I understand that with a voice like that of President Obama on his side, Dr. Henry Louis Gates doesn't need the voice of a lowly conservative on his side, but he's going to get it. I understand exactly where Dr. Gates and his defenders are coming from, because I have been there. As a black man in the South, I have been pulled over by the police simply for driving through the "wrong" town at night after work, had the officers block me in like I was a bank robber, approach my car with guns drawn, and all to inform me that my tags had just expired. And this with my wife and toddler son in the car. My mother was pulled over in the same town coming from another town where she had been visiting her boyfriend and his mother, with the cops demanding to know where she was coming from and where she was headed. In addition, my father was once pulled over by a state trooper on a lonely stretch of NC 64 between Morganton and his hometown, was insulted with a racial epithet, and wasn't even given a ticket! I had a friend who was harassed constantly by the police in my former hometown, mainly because he was Lebanese.

However, with all that said, I still have great respect for the police and the job they have to do. Moreover, in all reality, I would in no way try to defend Dr. Gates, because even if the police overreacted...which I don't think they did...he was out of line in the way he acted. A neighbor of Dr. Gates who saw what she believed were two people trying to break into the Gates home, which apparently had been vandalized recently, called the police. The police responded to the scene, found two men in the residence, attempted to ascertain who the people were, and were responded to by a belligerent man who refused to produce any identification to prove that he lived in the home. What were the police supposed to do in that instance? Take it on faith that the unidentified man actually lived there, simply because he said so?

The completely dramatic episode could have been avoided if Dr. Gates had handed over some identification, instead of trying to threaten the police officer by claiming to want to contact the chief of police, or by using the time he spent braying about how poorly black men are treated in America in showing them that he actually lived there. If Dr. Gates had acted like a professional, instead of like a professional victim and accusing the police officers on the scene racists, there would have been no problem at all. All that Dr. Gates had to do was something like this: "Officer, I live here. Here is my driver's license, with my home address; I was just having some trouble with the locks on the front door and allowed my frustrations to boil over a little bit. But I would like to thank you for your quick response to the scene, and appreciate the fact that the police are on the job." Would that have been so hard to do? Instead we get baseless accusations of racism, of racial profiling, and demands that the officer apologize for doing his job!

Personally, I think that Dr. Gates and bigmouthed Obama owe an apology to the officers involved for accusing them of racism, and to the entire police department for saying they acted "stupidly". Moreover, black folks in general should distance themselves from this foolish conversation, because it accomplishes nothing in the end. No one was racially profiled, no one in uniform did anything untoward, and none of the officers reacted in an unprofessional manner. They did what we claim we want the cops to do; they responded to a possible B&E with no idea of who lived there, showed no favoritism, and attempted to protect the rights and property of the person who lived in the home. Unfortunately, the person who lived there acted like a jerk and caused a public uproar, when none of the drama was needed.

As for the stories that I related in the opening paragraph, they were all true. However, even with that said, I never held those actions against the entire police forces...just the people involved. The same police force that pulled my mother over, and harassed my Lebanese friend also responded quickly to my sister's home when she needed them, and acted in a very professional manner. In addition, the same highway patrol that treated my father so badly has officers that have allowed me and my late brother skate on several speeding offenses with warnings when tickets were really in order. The actions of a few bad officers do not taint the entire profession, and the totally professional attitude of the officers in the Gates case are what we should want in police officers; namely, men and women who enforce the laws without any respect to persons, professions, race, color, creed, religion, or socioeconomic status. The police have nothing to be ashamed of, or sorry for; the embarrassment should fall on Dr. Gates and the clueless Obama, for respectively accusing good officers of racism and impugning the reputation of an entire police force...simply for attempting to enforce the law. Shame on the race baiting Dr. Henry Louis Gates, and shame on the clueless buttinski President Obama.

As  a follow-up to an article I wrote about the granting of Miranda rights to terrorists captured in Afghanistan, I would like to point you to a series of articles by Andrew McCarthy at National Review. The first two are up already, with the first exploring the history of the Miranda decision and other related decisions, with the second dealing with some of the ramifications of that Obama decision to mirandize high value detainees and the threat to national security that is inherent in it. If you don't have the address for National Review there is a link to the site on the blog roll. This is a great read and very informative, and I highly recommend it to all readers at the Spade.