But let’s be honest: this is all about a black guy getting on the side of another black guy who got crosswise with the cops. Why would he touch such a powder keg? Like it’s going to ignite at least one more battle in the late lamented Culture War.

This is why I don’t read that blog.
A “culture war”.
Heavens! Isn’t that a phrase wingnuts like to use? Is it constructive to use their framing?
“late and lamented?”
WTF? Is this about wearing acid wash jeans v. not wearing acid wash?
“Why would he touch such a powder keg?”
Because due to our long sad American history, it already is a “powder keg.” If Obama were to ignore it, the problem would still exist. It doesn’t matter whether there is evidence of racial profiling. It became a civil rights issue the moment it hit the press. And the “guy” isn’t just a “guy”. He’s a Harvard professor, i.e. academia plus civil rights.
Think, think of a history and a time and a place where it didn’t matter if a person of color held a PHd or not; that person could still be arrested for walking down the same side of the street as a white woman. Collective memory, history touches off a nerve. So having a beer with the Prof. is much wiser than feigning ignorance.

They still could still do something worthwhile. There are many people who will listen to Prof. Gates but not Sgt. Crowley. The reverse is also true. Maybe they could find some general principles they agree with that would help both the public and Police.

One potential place for ideas on common ground comes from a unlikely source. The ACLU has a “bust card” you can print out and keep in your wallet. It is on the ACLU racial profiling page. It is called “Know Your Rights: What to do if you’re stopped by the Police”. It tells what your rights are (including courteous and respectful Police treatment). What you should not do, and what and when to do something if your rights are violated.

Here’s the “ACLU bust card” link

the problem in our society today is that things get turned upside down routinely. what should be done does not get done; what should never be done gets condoned.

the gates case is a case where a citizen was treated unjustly by a police officer.

perverse result: the police officer becomes some sort of victim and the (wrongly) arrested citizen becomes irrelevant to the discussion of the issue.

justice has not only not been done, but has been prospectively undone.

the summary of what actually happened is :

crowley arrests gates, misusing his peace powers to do so. the prez says crowley’s behavior is “stupid”. shortly, the media response reports crowley’s and generally police “distress” at being so reprimanded. subsequently, our prez hurries to say he supports crowley, indicating he “understands” police behavior in general.

subsequently, obvious questions to the sarge such as:

- “why did you write in your report that there were two black men with back packs trying to enter the house when neither blacks nor backpacks had ever been mentioned to you or to the dispatcher?

and

- why did you say to the dispatcher “keep the cars coming”? for what were they supposed to “keep coming”?

are not asked by the media.

so where are we ?

well, an serious injustice was done prof gates.

but,

there will likely be no accounting for the police behavior, including crowley’s misbehavior.

obama, of course, could have asked for a justice dept investigation into civil rights abuses.

instead he asked the guys to join him for a beer.

remember,

this is the prez who represented himself as representing a very poor section of chicago society,

but

who never seems to have been able to bring himself to make waves, as saul alinsky would have done, in order to assist that down and out section of chicago citizenry.

WTF were the drinkin’/smokin’ ? Clockwise they sat Obama, Biden, Gates & Crowley … the MSM is just so used to reporting the opposite of reality !

I am in agreement with the overreaction on Sgt. Crowley’s part, but with the information that he has, it could have been a hostage scenario, or the kind of robbery we have here a lot where older people are followed to their door and pushed inside and robbed. How does he clear that up before he leaves?

i have been working all day, but this matter has been eating at me all day, too. i can’t get it out of my mind; the sense of injustice done on mul;tiple fronts is too strong,

i have gone back and forth about what to say here and how severely. coming here in the evening i find that bmaz has concisely articulated my feelings, though a great deal more politely than i would have:

bmaz wrote:

[ bmaz July 30th, 2009 at 4:21 pm 73

In response to KayInMaine @ 72 (show text)

Obama has comported himself disgracefully in this matter, and this “beer summit” is an asinine dog and pony show of the highest order. Not to mention, the real “teaching moment” is at root the abuse of police power and false arrest, not race.]

that’s the nub – abuse of police power.

in my view, use of police power granted to crowley for the purpose of protecting society used instead by crowley for his personal benefit – to subjugate and humiliate gates.

this is entirely analogous to the serge taking out the metal screen between the front and back seats of his cruiser, loading in the family, the family in that cruiser, and heading down to washington for a week of family sightseeing.

so what’s the score after all this hooha?

the real culprit – abuse of police powers for personal benefit -

is still at large.

not only that,

but the prez’s pointless intervention may prove instrumental in helping sgt crowley avoid a lawsuit that would have cost his department and himself a bundle and put the rest of the constabulary on notice about making “personal” extensions of their policing powers.

thanks to our soft, soft prez, that lawsuit is now much less likely to happen.

And @86 – thanks for responding, I was curious. Yeah, but the cops were covering their ass as much as they could in the report and that isn’t there. Also, the interview of Whalen I saw seemed pretty clear that neither she not the other lady had substantive contact with Crowley or anyone else from the PD it seemed.