"Beer Diplomacy"

Ok, the absurdity of the whole Gates affair (Gatesgate?) has finally reached critical mass.

 

What we have is a police officer doing his job.  Unfortunately his job brought him to a race baiting Harvard professor who was, apparently, more than willing to turn a simple house call into a racial issue.  Too bad for him he tried to make a racial issue with a good cop.

Would the cop have acted the same way if it was a white guy in the house?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  “Sir, we received a call about a break in, can I see some ID to confirm you live here?”  Would he have asked a white guy that?  Probably.  If the white guy started berating the cop and making a scene, would he have been arrested?  Damn sure of it.  In fact, I can probably confirm that in just about 5 minutes.

 

Would Gates have acted the same way if it was a black cop at the house?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  My hunch is that it’s not only “maybe not”, but “probably not”, or even “almost certainly not”.  Too bad for him he tried to demonize a good cop.  Too bad for him that the more information that comes out of this thing, the stupider and stupider he looks.

 

And if the President had simply stopped with “I don’t have all the information in the case” and not gone on to make a value judgment about something he knew nothing about—an incorrect value judgment, at that—then we might still be talking about health care and not his (yet another radical and) racist friend.

 

So, we have this quote from an MSNBC.com article from Gates’ attorney, Charles Ogletree:

Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree, an attorney for Gates, said late Wednesday: "This will be an important opportunity for the moment to settle their dispute, but also create a springboard for a larger discussion about how law enforcement interacts with minority communities and how we can figure out a way to both enforce the law but also protect civil liberties and civil rights of our citizens."

Settle their dispute?  What dispute?  That if you impede an officer from doing his job you’re going to get arrested?  That if you dare be white and get all uppity to a high class negro, you’re going to be (wrongly) accused of being racist and the race-baiting powers that be will do everything they can to smear your reputation?  Protect civil liberties?  PROTECT CIVIL LIBERTIES?!?  This officer was doing his job, and for that Gates and those of his ilk have attempted to demonize the man, until they found out he was “one of the good ones”.  What about the cop’s civil liberties?   What about MY civil liberties?