No one gives a shit because it has no fucking effect on any normal, non-partisians life. Walk up and down the street and ask people what matters in their life. I guarantee you'll hear the well being of their family, their job, their financial status, and probably their health. You won't find a single person who will say "well, my biggest concern right now in life is what our President said about some random, tiny incident". No one in the real world who has real issues gives two flying shits about this.

Then again, this must be the first fucking time a black man has accused a white cop of racism. This is huge, when will we ever have a moment like this again?

You follow politics rather closely. You frequently post links to stories favoring Republicans and/or conservatives. Yet you have never heard of Michelle Malkin. A lady who runs one of the largest and most trafficked political sites in the country. Someone who has been on every major media network as a pundit and has filled in for the likes of Bill O'Reilly.

Have you heard of Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh?

Umm ... dude, I'm trying to help a little here but that one didn't make it any easier.

As I alluded to earlier, I had no idea what that was until I Googled it, had never heard it in my life.

edit to add: Lest I look a five-letter moron, technically, I knew what all of it likely meant except the leading "T".

HUGE disagreement there.

It affects the life of every non-black American to have a guy that worries about color first and right/wrong sometime later (and I've giving him an extremely generous benefit of the doubt that I don't really believe he deserves there) sitting in a such a position of power.

Whether the people are smart enough to recognize it is an entirely different question.

+1

I don't think he worried about color first. I think he took the side of his friend first (as many of us would do). It wasn't the right thing to do considering his position, but I don't think this had much to do with color (from his perspective).

But the question still remains, how will this impact your life (or anyone else's here) in any way?

I rarely watch TV for politics outside of over lunch in the lunchroom and that's usually without sound, so I'm left to read the bottom of the screen. I never watch it at home. I only listen to local radio, so outside of the off day where I'm not working and happen to hear Rush, my radio is mostly local.

Huffington Post is often where I get quite a bit of my news from a national perspective along with Washinton and NY paper websites. I'm surprised that I didn't notice any Malkin related articles on there. I've searched on that site just now and there are quite a few references to her, nearly all negative.

Of course I know who Coulter is. Don't like her at all. I don't watch O'Reilly or any of the other afternoon/evening cable shows, so I would see her even if Malkin was even on there.

Would you even ask me that if I were black & such an obvious racist was sitting in the Oval Office?

Bullshit. You're more naive than I ever gave you credit. The color of the man's skin was solely his concern. If a black officer gets similar treatment in this instance, we wouldn't hear a peep from Obama.


The better question is how this DOESN'T impact the average person.

I believe the man would be run out of office very quickly.

Yes, because Obama is a modern day Malcolm X.

The guy grew up with his white mother and white grandparents. He went to predominately white schools and was around white people. It's not like he's been some fervent civil rights activitist with an axe to grind with whitey.

He took his friends side of the story and called the officer's actions stupid. He didn't call it racist. You act like this was some black power move where afterwards he raised his fist in the air and had a Black Panther party in the oval office. The guy defended his friend without knowing the facts. Called the arrest stupid (which it was). He shouldn't have spoken out. But the whole "black uprising" boogeyman the right is trying to portray here is beyond retarded.

Then tell me how it will impact your life.

No, but since you're white and live in Georgia, I guess it makes the difference between your family eating and not.

I'll tell you how. Tomorrow morning I'll wake up, my Roth will still be down 35%, my mom will still be unemployed, we will likely be supporting my in-laws soon enough, and my gas will still cost $2.65. I fail to see how this incident and the president making a comment that will be forgotten in a few weeks affects any of this. Then again, I'm reasonably intelligent and don't cut and paste 6 times a day from my favorite conservative blog about shit that doesn't matter.

It makes a difference between whether this is a country I continue to live in by choice versus circumstance. It makes a difference whether I believe there's any hope left for the nation or whether we've become so dumbed down over recent decades that there's any reason to believe we'll continue to exist as a notable power. Sadly, it makes me realize that there really are people who are either so naive, so incredibly stupid, or so desperate to remain locked in denial that they don't see the piece of shit sitting on the fencepost for what he is. Or that they've been brainwashed so successfully that their self-loathing is so endoctrinated that they figure it's okay, they deserve it.

Yeah, it makes a pretty significant difference in my life, including being a part of the equation I weigh every single day that determines whether I become just another statistic or if I decide to continue living. The margin is pretty fucking thing for a number of reasons but what having this waste of oxygen in the White House has narrowed the gap considerably.

edit to add: Not that this incident is some sort of blinding revelation, he is what I knew he is. The distress comes strictly from being slapped across the face with the reality that he could walk out to the podium and announce a plan to Kill Whitey and that not only would he get support, the move would be applauded by a goodly number of useful idiot whites. That's the additionally disturbing part for me, not that Obama is just a common racist.

So because the President said an arrest was stupid, the entire axis of our nation is about to become unhinged? If he has a grilled cheese for lunch tomorrow, does the Great Lakes region get sucked into a vortex?

We reached that point a good bit back. This is just one of those annoying slaps in the face that serve as a reminder of that fact. That's the significance of it, not that it's anything that wasn't already known.

Wow, glad you didn't feel anything about our nation being dumbed down when our president could not pronounce nuclear, or when Sonny Purdue cuts education funding in a state that ranks in the bottom 5 of the country. I guess the president calling a cop racist (I've lived in Mass and was friends with plenty of cops, he's mostly correct) when his friend was involved in a controversy turns the tides on whether or not this nation of dummies still deserves your glorious presence.

On a side note, you should be madder the Braves are still finding playing time for Casey Kotchman.

I'm still missing the part where he called the cop racist? In his original comment, the only criticism was of arresting Gates for disorderly conduct. He didn't say it was racist, just that it was stupid. That's pretty much the same thing alot of us said.

lol - the histrionics over this are totally out-of-whack.

as others have said, there are any number of things more important that should be getting more news time than this non-story.

let's not forget too that obama didn't offer up the comment on his own. he was questioned about it by a reporter.

I really don't think there's a Dem alive who ought to go down that road unless they want to disavow President Cuber, I mean Kennedy.


Yeah, we've gotten such a good ROI to date. I'd support eliminating it altogether frankly and starting over as the vast majority of the money is either mismanaged, misused, or simply flat out wasted.



Fixed that naive bullshit you posted.


Tough to get mad when you realize he's the best regular 1B not named Texiera they've had in nearly a decade ... unless of course you prefer Adam LaRoche. Otherwise, since Gallaraga left after 2000 we've had such notables as Scott Thorman, Robert Fick, Wes Helms, and a sub-par year from Julio Franco.

See loathing, self and/or naive.

That's all true--but based on the large number of people who consistently vote against their economic interests (poor rural whites supporting the party of regressive taxation, upper-middle-class whites voting for the party of progressive taxation), I dare say that many (most?) people care as much (more?) about cultural (including racial) issues as about economic issues.

Sure, this incident could be Obama's Zoe Baird moment--a big deal at the time, and largely irrelevant to the rest of his presidency. But it could be Obama's "Mission Accomplished" moment as well--the moment he put his foot in it so badly that he could never get it out again.

FWIW, I think that most of the disappointment stems not from the suspicion that Obama is a closet Black Panther, as from the sense that his remark was undisciplined and foolish. He's president of an entire country now, not a community organizer, and he needs to start thinking and acting like the president--not shooting from the hip, not getting backs up all across the country unnecessarily, and not squandering the power of the bully pulpit.

I will take you one step farther and say that you have a shitload of people who agree mostly with conservatives on issues like taxes and the colossal waste of taxpayer money on welfare type programs and who agree with liberals on gay rights, abortion, and other social issues. They get so caught up in choosing between Obama/McCain or Bush/Kerry or Bush/Gore that they fail to recognize there is a party that actually supports more of their beliefs than either other major party.

I just think it's insane to compare the two incidents. The Mission Accomplished banner was over a war that will cost $3 trillion dollars, the lives of thousands of Americans and potentially millions of foreigners, as well as our standing in the world and overall safety. This is a dumb comment he made about a non-issue that has no bearing on anything in this world.

Obama's Mission Accomplished moment could be over the stimulus if the economy doesn't recover. It could be over his health care proposal if it goes through and ends up bad for the country. Issues that do effect our country and us individually to an extent. This was blown up because the cable news networks saw a slow 24 hour news cycle and some right-wing blogs saw an opportunity to stir up the racial and xenophobic boogeymen. It is a speck on the scale of issues like the wars, economy, and health care.

I can understand that and I agree that his comment wasn't smart. But the same people complaining about this are the same people who loved it when Bush "shot from the hip" after 9/11. I know hypocrisy is par for the course in partisian politics, but it does get a bit tiring from an outside observer.

I'm more or less in that boat. It's not that I vote against my own self interests, it's that I have to try and decide on the lesser of two evils every election.

In Julio's defense, he was like 53.

Maybe ... in 1975 ;)

I see what you're saying, Rainmaker, and certainly the ramifications of Gatesgate will never be as massive as the ramifications of the Iraq War. What I meant by the comparison is that in each case, the President went way out on a limb and made himself vulnerable, and we all know what happened when that limb snapped beneath W.

I thought that Obama's comments today about the whole episode were spot on--he acknowledged that he had poured fuel on the fire by speaking as he did, and he is actively trying to reconcile himself with the officer in question. Unfortunately, those remarks did not contain any phrase as memorable as the one that caused the furor in the first place, but at least Obama is de-escalating, which is what the situation needed from the moment it first occurred.

The Mission Accomplished sign was only a problem in retrospect and even then only a symptom of a larger problem. In 2003 the banner was widely praised in the media and it certainly wasn't a detriment in a very good for the GOP 2004 election cycle. It wasn't until 2005 when it was clear that the war wasn't being won and that there seemed no strategy to change our fortunes that Bush really started his nosedive. Later that summer came Katrina and he never again had decent approval ratings.

In short, the comparison to a widely praised event that only later seemed to sum up the futility of the Bush admin doesn't seem to hold water IMO.

You obviously didn't watch some of the comments on the nightly national news programs. It has caused polarization. They went into LA and they interviewed a bunch of black people who all said that the cop was a racist and that Mr. Obama was spot-on in that assessment and didn't have to apologize for a thing.

They also interviewed several white people and they universally said that Mr. Obama was way out of bounds in his comments.

Now, you can say that those kinds of feelings may exist and that's fine. But we don't need our president being the one to make ignorant comments like he did in this situation. He STILL didn't apologize to the cop and he didn't do that because he knows he'd have several million black people calling him an 'Uncle Tom' if he did. He didn't call out the professor's instigating demeanor either for the same reason. It's easier for him to pretend it's all a big misunderstanding.

The ignorance of people like you as far as these kinds of events is amazing. You're more than welcome to pretend that these kinds of things aren't true if you want, but you're blissfully ignorant of things if that's the case.

Which blog would that be? Care to show me the six times today that I did that? As most people who are paying attention would note, my personal linking preference is the Huffington Post. Last time I checked, that certainly wasn't a conservative blog, but don't let that stop you from making comments with no basis in fact.

Race will ALWAYS be an issue in this country. FOREVER. We are never going to get past it.

cough, WIZBANG, cough

It's been quite awhile since I've posted from that blog, but once again, don't let that stop you from a claim based in the past. It's not relevant to today, but liberals stuck in the past seems to be hindering the party in recent days, including the leader.

Well you act like you're shocked that anyone could think you'd just post conservative blog links when you spent much of the campaign and aftermath doing just that. I'll admit you seem to have moved past that, but there's no need for the indignation when you have been known to do exactly what you were called out for doing.

I'm aware of those differences ;) My point is: each presidency has its defining moments. Sometimes it is immediately apparent that a defining moment is at hand, sometimes it only becomes evident in hindsight. George H W Bush's "Read My Lips," Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, W and the "Mission Accomplished Banner"--those became the defining moments of their presidencies. If Obama does not tread carefully here, Gatesgate is going to be an equally defining moment, if only because he has handed his political opponents a giant, gift-wrapped club with which to beat him repeatedly.

And while Obama is now de-escalating, as he should be, it is true that he just cannot seem to bring himself to call out Henry Gates for his belligerent behavior during the whole episode. The best Obama can muster is that Gates "probably overreacted," as opposed to the police officer, whom Obama is sure acted stupidly. My politics and MBBF's are very different, but that point is a valid one.

In 2003, the US military had just accomplished it's mission of overthrowing Saddam Hussein. As easy as it looked on TV, it was no small task that required a lot of moving parts, expertise, and long hours on everybody's part (not to mention loss of life and the risk of loss of life).

Those troops deserved the president's appreciation once completing that mission.

Once the excitement of toppling the Saddam regime subsided, and the long war against terror-insurgency began, the far-left blogosphere mutilated the commander-in-chief's message in a successful broadcast that went on for years. Most everybody soon associated that banner not with the "praise for the military" that it truly meant in 2003 but with the purely liberal revision of "Bush thinks their is no more work to do in Iraq!"

In the speech that Bush gave that day, he stated that just because Hussein was defeated did not mean the work the military had to do was over.

Clearly the most important issues facing this country are:

1) Healthcare reform

2) Foreign policy

3) The blog-reading of MBBF

5633) Race relations and the statements of the first bi-racial President.

Pretty disappointed the president jumped into this. IMO Gates deserved to be arrested for his conduct. That's based on the pictures, and the accounts of the police. I buy those over Gate's own account.

I can't imagine the beer thing will work out suitably for the cop. He is 100% confident that he was in the right, and would do it again. Gates is the same. While a meeting can be civil, and may avail of a photo op with the two shaking hands...something the White house is hoping desperately for, it seems to make little sense for the Cop to entertain.

On the plus side he gets a visit to the WH...pretty cool, and hard to pass up. On the down side it seems to be an invite to the WH to have a beer and a shit sandwich with two guys who have thrown you under the bus. One who won't stop anytime soon, and the other who only regrets throwing you under bus because it cost him politically. Neither of whom are willing to admit that you did the right thing.

On totus. Who knew?

Dutch. What the hell are you thinking? You can't possibly expect anyone to believe that the President's speech beneath the now infamous banner should play any part in defining the context of the event.

It has caused polarization? Are you telling me that urban blacks had high opinions on white cops up till Obama made that comment? That races didn't differ on social issues?

But again, my question for you is how does this impact yours or anyone else's life? It's just faux-rage on the right. No wonder they've been getting demolished in elections.

It's not often that you hear this kind of sanity on that "mission accomplished" nonsense.

I guess it was a political mistake in the sense that they should have known that people would misrepresent the presented sentiment for political points. But the real story there, the real dick move to me has always been ya, critizing the president's praise of the military because the NEXT mission didn't meet their personal expectations. I think maybe I have a different perspective then most (I thought Iraq would be longer, and more bloody than it actually turned out), so I can see that a little better. But then on the other hand, at the time we had Dan Rather DESPERATE to make a story that even the initial overthrow of the government was going badly (this about 12 hours in, and all that was happening was tanks moving towards Bagdhad)

Sure you don't mean "misplaced" instead of "faux"? I don't even agree that it's misplaced frankly but the change would seem more likely to fit what you actually mean based on our previous conversations.

But if you think the anger (over a variety of things, this is just symptomatic) isn't real I can assure that you're badly misreading it.

Importantly, though, "major combat operations" were over, right?

Seriously, though, one of the benefits of time passing is that we can look past the speech to the preparations made and analysis done by Bush Administration officials and conclude quite readily that the situation that followed the invasion took them completely by surprise. And this despite members of the military and diplomatic corps who counseled them otherwise.

The same hubris that made Rumsfeld, Cheney, et. al., disagree with and publicly humiliate people like General Shinseki for being "off message" is what got Bush up on that aircraft carrier to make that speech. So while Bush supporters might still try to defend the speech, and the image, through semantics, you really can't (and shouldn't) deny the message it gave to the country and the world about Iraq.

Did you expect us to be out of Iraq a few weeks after that?

I just assumed they were talking about the regime change part. I really didn't think they were talking about the war on terror part.

What should of happened? Is it just the banner that offended you so much? What the hell difference does it make to anything? Should we not praise the military until every terrorist is dead?

It just isn't anything more than partisian point-gathering. It's just so bizzare when you step back and look at it. There was a "mission accomplished" banner after a particular military success. And that was horrible because there was more conflict there in the years to come. It just doesn't make any sense.

It always seems so weird to me that with an administration that did so much that one can criticize, people seem to get most passionate about the trivial. People get more fired up about that banner than the actual running of the war.

The banner and the speech and the theatricality of it all, especially in context of a) what happened next and b) what we now know about their decision-making apparatus, simply underscores how ill-prepared, poorly-judged and arrogantly-influenced the decisions of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, et. al. were.

Can people honestly look back at the shit Rumsfeld & Cheney spewed ("six days, six weeks, I can't imagine six months" "last throes of the insurgency, if you will", etc, etc, etc) and tell me they all weren't thinking that Bush's little jaunt to the George Washington wasn't the end of major U.S. loss of life and investment in Iraq?

They were not just wrong, they were catastrophically wrong and like it or not, the Mission Accomplished event is the perfect image for the whole boondoggle.

{raises hand}

Yes I believe I could. Anybody who thought those folks were going to be able to govern themselves effectively and in a manner that assured they were no longer a concern to our national interest without someone looking closely over their shoulder had to be in denial or an complete fool.

Now whether or not there were elements in the administration that were kidding themselves or were simply that downright foolish, well that's probably a different question, one that really touches on one of my biggest gripes about the actual running of the war. At some point, I'm afraid key people may have started to believe their own p.r. campaign about "promoting freedom and democracy" and actually began to think that was the point.

I agree 100% and so I agree that Rumsfeld, Cheney and the rest of the chickenhawks in the administration were/are fools. Dangerous, incompetent fools.


That too. If I had to guess, I'd say Bush, Wolfowitz, Feith and their hanger-on neocons thought the latter while for Cheney & Rumsfeld it was more about retribution, KBR contracts, oil contracts for friends, and looking like badasses.

Too many liberal buzzwords in one post, Flere.

If Mizzou B-ball fan made a post like that everyone would be complaining about him getting that stuff from blogs.

Good to see that no matter where the topic wanders, all roads lead back to MBBF. :D

You're in good company, flere.

Hey, why complain about the current president when we're not through complaining about the last one!

I think the banner was the symbolization of the war though. It was a sign of incompetence and people who had no idea what was going on. Celebrating a mission as accomplished when the hardest and most deadliest part of the war had yet to begin.

People turned on the news and saw young men and women dying every day. They heard no news of the WMDs that made us go into this war. Then they thought back to the banner and it angered them. Would be no different than President Obama coming out and saying mission accomplished on the economy while we still have some pain left to go.

It isn't real for this issue. I have no doubt there are people angry with him over spending and other issues. I just think this was used as a reason to pick a fight and stir up some racism.

It's how paritisan politics works though. Although people on the Left were mad at Bush for things like the war, they turned every single thing he did into a "major outrage".

Actually, we're mad about his blatant racism too.

I still don't see anything in his statements that mentioned race. He said the arrest was stupid, which I and the DA agree with.

Did I miss him raising his fist in the air and yelling "BLACK POWER"?

He might as well have.

Edit: I'm not even responding to the right thing, too many martinis I think

Good to know the echo chamber is still working just fine. Let me know when you guys have an original thought.

After the steaming pile of cut & paste you posted earlier, that probably ain't the best road for you to go down. Kind of has that whole pot/kettle vibe.

Imagine if this many Dems wouldn't answer a question about 9/11 truthers.

Sad to see you lose that "independent thinker" vibe, Jon.

But... but... but... CLINTON!!!

The lady who called the police and was listed in the report denies that she said anything about "black" men and also claims to never have spoken to Sgt. Crowley at the scene. Seems someone embelished the police report.

911 caller in Gates arrest never referred to 'black suspects' - CNN.com

So let me get this straight, after all this time are there still people here who thought that Cheney, Rumsfeld and et. al. of the neocons really knew what they were doing so well in Iraq and the 5-year counter-insurgency effort we've gone through was just what, bad luck?

No, it's largely attributable to worrying too much about politics, political correctness & making nice with the enemy instead of focusing on effective means to accomplish particular tasks.

Watch out Jon. I hear he's got a plan to fuck all the white womens.

Never heard of this site, but the picture is awesome.

Taki’s Magazine, edited by Taki Theodoracopulos

quoted for classiness.

He cetainly seemed to be enjoying that Italian woman's a$$!

Well I'm just on edge ever since I got the fundraising call from the NRA. I had no idea all the things "they" are going to do. And don't even get me started on the plans the U.N. has!

Wow, he does snarky comments based on the unique personality/character traits of the poster! I tell ya, it's the little touches like this that make a message board great and keep me coming back to FOFC.

Seriously though, I'd say you actually seem snarkier now than you did this time last year, which strikes me as odd. You do realize your side won the last election, right? ;)

I'm not at all joking about the NRA call. The guy was nice, but when he wouldn't let me politely decline it just got crazier and crazier. At the U.N. part I started laughing. I'm sure it's been tested as effective, but it certainly didn't get me thinking of my gun safety class I took as a Boy Scout.

I'm on record (in other threads) as being for a) more men, b) more force, c) broader rules of engagement, d) more operational freedom given to the military commanders (as opposed to the desk jockeys sitting in the White House & Pentagon) and e) clearer objectives in Iraq, assuming we were going to be there anyway.

Speaking to your point, I'd argue that the root cause of the failures in the areas I list above are due to the incompetence of Cheney, Rumsfeld, et. al., not necessarily domestic political pressures. And to support this argument I'll note that once Cheney, Rumsfeld, et. al., started to lose their influence in the Administration in general, and the Iraq War in specific, and you saw the military itself (and especially the more innovative commanders in the military) regain control of the way the war was waged, there was more success on the ground. Success that certainly was helped by some other internal factors (Sunnis turning against Al-Qaeda, Al-Sadr's cease fire), but success nonetheless.

Which is why I'm confused as to why people continue to ridicule the notion that key people in the Bush Administration were unprepared (due to hubris, arrogance, incompetence, etc...) for the situation on the ground after the invasion of Iraq. Maybe someone can explain that to me.

Speaking of the NRA, Cam, I don't know if he was a member or not, but should we expect to see some sort of condemnation of Hal Turner by the NRA for his recent threats against Judges Easterbrook & Posner?

And my argument is that responding to those pressures is the display of incompetence. In other words, I don't believe they didn't know any better (which would have been incompetence via ignorance) but rather they lacked the will to overcome those pressures & bowed to them instead.

Well, I'd argue they had both failings. You look back on the public statements and now-available private writings of these guys from 2002/2003 and it's pretty clear they thought the military question would be done by early 2004 and they'd have moved on to conducting deals for oil and reconstruction with an amenable Iraqi government.

+1 to this...I'd also add that the public outrage over the continuing deaths and general mayhem over there made it "easier" (in the Bush Admin's eyes) to justify adding troop levels, IMHO.

So, to put it differently...the Bush admin's failure (IMO) was a misjudging of US public will vs. the public outrage that would follow their inappropriate execution of post-war Iraq.

Dude, your hate for the cops is strong! Now, I know you will probably deny this with all the righteous indignation you can muster, but if you are honest you will admit that it gives you a warm fuzzy to read about cops getting hurt or killed. I am attaching a stoy that should put some spring in your step. It is about a couple more " fucking bafoons" who "busted in" to somebody's house but would have been smart to "apologize, put their tail between their legs, and drive off." These guys definately got that ego check you write about. Read this story then go find a mirror and give yourself a high-five!

These cop threads just get worse and worse.

Now we've got people arguing that if you dislike the actions of certain cops that you must want to see cops get killed.

That's some really fucked up logic.

Well Rainmaker's accused me of supporting battery on women in a cop thread, so that definitely goes both ways.

And all Ezekials are not bad, take Ezekial Brewman for example.

It's a horrible story and sad anytime something like this happens. I don't have a problem with cops as a whole. I know that the overwhelming majority of them are good, honest people. My issue is with the few bad seeds in the ranks and the way they are protected by other officers and the community.

I just see no reason for this guy to be arrested. Sure he was angry and yelling. But I guarantee you that a lot of people would be if they had a cop come in their house and demand identification. The cop should have verified his identity, apologized for the mix-up, and driven away. The blowhard could stand on his porch and yell into the empty air before tiring himself out.

In the Gates case the cop didn't "bust into HIS house." The cop "pursued a suspect into a residence."

Cop didn't know it was Gates' house until his ID was verified. What was he supposed to take the word of someone who he was pursuing as a suspect?

Really interesting and telling that after this, you post that cop email without the context of what happened to that officer. (Which doesn't fit your vision that bad officers are "protected by other officers and the community") I'm 100% sure that if the reaction involved any wavering, any difference really, you would have been all over it. Since it didn't fit your bias, you ignore it.

Officer suspended for Gates slur in e-mail - Local News Updates - The Boston Globe

"Menino, speaking to the Globe before an evening event in the South End, said he hadn't seen the e-mail Menino said while the officer is not officially terminated, he might as well be "He's gone, g-o-n-e. I don't care, it's like cancer, you don't keep those cancers around."

Unless this officer had used racial slurs on his application to become a police officer, than I'm not sure what more you want.

It says on the link I posted that he was suspended. I didn't add any commentary to it so I'm not sure how I'm passing any vision across.

You're the one pretending we live in a fairy tale world where all cops are angels and everyone they arrest is evil. I'm just saying there is a big grey area in between.

Everyone knows exactly what you were implying by posting that link. No need to play stupid.

Your link proved that there are other people in the world that can be just as big of a jackass as Gates was in his situation and little else. Had Gates and this other guy you cited both shut their mouths, neither would be in this situation. The lack of respect coming from Gates and this e-mailer is appaling.

There's no gray area. As Colin Powell correctly stated, you show respect to a police officer. If I would have acted like Gates, I would have expected to get my ass thrown in the slammer and my wife likely would have told me she wasn't bailing me out for acting like a dumbass.

Lack of respect is not against the law.

But completely asshattery like Gates displayed can be.

You're comfortable with the police being able to enter your home based solely on an anonymous 911 call that was summarized by a dispatcher?

You'd prefer they not investigate those calls thoroughly?

In all seriousness, do we live on the same planet?

You'd prefer they waste their time doing a thorough investigation on an "incident" where it becomes obvious pretty quickly is BS?


Yeah, this isn't Bucc, it's Jon. Of course he's OK with giving exceptional police powers to the state.

Bud Light for the prez - National Politics Blog - Political Intelligence - Boston.com

THEY ARE DRINKING BUD LIGHT?!!

Impeach him :mad:

What did he learn by going into the house that he wouldn't have learned by staying on the porch?

Nope, I've actually criticized police officers multiple times in these threads, questioned (lack of) discipline decisions, and here, supported the very quick termination of one who was just completely out of control.

That's (one of) the differences between you and me. You track record is 100% criticism/hatred. There's no grey areas at all with you. You even carefully screen the information you post here to eliminate anything that might not support your hate. Perfect example here. I don't believe for a second that you didn't know the result of the link you posted. You left it out because it didn't support your crusade. It if supported it, it'd be in there.

I do though, appreciate that you've apparently taking a huge step forward and resisted the temptation, that I know you had, to say, "now, watch molson come in here and say what this cop did was OK". Apparently you draw the line on that just before racism, but after beating up women. Class act.

There's still conflicting reports on this so it's tough to draw lines in the sand here.

The police say that the delay/confusion was based on the fact couldn't tell that this was B.S., because Gates wouldnt give them any proper identification, and refused to come outside of the house when they showed up. In other words, Gates was acting very susicipously, and wasn't providing any information to ease that suspicion. I think for most people in this situation, the goal would be to let the police know, ASAP, that this was your house. That wasn't Gates' goal.

You're assuming that the police stayed there past their welcome, well after this was resolved, and that's just not the facts that are known right now.

I was wondering about that this morning driving in to work (i.e. what beer they'd drink). I figured maybe a good American craft beer would make sense. But Bud Light? Eurgh....

I was talking more about the hypothetical, to be honest, in the context of JPhillips' question and Jon's not-really-an-answer.

I think I've actually managed to stay out of this specific argument (on Gates), so you might be confusing me with someone else.

I agree with what mr. molson said, even if his beer tastes like crap