THE “GATES-GATE” AFFAIR

After a week of reporting and commenting (here and here), it seems to me that this is just another case of the liberal “elite” insisting that the rules don’t apply to themselves, and that anyone daring to think otherwise is de facto racist, homophobe, redneck, christianist, (insert your own term of approbation).

Note the posturing from Lawrence Bobo (W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University) and close friend of Henry Louis “Skip” Gates:

Skip is one of the most readily recognized black men in America .....

Well, um, let’s see. By Lawrence Bobo, perhaps ... but for me, the following come to mind more easily: Barack Obama (President), Colin Powell (retired Army general), Walter Williams (economist & columnist), Thomas Sowell (economist & columnist), Jesse Jackson (civil rights advocate), Al Sharpton (civil rights advocate), Roland Burris (Illinois senator), Juan Williams (NPR correspondent and Fox commentator), J. C. Watts (former congressman from Oklahoma), Andrew Young (former UN ambassador), Douglas Wilder (former Virginia governor), Michael Steele (RNC national chairman), Clarence Thomas (Supreme Court justice), Armstrong Williams (political commentator), Deval Patrick (governor of Massachusetts), Charles Rangel (New York congressman) ... and I’ve avoided sports, entertainment, and women.

Even before the charge were (sic) dropped Tuesday .... I knew in my bones that this situation was about the level of deference from a black male that a white cop expects. I say this even though I did not see the events themselves unfold.

In other words, “I don’t need no stinking facts.” ‘Nuff said.

It’s past time for former New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s “benign neglect”.