liked by everyone all over this apology. I see a strong political benefit from this.

    Of course, I could be wrong and I am fine with that.

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  21. ---...developing a country, securing the economy and the manufacturing base, improving education and providing personal---

    That's whitey's work.

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  22. The apology is not "classy," but it's a classic non-apology apology. You have two extreme statements: Crowley is a racist (by Gates) and Crowley did nothing wrong and Gates is both a freak-out-artist and a false accuser (Crowley). One of them must backdown; a few beers won't solve anything, unless Gates says, "I was tired, disoriented, and didn't realize what was going on until it was too late." Gates is in fact an asshole, and that's the way all the evidence points.

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  23. I think you're getting a bit too exciting about the power of public sector unions to combat racial pressures.

    Did the fireman's union in New Haven fight against obviously racist tests? Yes, but you could just as easily imagine them supporting seniority promotions that ignored merit altogether.

    Did the PBA in Cambridge stand behind Crowley? Yes, but they'd have stood behind him if he'd shot up a bus full of six-year-olds and claimed self defense.

    It's not racial justice or any sort of justice the unions are after. It's protecting their members. If that promotes racial justice in a few cases, that's great, but it's not really their concern one way or the other.

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  24. I really hope we can somehow pressure Caimbridge to release the dispatcher-Crowley-tapes folks.

    This will still be spun as a victory for the left in 12 months time if we dont get to hear the tapes folks.


    The left's Duke-Lacross meme is still, "something went on in that house that night". To win, you have to delegitamatize. We aren't doing that unless we get the tapes, can copy them, and can play them over and over********



    ************can you imagine what a copy of those tapes could do to Gates career? Limbaugh, Fred Thompson, Michael Savage could all get a copy and play it ad nauseum every time we have a Jesse Jackson/Cornell West/Sharpton moment. Try harder conservatives. m

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  25. I would add Arun Gandhi to the list of truth-tellers turned growelling apologizers who end up discarded anyway.

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  26. About public service unions:

    A NY Fire Department admissions test was ruled "racist" and struck down by a judge yesterday. Steve, you've written about that case in the past. It has now been decided, and public safety, white firefighters, sanity, etc. all came out as losers.

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  27. I am not a conspiracy theorist but has anyone considered that this Obama’s comment might have been a giant ploy to get the media focused on this trivial matter at a time when the exalted one is pushing for socialized healthcare.

    Bear in mind that this statement was made at a press conference that was suppose to rally support for the healthcare bill now before Congress. Obama wants it passed before the summer recess because the more people hear about it the more they dislike it.

    His few lines about race will undoubtedly dominate headlines for the next few weeks, in the mean time we will all be forced into a single payer healthcare system.

    Well played Mr. Obama

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  28. obama is only admitting that he said the wrong thing because of the unexpected PR damage. he would never go out there and say he was wrong about one of his major political initiatives. how do we even know it was not david axelrod who told him literally the exact words to use in his apology? this president almost never speaks without a teleprompter, and when he does, he often puts his foot in his mouth.

    and yes, it's nuts that the president of the united states keeps himself busy with stuff like this, along with spending a good amount of his time following sports, which is getting inexcusable. he's too busy watching mark buehrle throw a perfect game to do any real work. president basketball might end up doing less real work related to his job than gw bush did, and i rank bush as one of the bottom 5 presidents in american history.

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  29. Sorry guys but i've got to say that of the three numbskulls involved in this nonsense, Obama comes out the least ugly.

    If Gates wins we're all Royal Fucked as cops will be even less eager to deal with serious blue-collar crimes committed by minorities.

    If the pigs win, we can expect them to feel even more comfortable acting like kings of the world and violating your rights and your home whenever their mini-brains suggest they should.

    Only Obama seems remotely willing to consider that there may be some issue here that needs resolving from all angles. Thus far his choice of focus is the racial aspect but who knows whether on some fine clear day he may point out one or two of the following points.

    1) You can't fuckin go around accussing people of racism and not expect to be made the public fool (and in Gates case have your life's work and deepest beliefs and sworn testimony refuted in public by the president of the united states himself who couldn't stop praising the guy who arrested you).

    2) Police need to know their fuckin limts and not go and STUPIDLY arrest a middle aged man in his own home because he didn't show them adequate "yes sir, no sir" obsequiousness.

    In face, based on all he said, is it even possible that these two points are not already his thoughts on the subject?

    Whether he'll come out and say them of course is a separate matter but, to me at least, the Obama of 2009 (perhaps only because he now has actual power as POTUS) is not the one that Steve discovered on the bookshelf and psychoanalyzed in his bedroom (though he may have been that person five years ago) and he sure as hell aint the guy that a few garrulous crackpots around these parts believe him to be. He's no Satan, Farrakhan, Stalin or ventriloquist's dummy. He's a standard-issue corrupt affirmative action politician who comes across as likely to have a better short and long-term effect on more people in this country than have any of the past three presidents. I can't stand him but I (in retrospect) prefer him as POTUS over every major candidate who ran against him from either party in the past primary.

    At least thus far.

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  30. Amid the (wholly justified, it increasingly seems) disdain for Gates and Obama, we should spare a hostile thought for Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times, who asked Obama the question about Gates - the only reporter, in fact, who did not ask Obama an on-topic health care question.

    If Sweet had not butted in, this controversy might have gone away by now. She is white, by the way.

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  31. "Should "contempt of cop" be an arrestable offense?"

    Harrassing a police officer in the line of duty should be an arrestable offense as it makes it more difficult and potentially dicey for an officer to do his job.

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  32. WTF?! So now we're making excuses for poor Skip Gates. Oh dear, the poor man had jet lag.

    Funny, I've had jet lag after spending zillions of hours in COACH, and never felt like yelling at a policeman - screeching racism or making threats just because he was trying to help me keep my house secure.

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  33. "could have CALIBRATED my words.."
    Out of the frying pan, into self revelation?? We don't need
    Oval Office occupants who (a ) can't admit to making Big Mistakes or (b) who make too many of them.
    Minimum security prisons in the
    US are filled disproportionately
    with "guests" who can't keep a moral ledger sheet regarding the size of their errors.

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  34. "This will still be spun as a victory for the left in 12 months time if we dont get to hear the tapes folks."

    That's true, anybody can send a short, polite email to the Police Commissioner or Public Information Officer here: http://www.cambridgema.gov/CPD/Contact/

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  35. "It's not racial justice or any sort of justice the unions are after. It's protecting their members. If that promotes racial justice in a few cases, that's great, but it's not really their concern one way or the other."

    That's very true, but you've got be realistic: if you want to win political fights, as opposed to losing nobly (and endlessly), you've got to have strong allies, and you can't be too picky about who they are.

    i.p.

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  36. We know that the Secret Service will step in front of a bullet to protect the president, but with these comments by Dear Leader does anyone expect a cop to do the same thing. These comments has made the Secret Service's job that much harder because no cop will back them up now.
    runescape money

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  37. ...the police dispatch operators have tapes of much of the confrontation. They haven't been released yet, but they would be interesting to hear.

    Yes, they would indeed be interesting to hear. What's funny about this for an Obama critic like myself is how long this could drag on.

    All right, I tried to make that short so that Lynn Sweet would get her last question in.

    -Obama, just before getting the Gates question. Bet he regrets making that short now. This was very much an unforced error; he should have just said he wouldn't comment without knowing all the facts. But he couldn't pass up the opportunity to lecture.

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  38. Sorry, I don't see race as a concrete factor in this at all, no matter the insistent verbal incontinence of Gates and the MSM.

    It's about Constitutional issues and police training. Crowley was right to arrest Gates when he did. He wasn't right to go to the verge of strip-searching a peaceful professor in his own home because of the misunderstanding (?) of a hysterical female.

    "Papers, please" is the line of the Gestapo. Well, this is not really a free country, so Gates had to produce the proper documentation, proving that his house is his house, and that he is a human being.

    Thus, Gates settled the matter absolutely, even by the reputed standards of the old Gestapo.

    But this apparently wasn't enough for Crowley (or for freepers, who wish Crowley had searched the attic and basement for dead bodies -!). He still had to maintain an attitude, even after having been shown to be mistaken. Gates understandably cut a shine. The officer, knowing Gates had the goods (and learning just then of his celebrity status) backed down and left.

    Who knows what Crowley might have done to Gates in private if Gates hadn't gone nuts? Maybe there would have been a dead body for real.

    Anyway, my serious meta-observation is that cops used to be much better, i.e., more knowledgeable. The old-time beat cop would cover one or two neighborhoods for years. He got to know who lived in the houses and apartments in his area. He knew many by name. He knew where they worked, if they drank, if they cheated on their spouses; and he was reasonably abreast of the neighborhood talk, the gossip, the dirt; and he observed many things over time. No more. In a nation of strangers and bureaucrats (Crowley is merely a robot), everyone is an unknown - and the unknown is scary. Anyone you don't know might just be a terrorist with a bomb, or a wife-killer, or a cop. Didn't used to be like that.

    We don't know each other (nobody knew Gates, nor did Gates know them, for example). Therefore, many encounters are fraught with...well, one hesitates to use the word "stupidity," since the president we hate has used it, but let's say ignorant is as ignorant does.

    Gates settled the matter with his ID - which he shouldn't have had to show in the first place. That it escalated is the fault of Crowley's training. He should have tipped his hat (if he wore a hat), said with his best smile, "Sorry to make a fuss, professor." Gates, for his part, should have joked in reply, "Don't you fellas have any real criminals to catch?" And Crowley should have responded, "We're working on that 24/7, sir." That this scenario seems silly is testament to have far we have fallen.

    (By the way, Crowley is regarded as a Galahad in some parts on account of his training other officers in "issues of racial sensitivity," particularly The Evil Of Racial Profiling. But, isn't the whole opposition to racial profiling lousy with irrationality? What kind of "expertise" is this that Crowley's being praised for? Is it any better than Gates's alleged expertise?)

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  39. The unhappy story of "Happy Sindane"...

    'Letter: Identity in South Africa'

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4304543.stm

    In the usual left leaning attitude of the BBC.

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  40. John,
    I don't know, but can only speak from my own vantage point... the incident caused me to pay *more* attention to the machinations of Washington. I admit to feeling kind of defeated, not paying much attention, and expecting the worst (we are getting ready to sell our house based in large part because we predict radical, bad, changes in this area).
    I admit I still don't have much hope for this country and believe that it will dissolve, but this incident put a little fight and awareness into me.

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  41. "I don't know Steve, I hate to say it but this apology was pretty classy. The original statement may have been clumsy but Obama regained some

    My gawd. Can you hear? Can you read?

    1. How the hell do you think what Obama said qualifies as an "apology"?

    2. Take a gander at this in his so-called apology:

    "I continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Professor Gates out of his home to the station."

    Shit! What's with you? Falling victim to some kind of spell?

    The Prez is misleading--again.

    You must be like most people who hear of this story in a two-minute bite. They know it involves a white cop and a black professor. Most haven't read the actual arrest report and the statement of the second officer. And Obama apparently knows that they haven't read it.

    Gates FOLLOWED THE OFFICER OUT OF THE HOUSE AND KEPT YELLING AT HIM. The officer LEFT THE HOUSE, do you get it? The officer WALKED AWAY from the lunatic, do you get it? THE racist prof FOLLOWED THE OFFICER, do you get it?

    So the Prez leaves you and how many millions of others with the impression that a white cop overreacted by "pulling" poor Professor Gates "out of his house to the police station"?

    You don't think Obama chose those words carefully to create an image of a man IN HIS HOUSE who was dragged away even after providing ID?

    Shit.

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  42. If the tapes back the officer's version of events (and by that, I mean there is audio of Gates saying some of the stuff the officer claimed Gates said, not that the officer called in and said Gates was uncooperative), they will be leaked well before they are released.

    If they are not leaked in the next week, they either don't have that or they support Gates' version of events.

    Planetary Archon Mouse

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  43. "Obama apalogy."

    He didn't apologize.

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  44. Should "contempt of cop" be an arrestable offense? This appears to be a gray area in the law, and perhaps necessarily so. In theory, it would be nice if you could relentlessly scream insults at a cop in public under the First Amendment, but the Second Amendment gets in the way. There are a couple of hundred million guns in America, which means that cops feel they always have to stay in control of the situation psychologically, because, otherwise, the confrontation might escalate to the point where somebody winds up with a hole in him. (Usually, it's not the cop but the enraged suspect who ends up in the morgue.)

    Yeah, usually by an order of magnitude.

    Compare the number of cops in this country, about 700,000 to 800,000with the number of cops who die in the line of duty: 134 last year. About a third of that 134 actually died in encounters with the public.

    Given those odds (which have been pretty consistent for decades) cops' desire to feel in control of the situation is ludicrous, and that justification for "contempt of cop" arrests just doesn't hold water.

    I'm skeptical that the officer's version of events is going to be supported by the tapes, (or that Gates' racism claims are going to be borne out by them, for that matter), but even if it is, he could have walked away without undermining police deterrence.

    This is a bit less of a weak reed than your theory of domestic violence, Steve, but it's still not good. I think you're failing on this story.

    Planetary Archon Mouse

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  45. Harry Baldwin7/24/09, 8:25 PM

    Here's the president's "classy apology":
    “I want to make clear that in my choice of words, I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically, and I could have calibrated those words differently.”

    Here's the "classy apology" without weasel words:
    “I maligned the Cambridge Police Department and Sergeant Crowley, and I should not have said what I did.”

    One thing I notice about Obama: he may talk about "teachable moments," but he's always the one who has something to teach and nothing to learn. In this case, the teaching was, as usual, for the white folks, who have to learn about black folk's sensitivity about dealing with the police. How about if Obama gave black folks a little Chris Rock-type tutorial on how to deal with the police so you don't escalate the situation?

    Obama--wake up! You're not a community organizer anymore! You're the f---ing POTUS!!

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  46. Disassembling Axelrod/Obama 101:

    Lesson 1: Non-Apology Verbal Jujitsu

    (a) "I want to make clear that in my choice of words I think I unortunately gave the impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department."

    Technique: the "Jedi look at my face don't listen to my words" bald-faced lie

    Meaning by "(I want to confuse you with my verbal diaarehia) (everything is relative) (even the defintion of words which change at my command)"

    (b) "I Continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Professor Gates out of his home to the station"

    Technique: the double/triple "get out of jail" plausibly deniability

    Meaning "(Personal disclamer) (hedge) (overreaction/misinterpretation claim) (deniable falsehood due to prior disclaimer and hedge)"
    (e.g. Gates was verbally abusing the cop out on the street not physically pulled out of his house as implied)

    (c) "My sense is you've got two good people in a circumstance in which neither of them were able to resolve the incident in the way that it should have been resolved and the way they would have liked it to be resolved."

    Technique: The "King Solomon odd couple" saint/psycho paring and middle split

    Meaning: "(Personal disclaimer) (both sides equal right/wrong) (split the baby down the middle)"
    (e.g. no matter how offensively wrong your position is, pair it with a neutral or sympathetic stance and split the diff to shift the frame your way)

    (d) "So to the extent that my choice of words didn't illuminate, but rather contributed to more media frenzy, I think that was unfortunate."

    Technique: the "Zen master" you don't understand I'm trying to enlighten you ungrateful swine

    Meaning: "(It's not my fault you can't appreciate my illuminating wisdom) (there's a problem only if your mentally challenged/racists to think there is one) (its unfortunate swine cannot appreciate pearls)"

    and many more...

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  47. John Anello --

    More likely big mistake, as Arnold would say. Obama just reminded everyone after noting he'll want to approve your kids tonsillectomy, and pain pills for heart problems for the elderly, that he is a race man.

    Being a Race Man is OK, as long as government is small and does nothing. Being a Race Man as the head of a government that will control all Health Care and all other activity (green Cap and Trade) is a disaster. It's why Obamacare is failing and under 50% approval, nationwide, and only 53% approval among women. A mere four point gap. Similar gaps and under 50% approval for job performance at Rasmussen's latest polls, crosstabs at Hotair.

    Obama just doesn't get it. Being a Race Man means he has to sacrifice his ambition to control everything nationwide. Not even White Women enamored of First Rockstar will go that far if it rationally means their mammograms and other issues get tossed aside in favor of say, the already mandated Affirmative Action program for more Black Doctors.

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  48. The Alien-in-Chief and the Affirmative Action Hustler are two peas from the same pod.

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  49. I'm the same Anonymous whose post starts "At this point..."

    This is a farce. Click on "Name/URL" and pick a handle...any handle. Google knows who you are anyway.

    On topic, I wholeheartedly agree with David above. My too-clever crimefighting strategy would be to confiscate about half the cop cruisers in the country, turn some of them into taxis, and crush the rest. More cabs keeping drunks off the roads, more cops walking a beat. (This would probably weed out some of those disgusting tubs of fat who couldn't outrun a crippled asthmatic I see in my town, too.)

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  50. Crowley is only a hero by today's cowardly standards. So he did nothing wrong and didn't apologize for it. This is bravery? Who cares if he stood up to the president? It's not like that that's a dangerous thing to do in this country.

    If he would've said "Yes, I racially profile. Do you know what the black crime rate is? The president says we have a history of minorities being profiled by cops. What he doesn't mention is that it's for the obvious reason that we have a long history of minorities committing a lot of crime." then I would call him a hero.

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  51. One big problem that is happening to the police is that they are slowly and systematically being traumatized. Day after day of having to deal with the stress of everything from violent killers to mouthy punks like Gates is leaving them more and more effected. It should not be a suprize to anyone that the police behave they way they do. These guys just want to stay alive until the end of their shift. In the "communities" they police it is impossible to tell friend from foe (like Vietnam) and they basically get no support from various sectors of our society but rather only scorn.

    Cops die younger on average, have more disability claims than average, probably divorce more and all the rest of us. It is like what happens to ER doctors. Eventually they just burn out.

    The results of this is a police department that is increasingly insular, defensive, and unfriendly. Unfortunately, our President and the rest of his supporters do not seem to be able to comprehend this let alone say it.

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  52. gotta say, i like the fact that obama is willing to admit when he's wrong. it's a breath of fresh air from Bush who wouldn't back down for anything, even the real weighty issues.




    You have a very dry sense of humor. Or you're an idiot, I'm not sure which.

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  53. Setting aside what you think about Gates' career, should he have been arrested for yelling at a cop? Many cops are on a perpetual power trip, and heaven help you if you don't immediately comply with their "request."



    You have some nerve calling yourself "josey wales", nancy boy.

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  54. "Papers, please" is the line of the Gestapo. Well, this is not really a free country, so Gates had to produce the proper documentation, proving that his house is his house, and that he is a human being.




    You people are quite hopelessly demented. What do you expect a cop to do when he goes to a residence where he's been told there was a break in, if not ask the people he finds there for ID? If you ever take your medication an answer would be appreciated.

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  55. Whether he'll come out and say them of course is a separate matter but, to me at least, the Obama of 2009 (perhaps only because he now has actual power as POTUS) is not the one that Steve discovered on the bookshelf and psychoanalyzed in his bedroom (though he may have been that person five years ago) and he sure as hell aint the guy that a few garrulous crackpots around these parts believe him to be. He's no Satan, Farrakhan, Stalin or ventriloquist's dummy. He's a standard-issue corrupt affirmative action politician who comes across as likely to have a better short and long-term effect on more people in this country than have any of the past three presidents. I can't stand him but I (in retrospect) prefer him as POTUS over every major candidate who ran against him from either party in the past primary.



    That is some of the best mobying I've seen on the net, and I've seen a lot of it. Well done! And ask for a raise, you deserve it.

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  56. "then I would call him a hero."

    But conservatives wouldn't.

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  57. "Papers, please" is the line of the Gestapo.


    You're telling me! I saw that same movie!

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  58. I wonder if it's fair to assume that Gates and/or Obama know that the racism charges are bogus. The police can be very disrespectful when they suspect you of being a criminal, and this can be shocking to a law abiding person who is used to being treated with respect.

    A middle aged white lady of my acquaintance had a somewhat similar run with the police, when circumstances made it seem like she had stolen what was in fact her car. She was absolutely devastated at being disbelieved, sneered at, and generally treated like a lying scumbag - it took her months to get over the humiliation.

    I can imagine that Gates, like my acquaintance, had no idea how rudely the police talk to even nice white ladies when they suspect them of a crime, and so it's impossible that he sincerely jumped to the conclusion that they only talked to him that way because he's black.

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  59. Perhaps to get around the police having to ask suspects questions we can have suspects investigate themselves. "No officer, I looked into it myself and there was not break in". Maybe the police could issue sort of a legal mezuzah that people could attach to their doors notifying the police not to investigate any ongoing crimes on the premises. The owner would assume all responsibility.

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  60. i am the walrus7/24/09, 10:30 PM

    Winner: Steve Sailer

    Losers: libertarians

    Standing with the mouthy Harvard prof against the fascist Cambridge PD should earn the liberarian party a dramatic increase in black enrollement. But don't count on it.

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  61. Setting aside what you think about Gates' career, should he have been arrested for yelling at a cop? Many cops are on a perpetual power trip, and heaven help you if you don't immediately comply with their "request."

    The real question is whether the cop would have arrested a white guy for doing the same thing. I can guarantee you the answer is an unqualified "yes". If you don't think that's right, then try to get disorderly conduct laws changed.

    I strongly suspect Gates intended to get arrested the moment he realized the cops were there. It's part of his job.

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  62. Anon who is unaware of the fact that he can include "nu-uh!" responses to several quoted commentors within a single comment -

    I clearly wasn't referring to you when I spoke of "garrulous crackpots" in these parts whose faculties appear to be damaged beyond repair when thinking about Obama. Your writing displays as firm and level-headed a grasp of reality as any of us mere mortals can ever hope for and I thank you for your muti-comment-long edification.

    And thank you for the recommendation regarding my receiving a raise. I've indeed labored in the vineyards as a moby for half a dozen years now from deep within the bowels of the New York Times where I work at odd hours to spread disinformation within the Patriotic community. My Jewish masters however have yet to recognize my labors with a well-deserved raise and I thank you for bringing it to their attention. And again, thank you for your incisive comments on this important matter.

    Others - There are far too many nuts here among the opposition to the PC agenda. These guys are often certifiable loons with dark voices howling in their irrational heads. They stand in opposition to the PC elite femisit eggheads not because they're brave truthseekers but rather because they are "fringe people" whose beliefs and accusations are always and unwaveringly with whatever fringe is on hand. We need to protest their wanton stupidities and disassociate ourselves from their crazier claims (Obama is a low-IQ imbecile/Farrakhan/Stalin/Antichrist, etc.) at every turn.

    (Cont.)

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  63. (Cont from before)

    Oh, but I'm not done. We need to guard OUR OWN thought processes as well. Being of somewhat Libertarian bent as so many readers here are, I smiled approvingly at the suggestion that police cars be turned into taxis or crushed, I similarly noted here and elsewhere many faults with the legal system without all too many words of credit for the 'more or less' acceptable work that it does and civilizational successes that it's had. How common after all is it for you or I to actually be seriously harassed, whether by "the authorities", neighbors or strangers while having such a well functioning society with so many options available to us? Whether my goal is to be taken seriously by others or simply to continue to regard my critical faculties highly in my OWN esteem, I would be best served, as a dissident of sorts, to be ten times sharper, "fairer" and more locquaiciously accurate then those whose opinions are (in this particular time and place) the more commonly prevailing ones.

    When one of the giants of our free-thinking community, Mencius Moldbug, writes of Obama as of a complete moron who takes Every Single Command from his dark pupeteers, or when he calls for a reinstatement of the Stuarts, or writes of crime in California of 2009 as though it were practically apocolyptical in nature when compared to violent crime rates in eras past... does he do his well-deserved stature credit?

    Does "the blogfather", our gracious host, do his stunning analysis, free thought, original research, awesome output and delightful evangelizing powers credit when he offers uncritically various crackpot theories as to why Obama hadn't left too loud a trail whilst at Columbia, including the uncritically stated (and appreciated in the comments there!) possibility that the trail is boringly quiet because Obama had "gone gay"? Does he seem more rational to anyone but the loons when he states in all seriousness that Sascha Baron Cohen's characters Ali G, Borat and Bruno were either consciously or McDonaldly chosen on account of Baron-Cohen's Jewish background and thus he takes vengeance on Muslims, Kazakhs/Cossacks and Austrians by mercilessly mocking them?

    My friends in the opposition (with regard to various lies regarding a plethora of racial and related matters) as we are, we can not afford lazy thinking or emotional coloring within the oevre of our seriously argued opinions. To be taken seriously by the unthinking masses, the occasionaly open-minded member of the opposition, each other and our own internal critical esteem, we need to be carefully precise in our counter-cultural judgements (as opposed to when we're clearly just blowing off steam and having fun) and publicly disassociate ourselves from the paranoics, wide-conspiracy believers and off-the-rail haters who read their prejudged opinions into every crack in the sidewalk.

    We will likely still remain generally in the opposition but we'll be a far more serious, worthy and proud group than we are now where so much of what appears in these threads (though far less than appears in the MSM's threads obviously) is clearly not based on honest, unbiased and intelligent critical thought.

    Written (tediously and without benefit of a spellchecker) on a Blackberry

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  64. What's with the sudden influx of profanity in isteve's comments? Not that it's necessarily a bad thing - I'm just wondering what caused the change.

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  65. Henry Canaday7/25/09, 3:38 AM

    Rule number 1: Do not ever antagonize anyone at an airport, airport police, security staff, airline reservation clerk, gate agent, flight attendant, baggage guy, floor sweeper, etc. These people have vastly more power over where you will spend the next 24 hours of your life than anyone you will ever meet in ordinary life. You are not getting on that plane if they do not all okay you. Save your complaints for a letter or e-mail after you are home.

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  66. The moby said: "We will likely still remain generally in the opposition..."

    Oh give it up. I'm loathe to accuse of mobyism, being accused of it myself at faux-con sites for stating fairly innocuous conservative opinions, but you're not fooling anyone here, pal.

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  67. OK, I give up. What is 'mobying'? I can sort of work it out from the context...

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  68. "OK, I give up. What is 'mobying'?"

    It puzzled me for the longest time too. Apparently the techno musician Moby, leftist even by pop music standards, advised leftists to infiltrate right wing blogs and pretend to be uber-right wing and say politically incorrect stuff that would make the right wing blogs look bad.

    Some blogs, such as Ace of Spades, take defending against mobyism a bit too far - try arguing against affirmative action or illegal immigration and they seem to genuinely believe you are a moby; the idea that people still exist that oppose either issue, at a right wing blog, is just too incomprehensible to them.

    Quite a convenient excuse for faux-cons to clamp down on conservative thought, huh?

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  69. Americans bought a pig in a poke when they elected Obama. Now it is becoming clear.

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  70. I work with college professors, & that's what Obama reminds me of (on the rare occasions I can force myself to listen to him). What professors have to say is important only to the extent that it compels the listener to think, & to investigate further. Truly, that is exactly how high in life Obama should ever have risen. We all share the misfortune of having a pompous professor lecture us from behing a White House lecturn. "Teachable moment" - yeah, get used to that.

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  71. Re President Obama's bio, it is
    a bit scary that in this matter he is not able directly and clearly
    to a p o l o g i z e. He seems
    to have an element here like that of psychopathic deviates who just
    can't admit to themselves their own vulnerabilities and specific
    stupidities. Frank Davis and Stan
    Dunham seem close at hand. Indeed,
    read the Sailer biography. Now.

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  72. "Here's a lesson for future James D. Watsons:

    When You Tell the Truth ... Don't Apologize"

    This is still only a limited Sharpton defence. What whites need to learn is the Full-Sharpton maneuver:

    When you tell the truth.....don't apologize.

    When you don't tell the truth.....don't apologize.

    If the sun is shining......don't apologize

    If the sun isn't shining.........don't apologize.

    Never apologize. Ever.

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  73. I see that officer Crowley will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Apparently he has agreed to meet with the two racists( Obama and Gates) at Obamas House, therefore giving credibility to their arguments

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  74. Ivy League Bastard7/25/09, 1:22 PM

    Excellent comment from "David" (linked blogger) above.

    I am sorry to see Gates fall this way. I don't care about Afro-American studies but I did eat a ton of *superb* catered free food courtesy of his department at Harvard while in grad school. He spend large amounts of Harvard's money feeding the hungry in the neighborhood, such as doctoral candidates.

    This is not as spectacular or even as high-profile a Harvard professorial meltdown as Marty Feldstein (economic advisor to Ronald Reagan), who was arrested for stealing manure from his farmer neighbor.

    To "Crowley" may become a verb after this incident. Whatever the merits of his detention of a raving prof Gates, Officer Crowley literally "Spoke Truth to Power" after Prez Obama weighed in.

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  75. It's OK to be a racist. America isn't quite mature enough to accept that proposition yet but these kind of incidents help.

    Certainly everyone in Europe and America in the eighteeth cenury was a racist - meaning everyone considered race to be a relevant factor. The nineteenth century Marxists said that race didn't matter, class did. To the extent that racial divisions existed they were just an illusion devised by capitalists to control the proletariat.

    Very few today actually believe in "The Labor Theory of Value" or thr "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" But Marxist race theory thrives.

    To be completely non-racist requires that you believe that knowledge of the race of the participants confers no information. That's to say - race data has a Present Value of zero. For example knowledge of the state of an honest coin - "heads" - gives you no value for your next bet.

    But if you know someone is black and you think he is more likely to be: a fast runner, a violent criminal, or a poor student - then you're clearly a racist (and clearly right). The problem is that a street cop will quickly learn that blacks are much more likey to be violent criminals. He may learn about their foot speed too.

    So the cop has knowledge that has value but he has to pretend that he doesn't. This kind of incident with Gates is helpful because it points out some of the consequents of officially believing things that just aren't true.

    Cops should be more suspicious of blacks engaging in what appears to be burglery. They should worry more about black men breaking into the house of a former spouse or girl friend.

    The safest group of potential criminal perpetrators are elderly Chinese women. The most dangerous are young, black men. This statement is indisputably true. It is a racist statemnt (also sexist and ageist).

    Profiling and prejudice are very easy to overcome. Just make the racial knowledge worthless.

    In "The Sand Pebbles' Steve McQueen says the Chinese don't have enough brains to ever understand machinery much less engineering. ("Monkey See, Monkey do") So the Chinese spent a couple generations sending their kids to MIT and Cal Tech. Bingo! No more profiling the Chinese as slow at math and science.

    Black professionals understandably get mad when the cops treat them as if they were criminals. But who should they be angry at? The cops or their fellow blacks who commit all those crimes.

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  76. Obama probably has two fears that are at the very top of his agenda.
    One is that he absolutly must control the national dialog on race. The second is that he does not want to get rolled. The Gates incident puts him in danger on both.

    Controling or setting the agenda on race allows Obama to be precieved as taking the moral high ground. Both Ricci and Crowley pulled Obama down into ward politics where he gets fies on him. It also sets up the possibility of a greater racial backlash by whites which he is probably much more aware of then most white people. Heaven help Obama if white people organize the way blacks and latinos do.

    Second, Obama does not want to lose anything at this stage of his Presidency. If his poll numbers continue to drop and he fails to get his agenda passed he will become hostage to right wing politics, something which he certainly abhors.

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  77. "He also did say he wanted to find out if there was a way of getting the press off his lawn. (Laughter.) I informed him that I can't get the press off my lawn. (Laughter.) He pointed out that my lawn is bigger than his lawn. (Laughter.)"

    That's an awful lot of laughter from what is supposed to be an "objective" and "free" press.

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  78. Roger Chaillet7/25/09, 7:38 PM

    What about the Law of Unintended Consequences?

    In this case cops will think twice about investigating break-ins, robberies and the like at the homes of known provocateurs like Professor (sic) Gates. Ditto for the leftists in New Haven who pilloried Ricci. Or they'll develop a case of "blue flu" when the call goes out for help.

    As for the crack about this country being a banana republic, yep, sure is. How else to explain Sotomayor, Holder, Gates, et al?

    Except for the fact that we don't grow bananas, and are no longer a republic.

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  79. i am the walrus said...

    Standing with the mouthy Harvard prof against the fascist Cambridge PD should earn the liberarian party a dramatic increase in black enrollement. But don't count on it.

    There's a reason for this stupidity from the libertarians: libertarianism is the communism of the 21st century.

    As for Gates, he may be a race hustler, but I can't say I have any greater respect for most of the rest of the Harvard faculty or the institution itself. Harvard should have its tax exempt status revoked, or at least its multibillion dollar trust fund should be taxed as a business.

    Really, the entire New England Eduplex should be considered a business, and should at least pay property taxes to the counties of New England.

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  80. Given the stats on blacks and crime, why not round up all blacks and put them in prison now (or at least arrest them pending a trial)? Wouldn't that be a more consistent application of some commenters' "realistic" principle that blacks are guilty until proved innocent?

    To take race out of it, perhaps we could arrange instead for every citizen - man, woman, and child -to be arrested and grilled. Imagine the nefarious activities that would be prevented thereby.

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  81. "...pulling Professor Gates out of his home to the station..."

    An apology that attempts to perpetuate a lie isn't an apology, let alone a classy one. Also, if Obama still thinks Crowley overreacted, and he doesn't think it was because of racism, then why does he think he overreacted?

    I'm amazed that people think a white cop would arrest a well-to-do black man without a good reason. Cops (especially ones who teach classes on racial profiling) have to know they're going to be accused of racism when they do so, and that can be a career killer. Were I a cop, there'd be a strong temptation to look the other way and just arrest safe white people.

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  82. "perhaps we could arrange instead for every citizen - man, woman, and child -to be arrested and grilled. Imagine the nefarious activities that would be prevented thereby."

    Well, it is logical if you think about it.

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