print“It was a goodly slice of humble pie the president ate there, but it was a class act. To ask more would be churlish”: The intellectually honest Pat Buchanan on the manner in which “Obama [had] picked up the phone, called Crowley, regretted his choice of words about him and the Cambridge P.D., walked into the press room and told the nation Crowley was a ‘good guy,’ he himself had misspoken, that he and the sergeant had talked about getting together for a beer.”
“…if Obama’s racial reflexes served him badly Wednesday night, his political instincts served him well him on Friday. For he must have sensed that this confrontation was shaping up as three powerful black men coming down hard on a white cop with a stellar record who had only done his conscientious duty. …
The president’s decision to go before the White House press corps also suggests Obama is acutely aware of the political peril here.
For while his black support is rock solid, his white support is soft. And Americans will usually side with an Irish cop over a Harvard don, especially when the professor is pulling rank and the cop is right.
“‘This isn’t about me,’ says Gates. Sorry, professor, it is about you. You have shown the country why William F. Buckley won laughter all over America when he wittily observed that, rather than be governed by the Harvard faculty, he would prefer to be governed by the first 300 names in the Cambridge telephone directory.”
Update (July 31): Understand distinctions, please. To point out that the manner in which Obama handled his error was classy is not to support the man and his wicked ideology, or the visceral, revealing, racist reaction from which he backed down. Pat’s intellectual honesty, which, I hope I exhibit regularly too, is to commend the president on being diplomatic, backing down and, yes: humbling himself. Think objectively you GOPers out there: Bush, a rude impudent bastard, would never have mustered the good manners and humility to do as Obama has done.
That Obama operates from Gates’ mindset is so obvious. I’ve written enough on his racism, prior to his election, while Bill O’Reilly et al. never so much as touched the topic. But to say that Obama’s mama taught him better manners than did Bush’s mom is true too.
As an academic whose subject is “black studies”, Professor Gates has a strong interest in fostering racial paranoia, as has the “post racial” president. Both would be out of their jobs if race really ceased to be an issue. Obama’s attempt at bolting the door after the horse has run away it embarrassing, to say the least.
It looked to me like a way to appear to apologize without apologizing. It left me unsatisfied with regard to the bare truth I saw — the president is a racist.
No bedrock principle of governance was revealed here. Just an accidental confession and then an equivocation to putty over it without denying the premise that was revealed.
The beer-drinking might ride the president through his little image crisis, but the underlying truth that we glimpsed is ominous. If we are lucky, the only visible effect of this little episode might be more complaints that cops don’t respond to burglary reports in black neighborhoods until after the perpetrators are long gone. If we are unlucky, we may get to see the reaction of the entitlement class when even printed money can’t satisfy them. After all, they’ve just been empowered by the president to treat local law enforcement as the enemy.
Maybe the first 300 names from any phone book in Texas, except Austin’s, of course. I’d prefer not to be governed by anyone from Massachusetts. There must be something fundamentally wrong with people who have returned Ted Kennedy to the Senate for more than 40 years.
By the way, here’s a link to a better version of the Chris Rock video, “How To Not Get Your Ass Kicked By The Police.”
Sgt. Crowley, together with his black partner and his Hispanic partner work for a black supervisor in a city with a black mayor in a state with a black governor in a country with a black president which PROVES what an evil racist country we live in! Crowley should be admired for having ironclad testicles to stand up to the Big Man – most mortals would grovel and weep after finding whom they “was messin’ with”.
From a legalistic point of view, Crowley should uphold higher standards than would be expected from a racially paranoid, pompous, self-important, Harvard Professor of African-American studies. While Crowley should not kow-tow to Obama, he should have turned off his hearing while Gates was doing the “yo mama” diatribe rather than sinking to Gates’ level and try to one-up the fool. A good civil liberty law summary comes from Harvey Silvergate:
http://www.forbes.com/…/gates-crowley-arrest-first-amendment-free-speech-harvard-opinions-contributors-harvey-a-silverglate.html
Almost arrested in 2000 at an airport, I calmed down since I lack the “disadvantage” of Gates. Getting into a stupidity match with cops and TSA is my main fear of flying – I’m far more likely to be arrested for attempting to smuggle yogurt onto an airplane than being blown up.
Not so fast. Compare the photos:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/07/obamas_revealing_body_language.html
For all his faults, Bush is far more the gentleman than Obama the pompous.
I’ll never forget the countless hours Bush and his wife spent walking among and embracing the victims of 9-11.
If asked to have a beer with either man, I’d refuse Obama and gladly drink with Bush.
I used to be annoyed,
in fact, paranoid.
But then I found it best
if enemies I made less.
This lesson do I give,
to the country where I live
the US
“Americans will usually side with an Irish cop over a Harvard don, especially when the professor is pulling rank and the cop is right.”
Maybe so … but what the hell does that have to do with this situation?
The instant Sgt. Crowley had determined to a reasonable degree of confidence that no crime had been committed, was in the course of being committed, or was about to be committed — which was apparently about 30 seconds after he arrived on the scene — and then did anything other that politely take his leave, he was in the wrong. And he stayed in the wrong.
Reply to Thomas Knapp: As a “cop”, Crowley was wrong to arrest Gates for being a jerk in his own home. Where Crowley may have been correct was to not “apologize” for being a “typical white racist”. The cop who screamed at me at BWI Airport and then ticketed my wife for trying to pull over to get me my luggage was a complete psychotic jackass but not motivated by “racism”. Crowley seems to be a good cop without the good sense to back down when confronted by a jerk.