The New Republic

Note to self: never piss of Isaac Chotiner.

- dylanposer

July 31, 2009 at 12:00pm

Good for you Isaac - pompous is perfect. Throw in mean and childish while you're at it.  Way to help your Dad's case Elizabeth: mock a fourteen year old girl visiting the White House.

What a five alarm jerk.

A windy, solipsistic writer making embarassingly silly, pretentious observations that barely make sense.  Stay classy Elizabeth!

- Wandreycer1

July 31, 2009 at 12:19pm

What has not yet been examined are the ground rules the "beer summit" established after long hours of tedious and [at times] contentious negociation.

As usual I got the scoop:

* Everyone is reminded not to mention the stock Barack Obama owns in Budweiser

* Everyone practices smiling and chatting...as though they've been friends for years

* Everyone agrees to disagree about what they agreed to disagree about before

* Dr Phil is introduced and stands just out of camera range ready to intervene should the scripted comaraderie give way to insults or spitballs

* The secret service is introduced and stands just out of camera range should the insults and spitballs give way to actual punches being thrown

* Crowley agrees to wait 6 months before signing a book deal, booking appearances on Jay Leno or sharing a stage with Sarah Palin

* Gates is asked not to mention the lawsuit his attorney is putting together

* Joe Biden is asked to join the summit to assist Obama should the conversation ever get around to Scranton

gw

- iambiguous

July 31, 2009 at 12:21pm

Up to this point, I've been bored by this story. Frankly, it sounded like a spoiled Harvard professor threw a tantrum and was hauled off by the cops. Sure, throwing a tantrum isn't illegal and the arrest was silly, but it had zero to do with race. Now the Daily Beast gives this brat a forum to complain about race in America? What a joke. She doesn't have a clue what growing poor and black is like, and given that fact, she should do herself a favor and shut up.

- mpatrickhendri

July 31, 2009 at 12:22pm

The Gates meshpucah has their story and they are sticking to it.  Why wouldn't they?  Racism is, after all, the family business.  

Obama must wish the whole episode had happened at John McWhorter's house, and so should the rest of us.

- lsernoff

July 31, 2009 at 12:36pm

Spoken like the child of an academic.  One of the reasons I did not go on to grad school (among many) was the thought of being cooped up with Henry Louis Gateses for eight years.  I think the arrest was indeed a good ol' power trip and Officer Crowley was silly to arrest the man, but I have little doubt Gates probably had it coming in some cosmic way.  

I have never met so miserable and unpleasant a subset of the population as academics.  Every one of my professors in college had some sort of social inability.  And I went to Cal.  I can't imagine what it would be like at an Ivy.  

Scientific academics are even worse...

So I can't say I'm surprised that Gates's daughter would be so utterly dismissive and condescending.  It's precisely the attitude inculcated in the hallowed halls of academia. And I'm not one of those college-bashers who gets all riled at fascist liberalism and all that conservative idiocy.

But college professors make for some truly miserable wretches...

- shaw-man

July 31, 2009 at 1:06pm

Isernoff - I have to comment on your post.  Are you at all familiar with Gates work? He's a calm, open minded scholar - a uniquely intelligent guy, not a racial bomb thrower.  Unless you think all studies that involve difference are invalid?  EIther way, race is not his business - his ouvre is highy varied and he's respected acorss many mediums, study topics and genres.  I have no problem saying Cornel West is an ass with a dubious set of work (not all bad, but still), but Gates - nope. He's the real deal (think about this: why do I have to even bring up West to make my point?).

It doesn't mean Gates won't be arrested for getting pissed in his own house.  I saw both sides of this and come down *slightly* more in Gates favor, but not by much.

Cops are often frighteningly touchy, unaccountable, power happy and mean no matter what you look like.  They also have dangerous, underpaid jobs where they risk their lives at every stop - which would make anyone touchy.  They can be both and I can be pissed about that AND empathize.  The human experience islike that.

Crowley sounds like a good guy, but speaking as someone (a six foot white female blonde) who has been seriously hassled by Boston cops, it is not unfair to find them, at times, offensive.  I had a car full of locals throw a FISH at my stomach, a big one, while walking through town with a group of black friends.  Please, Boston race relations are among the worst in the nation. In my experience, only Philly is worse.

This is a shades of grey situation not much amendable to automatic ideological talking points on either side.

And Elizabeth could be any dipshit self-important legacy kid, I didn't even find her comments racial in the least.  Just pompous and petty, like any number of callow youth.  Come on, she grew up in Boston too - they are all crabby, terminally offensive types up there. Its an equal opportunity pit that way (sorry gentle Boston folks, but you all are the ones that made up the term "Massholes" not me).

- Wandreycer1

July 31, 2009 at 1:21pm

mpatrick and shaw-man:  I don't think "silly" covers it.  That's basically what Obama called it, except he used a harsher word.  I don't think "stupid" is strong enough either, and it's not because I think the arrest was about race.  Crowley had no right to arrest Gates, and "contempt of cop" is not a crime.  Cops don't get to use their power to arrest people to enforce respect or punish insults.  Even if you believe every word of Crowley's account, this was pure police harassment.  How would you like to be arrested for getting testy with a police officer?  It's really outrageous.  Even more outrageous is that we have people talking about the poor white man under attack by "racist" minorities and people demanding that the president apologize to Crowley for calling the outrageous arrest of his friend "stupid" (i.e., silly).

- jhildner

July 31, 2009 at 1:37pm

shaw man, if that weren't so amusing that would be offensive. Academics are pretty much like every other kind of people, yeah they might be a little more open about their opinions, but you can say the same thing about Lawyers, or management, etc. And even working class people can be as arrogant, ever go to a bar and listen to idiotic arguments about sports?

- blackton

July 31, 2009 at 2:01pm

"But college professors make for some truly miserable wretches."

That's so true, shaw-man.  And I'm one of the worst.

- ironyroad

July 31, 2009 at 2:21pm

"This must mark the first time in human history that the word "cultivate" has worked its way into a one-sentence author bio."

Except for we farmers, not that we get to write author bios very often...

- literatehobo

July 31, 2009 at 2:29pm

"A ribbon-winning alumnus of the Iowa County 4-H Club, literatehobo is the third generation of his family to farm land near Dodgeville, WI, where he cultivates soybeans and grain crops alongside a growing dairy operation."

Which would be pretty much the first author-bio-in-italics-at-the-end to ever make me really excited to read an op-ed.

- rhubarbs

July 31, 2009 at 3:00pm

Isaac, You left out a critical part of the quote--that Elizabeth said the daughter was just like her former self! I'll admit that short passage was an unnecessarily petty thing to say but I found the rest of her article very sensible and compassionate.

- kcrossin

July 31, 2009 at 4:41pm

Wandreycer1:  I am thoroughly familiar with Gates' reputation and have enjoyed his narratives many times on TV documentaries.  He would be about the last person I would have expected to be a party to an incident like this.  But, as that old New Englander, John Adams said, facts are stubborn things.  And, as the facts have emerged, they have not been kind to Gates' side of the story.  And they sure haven't helped Obama.

A word on cops.  They are exposed to a lot of ugliness, and sometimes worse.  There are class issues, insularity issues, racial issues, etc.  They are exposed to a lot of verbal aggression; much more than most of us face.  Discipline helps; but sometimes they decide enough is enough.  As a group they may not inspire a psychic urge to hug and kiss, but they don't get paid to be a punching bag either. Crowley looks like an implausible renegade.

I thought John McWhorter's original post on this contretemps captured the real flavor.  Gates was entitled to a little slack in reacting to the arrival of the cops (black and white) as possibly racially connected, but once he knew they arrived on the basis of a citizen alert to protect his property he should have calmed down.  

P.S.  You are bigger, younger and undoubtedly better looking than me.  You have my respect, and maybe a little affection too.

- lsernoff

July 31, 2009 at 5:12pm

First of all, you got the quote wrong.  Here's the full paragraph from The Root:

"As our family rounded the corner to the White House library and I first caught sight of Sgt. Crowley’s lovely daughter; she was wearing an appropriately heavy and charmingly untrained amount of green eyeliner on her lower lashes, and I saw my former self in her. We were instantly transported from the post-racial myth of America in 2008 to the reality of 2009. There they stood, a pleasant family of five, listening patiently to the overzealous tour guide boast about the fully functioning fireplace to the left of the doorframe."

Doesn't sound as pompous, does it?  "I saw my former self in her."  But that was inconvenient to the dig you wanted to get in.  Oh well...

- altonsmith202

July 31, 2009 at 5:25pm

"And, as the facts have emerged, they have not been kind to Gates' side of the story."

The issue isn't so much whose side of the story is correct, although the suspicion of male egos locking horns remains acute.  The question is whether, even if Gates wasn't being suitably deferential -- or perhaps even appropriately respectful -- to Sgt Crowley, he should have been arrested for being a jerk on his own property.

It's difficult to see a guy in his late '50s using a cane as a dangerous young criminal type.  Crowley could easily have said, "Sorry to bother you sir, but we had to check this out.  Good morning!" and left the professor expostulating on his porch.

- ironyroad

July 31, 2009 at 6:29pm

terrific to see you literate, if you're still lurking around here.

Gracias Isernoff.

I have worked with the NYPD off and on for awhile in the social work realm.  I've had no better study lab in all my career on how to work across difference in non-romanticized ways. The impact of years of stress and macho culture on both genders is corrosive, generational issues are an issue in many police forces i.e: Daddy - a second generation immigrants thimself, was a hard-ass, casual semi-bigot when that was the norm and well? It's hard for all of us to unlearn this sort of socialization. I"ve witnessed interesting forms of angels on earth and psychopaths - both in uniform (sometimes in the same person).  

But on balance, I am with jhildner and ironoyroad - getting pissed is not illegal.  This is pretty much the bottom line in many police brutality cases.  I was mad with Gates mostly because I didn't want him killed, an issue with black males and cops and anyone who says otherwise is hopelessly disonnected from reality.

But I've occasionally seen a cop in New York be so patient and kind-hearted, my heart broke.  They have worked hard at understanding mental illness, working with gay youth, landlord/tenant nonsense. I've noticed a real change in the last several years.  Everything got better in New York once Guliani left, especially with cops. We have the best Commish in history.

Now, the LAPD?  There's some cops I will never stop being afraid of.

- Wandreycer1

July 31, 2009 at 7:41pm

PS I feel embarrassed that I didn't bother to read the whole context of Elizabeth's work. It was still dumb, but not as mean as I thought.  I'm very protective of teens.

- Wandreycer1

July 31, 2009 at 7:42pm

It's pretty pathetic when the WH mouthpiece mocks the fawning coverage of the WH-hyped news event. Embedded video from CNN Video BTW, Gates' daughter appears to be following in her father's footsteps. (via)...

- Anonymous

July 31, 2009 at 10:31pm

Why DID you replace that phrase with a dash, Isaac?

- porkido

July 31, 2009 at 10:33pm