EJ Dionne is such a traitor to Truthdiggers! Imagine! The possibility that Skippy Gates might have over-reacted!

@ Purple Girl

The Left operates in Lofty, abstract concepts- The Right does not. To make this a ‘teachable moment’ we must work within the confines of their cognitive abilities.

What makes you think anybody needs to be taught anything? And I tend to think Left-Right are just words. The legitimate Left and Right are not heard by their “betters”. Over time the tendency has been to take orders from the financial sector of the economy. Main street has been starved of capital.

As to the rest of what you have to say, it is arrogant and insulting.

@ Purple Girl

Second- being “On the Job” means he was being paid TAX DOLLARS, only to waste time and $$$ with an insignificant situation. Come On Teabaggers- this is your cause,right?
Third, Gates was on his own property, something the rightwing holds dear. Always screaming about Police State whenever one of your Compounds are raided- Ruby Ridge, Waco,LDS.

For some reason the word compound has that denigratory sound to the ear. Policemen should be taught that no matter how loud and obnoxious the citizen gets, he should respect his rights. Police misconduct is an issue important to all citizens.

I consider the incidents at Ruby Ridge and Waco to be particularly heinous. At Ruby Ridge, a mother suckling her baby was shot through the face. There was no reason to suspect her as being a danger. At Waco, women and children were burned to death in order to get one man, David Koresh. What happened at Wounded Knee has similar qualities of atrociousness. These are human rights violations and I don’t see the need to segregate the cases according to whose politics I am sympathetic to.

Discussing the underlying psychological or sociological implications related to this stories is uselesss when trying to educate the far right. These folks have difficulty comprehending the abstract.
Their reality and mental abilities are limited to only the obvious and concrete.
So Right wingers, perhaps this would straighten up the controversy for you.
Sgt Crowley is an employee of the City & state. He is under the obligation to follow policies, procedures and protocols. He was on the Job so it was his duty to manage the situation to the best possible outcome.
Second- being “On the Job” means he was being paid TAX DOLLARS, only to waste time and $$$ with an insignificant situation. Come On Teabaggers- this is your cause,right?
Third, Gates was on his own property, something the rightwing holds dear. Always screaming about Police State whenever one of your Compounds are raided- Ruby Ridge, Waco,LDS.
The Left operates in Lofty, abstract concepts- The Right does not. To make this a ‘teachable moment’ we must work within the confines of their cognitive abilities.
It’s like trying to discuss the philosphical quandry of the ‘Mind/ Body’ with a 3 yr old. They know what a ‘boo boo ’ is when they feel it, but can’t picture as a potential outcome in the future because of their actions.
Rightwingers need to see and feel the ‘boo boo’- in their own interactions with the police and in their wallets.Conceptualization is beyond their cognitive abiliities. Show them the Tab for this incident, How many people want to pay for an unprofessional over reaction to a “Yo Momma” comment?

I also went back in time to a small matter of injustice when thinking about the Gates/Crowley incident.  As several writers have now pointed out this case joints at the intersection of police abuse of power, common sense when dealing with authority and civility.  I suggest those interested in examining the many facets of this story see:

Gore Vidal:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090728_america_the_great_police_state
Chaz Valenza:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/What-won-t-be-said-at-the-by-Chaz-Valenza-090729-717.html
Harvey Silvergate:
http://search.forbes.com/search/colArchiveSearch?author=harvey+a.+and+silverglate&aname=Harvey+A.+Silverglate

I might have agreed that Gates should drop it—and get on with making that documentary—however, the police department’s insistance that Crowley acted without fault as an exemplary officer, Crowley’s refusal to apologise and the national outrage at Gates’ uppity behavior and expectation of better treatment, coupled with the revelation that “most Americans” believe that this sort of arrest is to be expected, accepted, and “deserved” in this case, has led me to regret President Obama’s “ministrations” which have effectively preemptive PREVENTED the natural resolution of this unpleasant incident—which we keep being told is hardly extraordinary or uncommon, except, ironically for the presence of Mr. Gates. 

Yes, most folks sit down, shut up and move on ...

Obama calls for attention to race matter but shutting down their normal avenues of address or by claiming the podium as his alone ...  additionally, I think it’s going to backfire on Obama in ways that—left to the normal existing avenues of redress on both sides—it would not have otherwise.

The article also ignores the huge pink elephant of distributed wealth. Minorities and the white working classes are forced to one-up each other to obtain an equality of…leavings. We are fighting over the crumbs left by the One Percenters who own the lion’s share of this society. There isn’t enough for us because those rich pigs took it all for themselves.

I’d bet my life Obama NEVER brings this up during his upcoming beer clatch with Gates and Crowley.

With regard to Professor Gates and being arrested by law enforcement in his own home, it would be well if everyone other than Professor Gates could remove themselves and their issues from the situation, and see Professor Gates as nothing more than a man who was arrested by law enforcement in his own home, deal with that fact alone, and recognize that the police have been engaged in arresting people for years without cause and without regard for race, religion or national origin.

The rough shod tactics of law enforcement and a compliant and complicit judicial system that has put more American citizens in prison than China, a nation with a population of one billion more people than the USA, is what should be the legitimate dialogue that resulted from the arrest of Professor Gates in his own home, and it still should be if anything is ever going to be done about the improper criminalization and imprisonment of American citizens in the name of law and order.

Face this fact: the incident involved two people whose careers had already sensitized them in advance.  Mr. Gates specializes in analyzing and responding to race-related issues - he’s already immersed in this stuff.  Officer Crowley has spent a considerable portion of his career dealing with perpetrators which stats tell us are predominantly non-white, non-affluent. 
  In both men is surely a built-in knee-jerk propensity toward certain biases - IN SPITE OF training, personal character, and intellectual decisions. 
  The situation was one of emotion not cold logic - like Captain Kirk slamming Mr. Spock, getting him to react with his half-human emotions.

Above all, let’s pretend this fandango is only about race and class, and there is no question of the extraordinary growth of police powers in our time, so that now arresting a man in his own house because he isn’t sufficiently subservient to the police is just “a cop doing his job”.