I wrote way back when that Obama’s insecurities about his identity and deference to his party’s left, in particular on “black issues,” may be his undoing. It will radicalize conservatives. And it will be out of touch with the moderates whom he must court to remain effective and get reelected.
So why might Obama say something like what’s below? It seems politically suicidal, positioning him with all the grievance mongers and scab-pickers like Al Sharpton, Sheila Jackson Lee, John Conyers, and the whole rest of that useless group of flatterers.
Could it be because he heard this kind of nonsense for 20 years and really believes it?
As when the reality of his church was revealed, Obama must again be asked and again explain: who is the real Barack Obama? Is he the postracial healer? Or is he the “race man” who is simply a more effective Jesse Jackson that aims to help his group because of group and tribal loyalty and has little interest in the country’s welfare as a whole?
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While I think it is clear that Mr. Gates is a grievance mongerer who was making an ass of himself, and while it is probably also true that there wasn’t a shred of racial animus in the arrest, we don’t really know enough about the incident to accurately make a judgement. It is very possible that the police officer made an even bigger ass of himself in somebody else’s home, and then decided to arrest Mr. Gates for disrespecting him. I am also a little confused as to why making a ruckus on your front lawn is an arrestable offense.
I would place my bets on the police officer’s side of the story, but really, who knows? I would be interested to hear what the neighbors have to say.
Read the arrest report. It’s telling.
Having spent a depressingly large chunk of my life in Cambridge, it’s possible that there may be a kernel of truth in Gates’s account, but that it has nothing to do with race. Instead, it’s possible that this may have been a simple town vs. gown situation–the cop who’s never ventured outside Middlesex and Suffolk Counties in his life gets a chance to stick it to the Harvard professor. The police officer probably neither had any idea who Gates is nor had any race-based motivation for his behavior, but saw a chance to score one for Tommy and Sully from Quinzee.
See also “How do you like dem apples?” and Alexander Pring-Wilson.