I have to agree with those commentators who have opined that the clear winner in last night's so-called "Beer Summit" was Sgt. James Crowley. He has maintained a level of dignity, decorum and self-control throughout this whole episode that is truly reassuring. He has stayed within himself, he has not over-reached or over-spoken or over-reacted. He is the epitome of cool calm.
And he is quite resistant to beer pressure, even when it comes from the most popular man in the world.
Sergeant James Crowley is in the White House as I write, dispatched there by the occupant of the Oval Office. The good sergeant will be joined by the man he arrested, Henry Louis Gates Jr.; both men will have beers with Mr. Obama.
Of course, this all strikes me as an incredible teachable moment -- in propaganda.
The facts of this entire story are rather plain, at least to me, and the great social ills allegedly highlighted by the arrest of Mr. Gates in Cambridge, Massachusetts have nothing to do with what is truly important. Racial profiling, racial tension, bigotry, systemic or institutionalized racism; whatever it is called, what brings these three men together -- alleged differences -- are all distractions. Red-herrings. The facts are not relevant; the story is not the story.
What is at issue here is simple.
What is the story is perfectly obvious.
The only thing that matters is that Barack Obama abused his power and his office to protect a friend, to insinuate racism where there was none, to denigrate a police department, to obfuscate the legal basis for his friend's arrest, and to refuse to accept responsibility for his reckless and shameful actions. This is a story about a president who behaved foolishly, without regard for law or decorum; who acted prejudiciously and arrogantly; who forsook his responsibility as chief law enforcement officer of the land. And he did this after admitting he did not have all the facts about the Cambridge affair.
What offends us most about racism? Is it that racism is based on superficiality? Is it that racism is the result of irrational prejudice? Indeed, this IS what offends us most: it is an unthinking, unreflective, loveless act of pre-judgment -- of prejudice -- based solely in surfaces. We loathe shallowness. (Oscar Wilde's epigram comes to mind -- "The supreme vice is shallowness.")
Many people have focused all their attention on the prejudice of Sgt. Crowley, that he pre-judged someone solely because he was black. Others have focused their attention on the prejudice of Mr. Gates, that he pre-judged a white policeman for talking to a black man.
But no one seems to care that the evidence for the prejudice of either Sgt. Crowley or Mr. Gates is rather scant and that the evidence for the prejudice of Mr. Obama is absolutely undeniable. Mr. Obama pre-judged an entire police department. He pre-judged how that department "acted" and why it acted the way it did. And this he did by his own admission on primetime TV before the press corps and the world.
Where is the outrage at Mr. Obama's obvious prejudice? Where is the outrage at his obvious abuse of power? Where is the outrage at his arrogance? Where is the outrage at his using his office to protect a friend and abuse a law enforcement agency? Where is the outrage at his obfuscation of law? Where's the outrage at his undeniable shallowness?
Here's hoping Sgt. Crowley will not allow himself to become a propaganda tool. Here's hoping that he will not be peer-pressured, or beer-pressured, into protecting Barack Obama's image. Here's hoping that he will stick to his convictions, defend his integrity, and uphold the laws he daily defends. Here's hoping that he is not swayed by star-power, or celebrity. That he is not swayed by craft or cunning. That he will not take one for the team, the Obama brand.
Here's hoping that he recognizes prejudice and speaks to it directly.
Barack Obama, the US Commander in Chief, chose cowardice today in his back-pedaling statements on the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates. Mr. Obama did not manifest any of the manly qualities one expects of a commander, nor did he show any of the courage common to the average police officer. Refusing to apologize, the unrepentant commander chose instead more obfuscation, and more hair-splitting, mind-numbing rhetoric. What we get is a person who believes, at best, that he "could have calibrated" his language "differently." (Please note that he says he could have, not should have.) What we are left with is a man safe-guarding his pride, his apparent infallibility and popularity; the very keys to his power.
Somehow, Barack Obama expects us to reconcile his contradictory statements:
Proposition 1: "...the Cambridge police acted stupidly..." (July 22) Proposition 2: "It doesn't make sense, with all the problems we have, with all the problems we have out there, to arrest a guy in his own home if he is not causing a serious disturbance." (July 23) Proposition 3: "I want to make clear that in my choice of words, I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge police department and Sergeant Crowley, specifically." (July 24) [bold added for emphasis]
I am sorry, but Mr. Obama is lying. Of course he meant to malign the Cambridge police in general and Sgt. James Crowley specifically. How do we know this? Perhaps because he maligned the sergeant and the Cambridge police department in his statement of "regret" offered today:
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, Professor Gates probably overreacted as well. [bold added for emphasis]
Note the language! Note what this man thinks! He continues to believe "that there WAS an overreaction in pulling Professor Gates out of his house" (professor Gates was NOT PULLED); this is a statement of fact presented by Mr. Obama. But then he offers -- again, abusing his power in order to protect his friend -- a statement of probability: "I believe... that Professor Gates PROBABLY overreacted as well."
This is not a man of principle. This is no leader. This is despotic and reckless: this is a man protecting his self-image, i.e., his power, who is also protecting his friend. In other words, and I can't say this enough, this is another ABUSE OF POWER.
And then this coward -- sorry! -- tosses a red-herring into the whole debacle:
The fact that this has become such a big issue is indicative of the fact that race is still a troubling aspect of society. Whether I were black or white I think me commenting on this and hopefully contributing to something constructive — as opposed to negative — is part of my portfolio.
Ah, hah! So this is not about his ABSURD, RECKLESS comments; this is not about his abuse of power, or his abuse of the office of president, or that he is using his presidency to protect a friend! No, no. All of us who are reacting to his despotic, arrogant, self-aggrandizing abuse of the Oval Office are really struggling with race!
Such a dire, desperate lie has probably never before been uttered by a president. This man clearly and undeniably made a huge blunder; he has shown he is either incompetent in handling the law or he is equivocating about the law in some effort to draw all power unto himself. But instead of taking RESPONSIBILITY LIKE A MAN, he sloughs it all off onto us, onto America. It's America's fault, for we are still struggling, mired in racial division and all he did was highlight that divide. This is a "teachable" moment, and his pedagogy is just part of his "portfolio."
What crap!
Shame on this man!
Let me say this WITHOUT ambiguity or equivocation: The issue at hand HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH RACE! NOTHING!
And what is that issue? It is that the president of the United States has purposely abused his office and power to protect a friend and besmirch an entire police force. For this he should -- and must -- resign.
(And this is not the ONLY issue at work here. But that will have to wait for another day.)
For those of you who are outside New England or are unfamiliar with the controversy around the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. by Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge, MA police department, please let me state the obvious: This story is going "nuclear." By this I mean that it is expanding quickly and exponentially. This is no flash-in-the-pan kind of story. This is a story that reaches to the very heights of America. And as more information comes forth, the recent remarks made by Barack Obama -- remarks that were apparently premeditated -- that "the Cambridge police acted stupidly," may not only define his presidency, they may end it (and I believe they should end it). Call it whatever you wish. Call it a "tipping point." Call it his "Waterloo." Call it Gates-gate. Whatever it is named, it reveals two important things: It reveals an abuse of power by Barack Obama, and it reveals that he lacks competence and/or integrity. But before delving into these bold assertions, a relevant aside might prove helpful.
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GETTING UP TO SPEED
If readers have not closely followed this story, they should, because this is history in the making. Real history.
First, this tidbit reported by the Associated Press (also reported here) is nearly too good to be true:
"Cambridge Sgt. James Crowley has taught a class on 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."
Readers should know by now that Mr. Gates, who is apparently rather famous, is a professor at Harvard University and is touted as something of an authority on race relations. Forgive this writer's undue lack of deference. All I can say is that I had not ever heard of Mr. Gates until this week. I cannot vouch for his credentials, though I will admit that, on paper, he is surely a qualified academic. But there is something richly ironic in the fact that the policeman Mr. Gates accuses of being a racist, is himself something of an authority on race relations, particularly on how race plays out in law enforcement.
It seems quite safe to say that Mr. Obama, who admitted before calling Sgt. Gates stupid that he did not know the facts, was profoundly ignorant of the amazing fact that Sgt. Gates is considered a specialist in racial profiling.
Another important thing is to hear what NPR's Juan Williams, a left-leaning black journalist who moonlights on Fox News, said about Mr. Obama's unarguably reckless remarks. Check out Mr. Williams in this video:
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MR. OBAMA'S FALL
Please note the one thing Juan Williams highlighted about Barack Obama's remarks. He highlighted that Mr. Obama was trying to sell a plan to sweepingly reform health care in America, and yet, in a senseless incident, shifted attention from that important topic to something not only irrelevant to health care, but to something incendiary, controversial, and divisive.
In fact, the Obama mistake seems so foolish as to suggest that Mr. Obama's advisors led him to commit political suicide before the entire country; it was as if they intentionally set out to make him look the fool. What, pray tell, was he thinking?
Here are a few of things to understand.
First, Barack Obama is, as president of the United States, ostensibly the chief law enforcement officer of the land. It was to this post he was elected; people expected him to enforce the laws that keep the peace in America. He was NOT elected to serve as Race-Relations Expert-in-Chief. In fact, his position is to be race-neutral in a very real sense, as he is the incarnation of the body politic: he represents us ALL.
Second, since Mr. Obama's first statement on this issue was to say that "Skip Gates" is a "friend," and that as a result, he might be "biased," it behooves us to note that Mr. Obama failed to add that, as chief law enforcement officer of the land, and as the figurehead of a democracy who was, at that moment, speaking as PRESIDENT of the United States, he is also and PRIMARILY the "friend" of all law enforcement officers in the country. Hence, he should have at best recused himself completely; at worst, he should have said that he would withhold judgment until he KNEW ALL THE FACTS. But he had already admitted he was ignorant of the facts; the sophomoric summary of the facts he presented proved that the facts he thought he knew were utterly fantastic and invented.
Hence, Barack Obama ABUSED HIS OFFICE, he abused his POWER, by throwing the power of the presidency into the assertion that the Cambridge police "acted stupidly," and Mr. Obama did this in order to protect his friend, Henry Gates. Mr. Obama assumed a privilege of clairvoyance and understanding he believed his office gave to him intrinsically; he believed that, despite his ignorance of the facts, he could nonetheless conclude that the Cambridge police were stupid.
Third, Mr. Obama DOES NOT UNDERSTAND simple law regarding disorderly conduct. Either that, or he lacks the integrity to admit that he made a huge mistake in prime time. Even today, Mr. Obama continues to conflate the breaking and entering report with disorderly conduct. He seems to think that, because Mr. Gates proved he was rightfully in his own home and he rightfully broke into his own domicile, the Cambridge police had no business arresting him for disorderly conduct. This idiocy on Mr. Obama's part is doing him no favors; it is only compounding his problem. What is also compounding his problem is that his spokesman yesterday said that his remark that the police "acted stupidly" did not mean he was calling the arresting officer "stupid."
All this shows a man -- arrogant to no end -- clinging to power by saying whatever the hell he feels like saying. Mr. Obama either clearly DOES NOT understand law, or he does. If he doesn't, he has no right being in the White House (nor should he have ever been editor of the Harvard Law Review). But if he does understand the law, then Mr. Obama is being dishonest: he is manipulating language in order to save his position. But if this is the case, then the man lacks integrity. He is a deceiver, a charlatan, an equivocating con man.
Without question Mr. Obama has backed himself into a corner. What are his options? Can he say he made a mistake, that what he said was stupid? I doubt it. Can he continue to equivocate? Can he continue to conflate basic trespassing or illegal entry with disorderly conduct; can he continue to act surprised that a man "with a cane" could be arrested for disorderly conduct even after proving he was in his own home? No, he can't. There is no out for this man, is there?
Bottom line: This was, and continues to be, an abuse of power on the part of Barack Obama. He will do as he wishes; he will speak as he sees fit, and to hell with the consequences. Because he is president, he will pronounce judgments from his bully, thuggish pulpit against a police officer in order to protect a "friend." And he will make those judgments even if he -- by his own admission -- does not know all the facts.
For this, and for his inability to square with America and the nation's police, Barack Obama should immediately resign.
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A BRUTAL IRONY
Recall with me that the first people in America to deny that Barack Obama was authentically black, were black intellectuals. Mr. Obama's credentials as a true African-American were called into doubt precisely because his narrative did not include one essential ingredient, namely, that he was a descendant of African-American slaves. In fact, Mr. Obama himself admitted his struggles with black identity; he "chose" to self-define as black despite the fact that his story was not typical at all. Nevertheless, as time passed and he gained political advantage, his critics pulled away from their claim that he would not be the first black president. His critics became his supporters.
Henry Louis Gates is, without doubt, a black intellectual. Since he is a "friend" of the president, I doubt he ever dismissed Barack Obama as inauthentic. However, what is amazing is that this lofty professor, this Harvard intellectual who was trained at some of the world's finest schools; this expert on race relations in America, may have, in his petulant temper tantrum wherein he played the race card, fatally damaged the presidency of the "first black president in US history."
Wall Street Journal on-line columnist James Taranto, whose work consistently impresses me, was so incredibly wrong in his analysis of most of the Gates/Crowley/Obama story that he may have lost my adoration. Here is what Mr. Taranto wrote yesterday:
As he is the first president who is black, Obama’s views on a subject involving race relations were bound to be of interest and to carry considerable weight. And Obama evidently did have a strong interest in the matter.
Because this was ESSENTIALLY a legal and not a racial matter; because Mr. Obama is the chief law enforcement officer of the land; because Mr. Obama was not elected to weigh in on matters of race; because Mr. Obama chose loyalty to a black friend over his duty as guardian of law; Mr. Obama's words on the matter should not have carried any weight in matters of race. NONE.
But because Mr. Obama is convinced he is bolstered by millions of people who think like Mr. Taranto, he believed his skin color -- and his POWER as president -- entitled him to speak with reckless abandon.
This all may become the most ironic moment in presidential history. And we witnessed it.
