Sorry no links. Maybe I was babbling a piece of Lincoln folklore, the part about how the mothers of sons being court martialed for desertion appealed to the president, who over the advice of his generals and cabinet, would issue a pardon.

Obama is no Lincoln but he’ll have the means to spin and decorate this story of the Great Peacemaker.

The other big loser is America. We come out of this with race relations increasingly polarized.

In a Mr. Spock sort of way, it will be fascinating to see where race relations are after Obama, but I suspect it won’t be pretty at all.

Sadly the only one set to gain by this is Gates.

Crowley is going to be gutted if he declines, gutted if he just sits/listens/agrees, and gutted if he comes away talking about how great it is. I would guess his best option is to attend and say as little as possible both during and after the meeting.

Obama has no where to go but down, he stuck his foot in his mouth and trying to convince us it tastes wonderful. No matter what happens in this meeting it is just keeping it in the public eye. Not to mention that a “success” (Crowley talking good) will be seen as a forced issue and Crowley just being silent will be seen as an abject failure. He hasn’t figured out that this doesn’t sell well outside of his church.

Gates, OTOH makes his living by pushing this type of stuff. At worst his name becomes famous and his rate for speaking engagements climbs through the roof, at best he could easily become another one of the big race baiter like Sharpton or Jackson. He only needs to speak to the believers and anything that occurs here works in his favour – “See those white guys admitted it and it all due to me!” or “See, those white guys knew what they did so badly they can not admit it, all due to me!”. He could easily get as much or more national fame than rev Wright did (and yes I intentionally refused to capitalize Rev and Church when referring to that entity).

Like many things about him I’m not sure which is better – that Obama realizes this and is making that sacrifice to get another race baiter out there or if he is just being duped by Gates. Neither one is good and frankly I think he was just duped.

Doesn’t matter if Crowley really does come home telling all how he was floored by this encounter with wisdom and goodness and rose again a new man; legends like this are in the script Obama wrote for himself years ago.

At best this meeting will be a wash. There’s a good chance, though, that will only highlight the reverse-racism at the heart of Obama’s presidency and damage his poll numbers further.

Oblio puts it colorfully and succinctly. In a perfect world Crowley might decline an invitation from the Prez, but if he has any concern for his future as a policeman in the state of Massachussetts, he’d be crazy to.

Furthermore Crowley’s superior, for the same reasons, would be crazy to let Crowley do so.

The game from here out for Crowley is to be civil without letting himself be framed into a “teaching moment” by Obama and Gates.

This game will be risky for all three hands.

A current event that is only tangentially related to a traumatic memory, taps into that memory and brings up the old feelings.

In this case police butality and profiling againt blacks is part of the African American traumatic cultural memory. This Cambridge routine police action touched that nerve and the old feelings came up, causing a stronger reaction than was appropriate.

Just a thought.