Chris Britt for July 24, 2009

Oh please! The professor is making such a meal of this.

While I do not agree with the arrest, I do agree that the officer was otherwise taking reasonable steps to make sure things were as they should be. Just because Gates showed his ID and said this was his house isn’t any assurance that everything is okay and that the officer or Gates is out of danger.

Gates and others are making such a meal out of this and are now looking for other things to hang this officer on because they want a case of racism and if it doesn’t fall in their lap, they’ll try and make one.

Talk about shameless.

i love this country …

I think Obama had it, maybe from the cop, sit down and have a Jack Daniels if they don’t do beer.

As my father used to say -

BLLSHT ! ! BLLSHT ! ! BLLSHT ! !

It all got blown out of proportion, and both sides overdid it. Gates and the cop and Obama are going to have a beer together. I think Gates can be a jerk, but I know the Cambridge police can be jerks. They hate Harvardians.

motivemagus - everyone’s a snob at some level though, we all seem to hate snobs.

motivemagus - WOW ! ! ! you weren’t kidding about the beer at the White House.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090725/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_harvard_scholar

bleeep those police officers for doing their job!

Then the president put his foot in his mouth before he knew all the details, made him look “stupid” , those police officers don’t get paid enough, oh, hey wait, they’re not getting paid at in all in my state till a budget gets passed! thanks Rendell!

Uh-huh. A man is in his own home, breaks no law, gets arrested because the police officer doesn’t like his attitude… and freedom-loving anti-government conservatives defend the officer? What is it you guys stand for again?

Am I the only one who thinks he does not know nearly enough not to flame everyone here who disagrees with him?

I agree 4uk, we do not know enough. Neither did Obama.

Copper and Parker: From what I have read Gates was not arrested IN his home but only after he followed the policeman outside and continued his haranguing.

GN: Let’s assume that was the case. Inside or outside, he was arrested because the officer didn’t like his attitude. If he was “causing a public disturbance”, the officer could have ended it immediately by driving away. Once it was clear that no crime was committed, that’s what a professional would have done.

If conservatives believe that political correctness is a threat to their freedom of speech, they should be up in arms about this.

copper: I assume you are not that young. One quickly learns that the police, right or wrong, have the final say.

True anecdote: Last month while standing on the correct corner for a bus, along with 12 other people, a driver pulled in and in the pouring rain refused to open the door. Why? I will never know. My wife has a cane and was getting soaked. I stood in front of the bus and another passenger got a nearby policeman.

The policeman, calmly, informed me blocking the bus was illegal and I would be arrested if I did not move. He did nothing to get the bus driver to open the door. The policeman was white, I am white. I am also older and have life experience. I moved.

According to the NYT today, Gates followed the policeman outside his home and “harangued” him. Gates was deliberately trying to be provocative to prove his point about black harassment. Why should a low paid policeman be more mature than a Harvard tenured professor?

I’ve dealt with obnoxious people, and bears, in law enforcement. (“domestic disputes” are worse than obnoxious ‘individuals’, OR bears) I don’t think the officer here did “wrong”, but he could have handled it “better”. Gates definitely could have handled it better. The police were responding to a possible break in, and might have suspected “bad guys” might still be around, despite the I.D. I wasn’t there, but all the evidence still suggests that the concept of sitting down to a beer together, and maybe an apology from BOTH sides, is in order.

I work in law enforcement (though I am not an police officer). Sometimes an officer just needs to walk away. This was one of them.

I don’t disagree with the president’s comment, but I suspect he will “walk” away from commenting about such situations in the future.

nomad – pretty cool, huh? No, I wasn’t kidding! That’s a pretty impressive apology, I think.

And when I say the Cambridge cops are jerks who hate Harvardians, I’m not saying anything about whether there are Harvard snobs. I know there are. Sadly, I know many. But I also have friends who were shouted at, frisked, and otherwise harassed for no visible reason apart from being young college students in Harvard Square.

Readers interested in some relevant background to the incident might find Professor Fish’s (by the way, hardly one of my favourite commentators) recent OpEd blog at the New York Times (http://preview.tinyurl.com/n82ydm) instructive….

Henri

MHD: Fish: Hardly an unbiased source. When he was appointed dean of my school I resigned from the alumni association and have not sent in any more contributions.

Another post of yours. Look up preventive medicine and the new data that shows it doesn’t save money.

GN - Why should the policeman be more mature? Because this failure to be more mature was an abuse of power. Blocking traffic, like in your story (good on ya, btw), is a violation of the law. Telling a policeman what you think of him isn’t.

I’ll agree Gates would have had a quieter night if he had kept his mouth shut, That’s actually the point. As long as we are obeying the law, we shouldn’t have to keep our mouths shut for fear we’ll get locked up. That’s what makes a country a police state. It’s the sort of thing conservatives used to be opposed to.

Copper: Many of us have a revelry over the small town, uncomplicated, non terrorist idylls of years ago. But life and times have changed. There are people out there who will push to any limit you set including murder, rape and 9/11. To Libertarians the power of government should be limited to protecting against force or fraud.

To you, a law abiding, peaceful citizen having your free speech right to sass a policeman abridged is the equivalent of a police state. But if, to me, by ceding that right my wife and children will have less to fear for their actual physical being I gladly make that trade.

“But if, to me, by ceding that right my wife and children will have less to fear for their actual physical being I gladly make that trade.”

As a wise man once said, those who would trade liberty for security deserve and will receive neither. If you think that empowering obnoxious bullies to harass and intimidate citizens, you are a fool indeed.

It is indeed a strange philosophy that calls the organized police force of Cambridge Massachusetts “obnoxious bullies”. You may indeed be better off choosing to live in another country where the police will allow criminals to run loose. My guess is after a week you will be begging to return.

Well, until we have had any dealings with them we can not know that they are not bullies either. They are most likely much nicer that, say, the Sao Paolo SWAT team, but that does not mean they are genuinely nice and caring people.

Seriously, does it matter all that much? Probably everyone was having a bad evening and acted a little nasty to each other.

A witness called saying that someone was trying to break into a house. He claims that the door gets jammed easily and he has to use force to open it sometimes. Either the witness wasn’t a neighbor or the neighbors don’t know their neighbors.