Welcome to Gates-gate
When I first saw the headlines about Gates being arrested, I thought to myself, “How in the world did the Secretary of Defense get arrested?” No, not that Gates. Henry Louis Gates, of Harvard. I read the WSJ’s first write-up of the story and thought to myself, “Please let this be a one-day story. Please, don’t let this become a pointless racial brouhaha.”
IMHO, if there are going to be a whole bunch of headlines about Gates, and there are wars going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, then those headlines should be about Robert Gates. But since they aren’t, let me wade into this quagmire on the homefront.
One fact that jumps out at me right from the beginning is the background of the arresting officer, Sgt. James Crowley. As the AP tells it:
Cambridge Sgt. James Crowley has taught a class about racial profiling for five years at the Lowell Police Academy after being hand-picked for the job by former police Commissioner Ronny Watson, who is black, said Academy Director Thomas Fleming.“I have nothing but the highest respect for him as a police officer. He is very professional and he is a good role model for the young recruits in the police academy,” Fleming told The Associated Press on Thursday.
This would be a totally different story if Crowley didn’t have that kind of background to draw on. If he could be pigeonholed as a generic cop, this would become a story about all police officers and all the problems they have.
I’m guessing President Obama might have been more restrained at Wednesday’s news conference if he knew about Crowley’s background. Aside from Obama’s comments about the police “act[ing] stupidly”, what surprises me most about what he said is simply its length — 441 words, according to my MS Word Counter. Why give this story legs? It is a distraction from Obama’s real priorities, like health care.
[Kathy gives Obama credit for providing a direct and detailed answer to the question he was asked. But that was a choice. Like all presidents, Obama knows exactly how to avoid a question and he does so quite often.]
One final question for this post: Why did this have to become a news story in the first place? Best I can tell, four days went by between Gates’ arrest and the first stories about the events. I wish that Prof. Gates and the Cambridge police could’ve resolved this issue before it became a national story.
Cross-posted at Conventional Folly
2 Responses to “Welcome to Gates-gate”
It became a national news story when Obama went into a rant about it at his presser.
Up till now, Obama has tread carefully on the issue of race. But Obama chose to make an issue of this incident, even though he admitted he didn't have all the facts. Then he segued into a totally inappropriate discussion of racial profiling, painting by implication a (false) picture in which a white cop had racially profiled a black professor.
The national issue isn't what happened to Gates (that's a local issue). The national issue is Obama inventing a racial issue without any evidence that a racial issue existed.
If Obama is perceived to be like Al Sharpton–racially inflammatory–his Presidency will be over before it began. Mopst white folks regard Sharpton as a thug, and they don't want a Sharpton type as POTUS.
GATESGATE-
Yeah, I coined this phrase on this blog days ago.
I agree with you, that had Crowley been a cop of any lesser repute, he would have been crushed. Gates would have had his pound of flesh and millions of cops nation wide would find their job even more difficult.
As for the time delay, maybe the good professor's statement that he was going to, “End racial profiling with this incident”…or something to that effect, had something to do with the media's delayed reaction. Maybe Gates called a friend in the media? I'm sure he knows many.
IMO, Gates is a prime example that if you give a History/English/Social Studies teacher to many honorary legal degrees he starts to believe he actually understands law. A legend in his own mind.
Laudations bestowed upon Gates should stop before he blows up the earth.