Mark Steyn takes on Gatesgate

The New Neo Posted on by

Mark Steyn has a few choice words about Obama and Gates:

The president of the United States may be reluctant to condemn Ayatollah Khamenei or Hugo Ché¡vez or that guy in Honduras without examining all the nuances and footnotes, but sometimes there are outrages so heinous that even the famously nuanced must step up to the plate and speak truth to power. And thank God the leader of the free world had the guts to stand up and speak truth to municipal police Sgt. James Crowley…

Professor Gates seems to go around with his Prejudometer permanently cranked up to 11: When Sgt. Crowley announced through the glass-paneled front door that he was here to investigate a break-in, Gates opened it up and roared back: “Why? Because I’m a black man in America?”

Gates then told him, “I’ll speak with your mama outside.” Outside, Sgt. Crowley’s mama failed to show. But among his colleagues were a black officer and a Hispanic officer. Which is an odd kind of posse for what the Rev. Al Sharpton calls, inevitably, “the highest example of racial profiling I have seen.” But what of our post-racial president? After noting that “‘Skip’ Gates is a friend” of his, President Obama said that “there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately.” But, if they’re being “disproportionately” stopped by African American and Latino cops, does that really fall under the category of systemic racism? Short of dispatching one of those Uighur Muslims from China recently liberated from Gitmo by Obama to frolic and gambol on the beaches of Bermuda, the assembled officers were a veritable rainbow coalition. The photograph of the arrest shows a bullet-headed black cop ”“ Sgt. Leon Lashley, I believe ”“ standing in front of the porch while behind him a handcuffed Gates yells accusations of racism. This is the pitiful state the Bull Connors of the 21st century are reduced to, forced to take along a squad recruited from the nearest Benetton ad when they go out to whup some uppity Negro boy.

Read the whole thing.

Obama and Gates and Crowley: dialogue and construction and racial profiling

The New Neo Posted on by

Now we hear that Obama is going to get Gates and Crowley together for a White House chat. It’s an opportunity for a nice teaching moment about racial profiling, too, with Gates saying that “…he hoped his arrest by Crowley leads to greater sensitivity on racial profiling and that it was time to ‘move on.'”

Yes, let’s. Only trouble is, this case had nothing to do with racial profiling by Crowley. That’s the “construction” Gates put on it from the start—and after all, construction is his specialty, as is identity politics:

As a literary theorist and critic…Gates has combined literary techniques of deconstruction with native African literary traditions; he draws on structuralism, post-structuralism, and semiotics to textual analysis and matters of identity politics.

So I doubt Gates will be listening when I say the following:

Racial profiling occurs when police use racial criteria to target and/or stop suspects. Gates was a suspect because a witness had seen him break into a house, not because of his race, and he should have welcomed and thanked Officer Crowley for being so quick to respond to a possible break-in, instead of immediately using racial profiling to scream at Crowley and call him a racist for doing his duty. And if Gates had then “moved on,” as he should have, Crowley would have done so as well.

And then President Obama compounded the error by saying the police acted “stupidly” in the matter. That adverb should have been reserved for Gates, and then for Obama, who both demonstrated racial profiling themselves. Therefore whatever “greater sensitivity to racial profiling” is needed, it’s on the part of Obama and Gates rather than Crowley or the Cambridge police department.

But don’t sit on a hot stove till the press—or Obama or Gates—sees it that way. And now, can’t we all just get along?

[ADDENDUM: A previous post of mine on racial profiling—albeit in a different context—is here.]

[ADDENDUM II: And this non-PC joke by commenter gcotharn is quite on target:

Our nation will take a step forward when we reject PC and make jokes about BAPs, i.e.

How many Black American Princesses does it take to change a light bulb?

Nine.

One to change the light bulb. One to scream out “racist society” to the neighbors. One to berate the black police officer on the scene. One to berate the Hispanic Police Officer on the scene. One to call the (black) Mayor. One to call the (black) Governor. One to call the (black) President. One to begin booking the talk shows. One to start production on the documentary film.

It’s a joke, but embedded within it is a serious observation: here we have a black Harvard professor quick to cry “racism” about a group of police officers of mixed racial background, in a city with a black mayor, in a state with a black governor, in a country with a black President.]

Obama on Afghanistan: victory is a four-letter word

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve got a post up at American Thinker on the topic of Obama’s distate at the notion of “victory” in Afghanistan, and American “victory” in general.

Feel free to join in the comments section there and/or here, as you wish.

After you read the piece, though, please come back here and read the following addendum. Space constraints prevented me from adding it to the original article:

For those interested, here’s a more complete account of the signing at the Japanese surrender. The Japanese dignitaries who signed did so in the name of the Emperor, who was not present. But although MacArthur presided, the US was hardly the only country to whom the Japanese surrendered—remember, we fought as one of the Allies, albeit a very important one.

Note, also, the symbolic presence at the signing ceremony of the flag commemorating Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor that marked our entry into the war against that country. How much does Obama, a Hawaiian, even know of the sneak attack on the base at his own state, and the fact that in fighting WWII on the Asian front we were responding to Japanese aggression? Our victory over Japan was extremely hard-fought, much desired, and very satisfying—although bittersweet, since it came at such a huge cost in suffering on all sides:

The signing ceremony took 23 minutes to complete, and was held aboard the battleship USS Missouri, anchored with other American and British ships in Tokyo Bay. Symbolically, the deck of the Missouri furnished two American flags. One had flown over the White House on the day Pearl Harbor was attacked. The other had flown the mast of Commodore Perry’s ship when he had sailed into that same harbor nearly a century before to urge the opening of Japan’s ports to foreign trade. The instrument was signed by the Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu “By command and on behalf of the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese Government” And then General Yoshijiro Umezu “By command and on behalf of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters” at 9:04 am.

Afterwards, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, Commander of the Southwest Pacific and Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, also signed. He was followed by Admiral Chester Nimitz for the United States, Hsu Yung-Ch`ang for the Republic of China, Bruce Fraser for the United Kingdom, Kuzma Derevyanko for the Soviet Union, Thomas Blamey for Australia, Colonel Lawrence Moore Cosgrave for Canada, General Philippe Leclerc de Hautecloque for France, C.E.L. Helfrich for the Netherlands, and Leonard M. Isitt for New Zealand.

The document, prepared by the U.S. War Department, set out in 8 short paragraphs the complete capitulation of Japan. The opening words: “We, acting by command of and in behalf of the Emperor of Japan.” signified the importance attached to the Emperor’s role by the Americans who drafted the document. The short second paragraph went straight to the heart of the matter: “We hereby proclaim the unconditional surrender to Allied Powers of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters and all of Japanese armed forces and all armed forces under Japanese control wherever situated.” The document demanded that Japan “carry out the provisions of the Potsdam Declaration and free all Allied prisoners of war.”

Fisking the Obama “apology”

The New Neo Posted on by

I don’t have to spend a lot of time at it, since John at Powerline has already done a fine job.

But I would like to add just a little tidbit concerning the following sentence of Obama’s:

And I could have calibrated those words differently…

Note the word “could.” That’s a very subtle qualifier, a weasel word extraordinaire. The word Obama should have used is should, as in “And I should have calibrated those words differently.” “Could” means essentially nothing; merely the capacity to do something, not any need to do it.

The trouble with the word “calibrated” is also massive, but some of this was dealt with by Powerline already. Suffice to say that Obama is being is way too “calibrated” about his words at this point. Words mean something, especially ones like “stupidly.” They are not all ambiguous or arbitrary, except to a Humpty Dumpty like Obama:

[T]hat shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents ”” ”˜

`Certainly,’ said Alice.

`And only ONE for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for you!’

`I don’t know what you mean by “glory,””˜ Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. `Of course you don’t””till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!””˜

`But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument,””˜ Alice objected.

`When _I_ use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean””neither more nor less.’

`The question is,’ said Alice, `whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.’

`The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master””that’s all.’

Zelaya at the gates

The New Neo Posted on by

Ex-president Zelaya appears to be on his way to the Honduran border.

Here’s what our country has to say about it:

When asked about Zelaya’s stated return, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Philip Crowley called it “unwise.”

“Any step that would add to the risk of violence in Honduras or in the area, we think would be unwise,” Crowley said.

Boy, if I were Zelaya, that would certainly have me shaking in my shoes.

Some violence seems to have already begun, with Zelaya supporters massing at the border as their hero edges closer, and Honduran police using riot control:

Zelaya arrived at Las Manos, on Nicaragua’s border with Honduras, at around midday (1800 GMT) as anti-riot police fired tear gas on hundreds of his supporters massed on the other side.

Zelaya supporters, including some armed with stones, faced off with hundreds of soldiers and anti-riot police, while the Honduran government imposed an 18-hour curfew in border areas.

The Honduran army earlier closed the border with Nicaragua and said it would not guarantee Zelaya’s safety.

First Obama encouraged Zelaya’s claims to legitimacy and therefore egged him on to this sort of action. Now he thinks a few words can stop him. And does he even want to? Who knows.

We do know that Obama’s attempt to curry favor with the far Left of Latin America hasn’t earned him the kudos he might have hoped:

Zelaya was traveling in a 50-vehicle caravan alongside his Foreign Minister Patricia Rodas; Venezuelan Foreign Minister Ricardo Maduro, and Nicaraguan former rebel leader Eden Pastora.

Leaders across the region were meanwhile in rhetorical high gear, with the leftist alliance of Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador generally blaming the United States for the deadlock.

[Update.]

Why not tort reform?

The New Neo Posted on by

Charles Krauthammer mentions Obama and the Democrats’ dirty little secret: they refuse to even consider tort reform, which would probably be the simplest and most effective way to improve the health care system by saving the public tons of money.

Why is this such a hush-hush subject for Democrats? Simple: “The Democrats are parasitically dependent on huge donations from trial lawyers.”

How the Left lost Susan Estrich on health care reform

The New Neo Posted on by

Susan Estrich is a liberal Democrat through and through. But I’ve noticed that every now and then she writes a column that goes against the party line.

In this recent one she shows a great deal of common sense, speaking for the average person and questioning what’s up with the health care reform bill being pushed so heavily by her party leaders:

So am I for health care reform? Do I support the House bill, whatever it is, or the Obama plan, which may or may not be the same thing?

Not yet. Not until I know what it is. Not until someone convinces me that whatever it is will do more good than harm, both for the country and for my family.

Estrich, like most Americans, likes her health plan. And, like most Americans, she is skeptical of being asked to throw her support to something no one can explain, or even cares to try:

The president is “not familiar” with the bill. No one can explain how it will work yet, as Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., told a contentious town meeting. There are various plans, and negotiations are still in the early stages.

But whatever it is, we should be for it.

Am I missing something?

Well, in my opinion Estrich often misses a lot. But on this particular point she’s right on. This health care reform bill emperor has no clothes—or, what’s even worse, is dressed in smelly old infectious rags.

And then there’s our very own naked emperor President, whose (metaphoric) nudity is being noticed by more and more people every day. Will Estrich ever be one of them?

Obama and those stupid Cambridge police

The New Neo Posted on by

I was otherwise engaged for most of Obama’s presser yesterday, but I happened to watch the last few minutes of it on CNN.

The very first thing I heard in the wrap-up was their political correspondent (a woman; I didn’t catch her name) declaring somewhat testily that Obama hadn’t said much of anything new. That was so different from the usual CNN ObamaLove fest that it made me realize he must have done very poorly indeed.

Point-by-point takedowns of his statements at the press conference abound in the blogosphere, so there’s really no need for me to add to them with another general critique. But consider this: even the ordinarily Obamaphile AP found his performance pretty bad, and deceptive as well.

But I did hear Obama’s remarks on the Gates arrest. Even though very little that Obama says these days surprises me, I was still somewhat in awe at the cleverness of his description of the incident. If you didn’t know the facts of the case—and I’m betting that most people listening to his presser didn’t (including Obama, according to his own admission)—you might think that Obama’s remarks made perfect sense [emphasis mine]:

I don’t know all the facts. What’s been reported, though, is that the guy forgot his keys, jimmied his way to get into the house; there was a report called into the police station that there might be a burglary taking place.

So far, so good, right?…The police are doing what they should. There’s a call. They go investigate. What happens? My understanding is, at that point, Professor Gates is already in his house. The police officer comes in. I’m sure there’s some exchange of words. But my understanding is — is that Professor Gates then shows his ID to show that this is his house, and at that point he gets arrested for disorderly conduct, charges which are later dropped.

Now, I’ve — I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that. But I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home.

As you can see, Obama eliminated from the story the notion that there might be any behavior on Gates’s part that could have actually justified the charge, and then called the police’s action “stupid.” Yes, “any of us would be angry” if he/she were arrested for no reason. But any of us would not be angry if police had come to investigate the understandable report of an apparent break-in—which even Obama admits at that point was “so far, so good” on the part of the police.

So, what’s up with the “exchange of words” (a euphemism for: “Gates said angry things to the cops”)? Why would Gates have been angry at that point, when the police had done nothing wrong, which even Obama admits (“so far, so good”)? And if Gates’s words were angry enough and abusive enough, are the police supposed to ignore that because the person is in his own house and didn’t commit burglary?

What was the fuss then? Well, we all know what the fuss must have been: race. At the very least, Gates was most likely accusing the police of being racists, and so is Obama implicitly by his support of Gates, despite his denials ” (“I don’t know…what role race played in that”). As Obama is well aware, white people who are argumentative and/or verbally abusive with police officers are hardly immune to charges of disorderly conduct. Au contraire; but they can’t cry “racism” if that happens. Would Obama call the police “stupid” for arresting a white person (and non-Harvard non-professor) for disorderly conduct, if none of the other facts of the case were changed?

Somehow I doubt it. Obama is (among other things) a lawyer; surely he knows better than to pre-judge the actions of the police here, in a case in which the police are alleging belligerent conduct on the part of Gates as the reason for his arrest.

It’s true that we don’t know how belligerent Gates did or didn’t get. But that’s all the more reason for the President to simply have passed on making a judgment. Perhaps Obama, who attended Harvard Law School (which, after all, is in Cambridge) has some sort of history himself with Cambridge cops stopping him for lack of cause, and it’s payback time? At any rate, I wonder how his accusation against the police played with the National Association of Police Organizations, and what its members are thinking right about now of their pre-election endorsement of Obama.

And here’s that nefarious neocon Bill Kristol on the subject of Obama’s “stupid” remark:

Does he really know enough about what happened to say that? Maybe it was Professor Gates who behaved stupidly, or at least arrogantly. He is, after all, a Harvard professor. I was once a Harvard professor, and my instinct is to side with the Cambridge cops.

It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

As for the cop in question, James M. Crowley, he’s hanging tough and refusing to apologize to Gates. Crowley is by all accounts a consummate professional as a police officer who “has led his colleagues in diversity training.” But no matter; Obama’s rush to judgment on national TV may put this man in grave jeopardy, although I hope not.

[NOTE: Before Crowley became a Cambridge policeman he was an EMT and police officer at Brandeis University, and in an odd coincidence he was the person who answered the call and administered CPR when Celtics star Reggie Lewis collapsed and died in a Waltham gym back in 1993, a terribly tragic event known to all New England sports fans.]

[ADDENDUM: If you go to Drudge, you’ll find a link to some of the facts that Obama couldn’t wait for, excerpts from the police report (excuse me: the stupid police report) of the incident.

It states that Gates was threatening and belligerent from the start, accusing the officer of racism. His belligerence and threats and declarations that the officer had no idea who he was “messing” with continued unabated, despite the officer’s warnings that he was becoming disorderly. There were many witnesses to much of this, which continued out on the street.

Interestingly enough, it comes out in the police report that Gates’s door had been damaged in a previous attempt at a real break-in by some unknown burglar. You’d think Gates would have been grateful at the police arriving so promptly in response to the neighbor’s call-in. Apparently not.]

[ADDENDUM II: Well, there’s one police organization that doesn’t think too much of what Obama said, although its spokesperson is more measured and careful in his remarks than our President was last night.

And I can’t help but characterize Obama Press Secretary Gibbs’ attempt at damage control as “stupid,”—although I admit that Obama didn’t give him much good material to work with:

Let me be clear. He was not calling the officer stupid, OK?” Gibbs told reporters on Air Force One. “He was denoting that … at a certain point the situation got far out of hand, and I think all sides understand that.”

Actually, Mr. Gibbs, I think “all sides” understand what the phrase “the Cambridge police acted stupidly” means.]

[ADDENDUM III: The officer with Crowley, the one who wrote the report of the incident, appears to have been a wise Latino named Carlos Figueroa. And “Gates’ attorney, Harvard Professor Charles Ogletree, said his client showed his driver’s license and Harvard ID — both with his photo — but did not dispute other details of the arrest.” That would tend to mean that Gates was every bit as abusive and threatening as Crowley and Figueroa have alleged, and that there are enough witnesses to support that fact.]

Obama: ignorant or arrogant? fool or knave? liar or stupid? And does it really matter anymore?

The New Neo Posted on by

What we do know is that this man is dangerous, and that if his predecessor George Bush had tried a stunt like this, he would have been widely excoriated.

What am I talking about? You may recall that Investor’s Business Weekly article I wrote about here and here, the one in which the authors interpreted the health care reform bill as prohibiting the writing of new individual private medical insurance policies once the bill is passed. Obama was doing call-ins over the radio and he was asked about the provision in question, which the caller helpfully explained.

Here’s the passage:

CALLER: …from an opinion piece in Investor’s Business Daily[sic], where they’re saying that HR3200 will make individual private medical insurance recalled, and they actually quote from Section 102 of the bill, which is grandfathering the existing policies. Is this true, will people be able to keep their insurance and will insurers be able to write new policies even though HR3200 is passed?

OBAMA: You know, I have to say that I am not familiar with the provision you’re talking about. Let me just speak for the Obama administration. I have committed myself consistently to a very simple proposition: if you have health insurance, you like it, you have a doctor that you like, then you can keep it. Period. And I won’t sign a bill that somehow would make it tougher for people to keep their health insurance.

The problems with Obama’s answer:

(1) He’s making the case against his own rush to pass this bill if he’s admitting he’s unfamiliar with its provisions on such a basic point.

(2) The original IBW article was not obscure. It was discussed at Instapundit, for example, a blog so large and influential that the administration should be monitoring it on a daily basis. Someone should have at least briefed Obama on it, if he didn’t know the answer already.

(3) Note how careful Obama is to not answer the question, which is about writing future policies, not keeping the one you have. He is parsing his words in order to appear to answer the question but never addresses it at all. Even if he didn’t know the answer about the specifics of that provision in the bill, he should have said he would defend the right to keep policies and also the right to get new ones. But he doesn’t, which is highly suspicious.

Of course, it’s possible that the video is strategically truncated, and that Obama addresses the issue of future policies a moment later. But I very much doubt it, since a search revealed nothing of the sort (although I’ve not been able to locate a transcript of the entire episode). And a look at an article about the call-in at Daily Kos (written by the blogger who asked Obama the question, who turns out to be on the Left and not the Right, and is getting hammered by the Kos kids for asking it in the first place), revealed no such extra statement by Obama that had been edited out. Surely, if there was such a thing, it would constitute some sort of defense and would have been mentioned in the post at Kos (I’m not providing a link because I have a policy not to link to Kos; you’ll have to find it yourself if you care to).

(4) This also may be a case of Obama preparing the defense I mentioned here: “Don’t blame me, blame Congress!”

(5) And of course the whole thing is disingenuous anyway, because once the public option is in place it will tend to crowd out private options and in a while these plans will no longer be offered even to those who were grandfathered in. Unless there’s some special provision in the bill protecting them, which there is not.