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Go Home Obama, Crowley, And White Guy Politics

THE PLANK JULY 26, 2009

Obama, Crowley, And White Guy Politics

With his phone calls to Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates and Cambridge police sergeant James Crowley last week, Barack Obama seems to have defused the furor over his comment that Crowley had acted "stupidly" in handcuffing Gates on his own front porch. (I agree with Obama' final verdict, which is that Crowley did overreact, even if it appears that Gates got hysterical.) It may be that Obama was admirably taking advantage of what he calls "a teachable moment," and showing America that racial disputes can lead to dialogue and not just name-calling. But Obama was also mindful of what has become a favorite line of attack among post-Bush conservatives: the aggrieved white guy.

This is the third time in the past year that Obama has squared off, directly or indirectly, with working-class white men. First, there was Joe the Plumber. Last fall, John McCain's campaign became, to an astonishing degree, connected to the grievances of an (unlicensed) Ohio plumber. JTP's message wasn't explicitly racialized--he complained primarily that Obama was leading America down the path toward socialism. But it was impossible to ignore the way he embodied a working-class white everyman who has traditionally felt threatened by minority groups in America. Although McCain lost badly, JTP did allow him to abandon his ineffective emphasis on foreign policy issues like Iraq and Russia and focus his message late in the campaign around Obama's social spending--a preview of the GOP's most potent line of attack today.    

Then, there was the Sotomayor nomination. His Supreme Court nominee was controversial for a recent court ruling which denied promotions deprived a group of white firefighters, coupled with her ill-advised advised assertion that "a wise Latina" might reach a better decision that a white male judge. Senate Republicans and conservative pundits clobbered Sotomayor for the implication that she was biased against white guys. Their point was illustrated with potent stagecraft, in the form of uniformed white firefighters--the losers in the New Haven case--who attended Sotomayor's Senate confirmation hearings in their dress uniforms. They were icons of the heroic working-class white guy. Sotomayor's hearings went about as smoothly as possible, but the GOP did use them to lay the groundwork for a narrative that the Obama administration gives special preference to minority groups.

Now comes Sergeant Crowley. Conservatives could hardly ask for a more effective vehicle for this burgeoning narrative. While Joe the Plumber was an obvious moron, and Sotomayor too sympathetic and skillful to demonize, Crowley (no relation, sorry) is political gold. He is the hard-working white man who wears a uniform and risks his life for his country. Note that such a uniformed civilian hero is especially valuable for a Republican party which, through the fiasco in Iraq, has largely lost its monopolistic claim on representing the uniformed American soldier. And while it's hard to defend Crowley's arrest of Gates, he does seem to be winning the spin war over character and temperament (particularly after African-American members of the Cambridge police force came to his defense last week). Crowley also plays into  the only theme conservatives like more than race, which is class. For Obama to be in the defense of a Harvard professor who summers on the Vineyard against a police officer who attends neighborhood softball games at night--particularly after Obama admitted during his first comments about the case that he did not know all the facts--is almost too good to be true, from the GOP's perspective.

Obama and his advisors surely realized this. They understood that Crowley represented something far more dangerous to their post-racial narrative than either Joe the Plumber or those uniformed firefighters. For once, conservatives stood to gain real traction on both issues of race and class in one simple episode. It wasn't going to ruin his presidency, but it was too volatile to be ignored. Obama had to take control of the story before it took control of him.

--Michael Crowley

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27 comments

Sigh....

If only we could push a button on our PCs and have access to a precise printout of what Crowley and Gates saw, heard, touched, smelled and tasted. Oh, and what they thought and felt too.

Alas, that is not to be. Instead, we have to fall back on the usual suspects:

The conservative wingnuts will chisel This Is What Really Happened out of their block of ideological titanium and the liberal wingnuts will do the same from the other end.

Then another historic Battle Royale will unfold inside [and outside] the beltway as each side attempts to keep their own Blockhead in the lead.

Finally, Obama will bring James and Henry together and, over a few beers...sponsered by Coors....will attempt to duplicate what Rodney King did all those years ago: "America, can't we all just get along?"

But that's probably the stupidest damn thing anyone could possibly imagine.

george

- iambiguous

July 27, 2009 at 1:35am

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Didn't Crowley say his father voted for Obama?  That seems to put a slightly different angle on the story in it wider echoes.  Obama's remark was, incidentally, that the Cambridge Police Dept "acted stupidly," rather than his naming anyone individually.  And indeed, there is something important about the incident with Gates, but it's about citizen-police interactions in general in the U.S. nowadays, rather than race.

- ironyroad

July 27, 2009 at 2:52am

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By the way, we are all missing an important sleeper issue here.

First, there was Joe the Plumber.

Now, there is Jim the Cop.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Exactly: Sarah Palin now has two flesh and blood working class heroes to follow her around on the campaign trail in 2012.

Who knows, maybe even a potential VP candidate here?

But why stop there? Out in the heartland are lots of folks just waiting to be plucked out of thin air and molded into another replica of Joe and Jane Mainstreet.

For example:

_________ the electrician

_________ the sanitation engineer

_________ the sports trainer

_________ the waitress

_________ the hair dresser

_________ the circus clown

_________ the unemployed brick layer

_________ the stripper

_________ the bouncer

_________ the janitor

_________ the bartender

_________the porno star

So, if you [or someone in the family, a close friend, a colleague etc] are tired of treading the same path day after day after day....this may be the chance in a lifetime.

But don't just leave it all to chance. Joe and Jim were yanked into the froth fortuitously. I say this: Make your own froth!

That's what I intend to do. Soon "George the Curmudgeon" will be known around the globe. I'll be milking the suckers for all they're worth while you are still in here arguing about healthcare and bombing Iran.

gw

- iambiguous

July 27, 2009 at 5:27am

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The whole thing is a damn shame.  

I've read several profiles of Crowley, and he's a sympathetic character -- a serious guy who is universally respected within the Cambridge police force and teaches courses on how to avoid racial profiling.  And I've long been a fan of Gates, who is (on paper; I've never met him or seen him speak) subtle, insightful and extremely erudite.

It's easy to understand why Gates was upset at being confronted in his own home, and he certainly shouldn't have been arrested -- even on Crowley's account of the incident.  On the other hand, it sounds like Gates could have diffused the situation by responding politely rather than immediately jumping to the conclusion that Crowley is a racist white cop.

Unlike George, I think it'd be nice (rather than "the stupidest damn thing anyone could possibly imagine" ... and what on earth does Coors have to do with it?) if Obama's proposed beer actually happens.  It's not going to resolve any major problems, but this incident resonated with a lot of people and the symbolism is important.

- Androscoggin

July 27, 2009 at 5:55am

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Andro,

Let me guess, another literalist?

Please, assure me you are just being ironic!

Where oh where to begin....

Everytime I bump into someone in here I'm convinced is the world's most credulous human being another one comes along and blows him out of the water.

I could come in here and post this:

Barack Obama's birth certificate is not only fraudulent, it also provides us with the clues we need to prove he is actually a cyborg. Has anyone ever seen Arnold Scharzenegger and Barack Obama in the same room together? No. Why? Because they are both figments of Sarah Connor's imagination. Along with Marty McFly and Doc Brown, they were sent back here from the future. Their mission: To dumb down our culture all the way back to the stone age.

I think they might be succeeding.

gw

- iambiguous

July 27, 2009 at 7:45am

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George,

Incoherence is not the same thing as irony.

Sincerely,

Andro

- Androscoggin

July 27, 2009 at 7:51am

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If Obama is the master of reconciliation he sees himself as,and the two antagonists here are the thoughtful, competent men they are portrayed as and claim to be,  then getting Crowley and Gates together will create a real opportunity to teach about what can go wrong when we play out - and act out on - our assumed roles in situations like this.  But it's still going to take a lot of effort.  Effort on Gates' part to realize and admit that he contributed to the escalation, and that it just might be the case that race had much less to do with what happened than he assumes.  Effort on Crowley's part to realize and admit that he may have overreacted, and that race was a part of this, whether he consciously or subconsciously brought it into his decision, just because when a white cop confronts a black man, race is always a part of how things play out.

In other words, for this "teaching moment" to be genuine, there will have to be three very "big" men in that room with the beer.

- sdemuth

July 27, 2009 at 7:52am

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andro, "Incoherence is not the same thing as irony." Is an absolute classic. If you came up with that just now, you are a genius, if it is something you read before, it fits perfectly.

- blackton

July 27, 2009 at 9:31am

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Anecdotal experience based on a sample size of two: The most effective thing you can say to a middle-aged conservative Southern white man (MACSWM) to get him to calm down about the Gates/Crowley/Obama kerfluffle is to point out that Gates is half white with Irish ancestry. The second-most effective thing you can say to said MACSWM is to point out that Gates was a 62-year-old guy who'd just locked himself out of his house, and does getting locked out of your own house put you in a really good mood? The least effective thing you can say to said MACSWM is to point out that insulting a cop isn't actually a crime. Because it would seem that for at least all of the MACSWMs in my weekend sample group, insulting a cop is only not a crime if the person doing the insulting is fully white.

Also, due to the confluence of last names, I think we need to start calling our correspondent Mike the Reporter, at least as long as he's covering Sergeant Crowley.

- rhubarbs

July 27, 2009 at 9:54am

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As a rule, it's best just to ignore George, but pearls like Andro's are the exception.

- abrod

July 27, 2009 at 9:56am

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"He is the hard-working white man who wears a uniform and risks his life for his country." One, who cares about the hard work if the work itself is varied and exciting, it ain't like he is digging ditches all day in 110 degree heat. And he is not risking his life for his country, he is risking his life (to a very small degree) for the citizens of Cambridge getting a great salary and benefits.

So I for one am getting a little tired of the whole "risking their lives" line, for one, this is Cambridge, not NY or South Central LA. In the history of Cambridge one cop was killed in the line of duty back in 1920 (according to their website). A lot of cops are adrenaline junkies as well. They love the implicit danger. Also, the pay and benefits are great, and there is a real sense of power. And no one is forcing anyone to be a cop. Now I think Gates was probably an arrogant ass, and Crowley just lost his patience with him, but I also found some of Crowley's attitude self-lionizing. Being a cop does not make anyone automatically a hero, but from this attitude, how dare we criticize the hero police, it seems he expects it.

I am not knocking cops by any means. like many people, I have a cop friend, he regales us with stories of how aggravating the job is and I don't begrudge him anything, but he never acts like anyone should genuflect before him either.

- blackton

July 27, 2009 at 9:59am

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"Incoherence is not the same thing as irony."

Nailed it.

- jobeek2

July 27, 2009 at 10:13am

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Aggrieved white PEOPLE, not just men, are the GOP's best hope, and the Democrats biggest nightmare.  For all this Emerging Democratic Majority talk, and the idea that the GOP is screwed if it says something supposedly offensive to non-whites, the fact remains for the time being that non-Hispanice whites make up close to 2/3rds of voters.  McCain got just 55% of them last year, and turnout among white seniors was down.  If those numbers change, if white opposition to Obama starts going above sixty percent, the old Nixon-Kevin Phillips majority will show that its demise has been greatly exaggerated.  This Pat Buchanan comment from a recent column it points out the absurdity of elite insistence that the key to GOP resurgence is trying to appeal to non-whites :

"If John McCain, instead of getting 55 percent of the white vote, got the 58 percent George W. Bush got in 2004, that would have had the same impact as lifting his share of the Hispanic vote from 32 percent to 62 percent."  buchanan.org/.../pjb-how-to-handle-sonia-1597

In my dreams, the DEMOCRATIC Party would be the party of Ricci and Crowley, but not Joe the Plumber.  The former two, I would remind people, are strong UNION men.  And it was their union that stood up for them.  

- gurdjieff66

July 27, 2009 at 10:15am

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Is Cheaper Health Care Hopeless? No. And Here's An Honest, Detailed Answer Why , by Jonathan Cohn

- Anonymous

July 27, 2009 at 10:23am

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Good analysis Mick.

I think President Obama should invite Fuzzy Zoeller and Tiger Woods to join them for the BBQ and heal a few more racial wounds.  And a few more stories.  Just don't ask Fuzzy what should be on the menu.

- CRS9TNR

July 27, 2009 at 10:29am

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Sgt Crowley is not the same as Joe the Plumber.

Is Crowley even a Republican?

- J. Dyer

July 27, 2009 at 11:25am

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I hear you, CRS9TNR. Fuzzy was a comedian wannabe and a good guy who put his foot in his mouth. I seriously doubt he was as prejudiced as his words about Tiger Woods implied, and he indeed apologized profusely almost immediately. It was more likely that he was unaware of America's racial sensibilities.

- scrubby

July 27, 2009 at 11:45am

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And of course Sarah Palin managed to work "the troops" into her farewell whine over the weekend.

- connieboyd

July 27, 2009 at 12:58pm

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J. Dyer raises a very interesting point -- I've never gotten the impression that Crowley is a Republican or even all that conservative. After all, the conservatives I know think racial profiling is a genius strategy.

- WoodyBombay

July 27, 2009 at 1:07pm

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President Obama can invite Michael Richards and Kyle Doss and get a little humor to go with the BBQ.  Just don't tell Michael that he isn't funny.

- CRS9TNR

July 27, 2009 at 1:50pm

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Undisputed facts: elderly black college professor arrested just outside of his house for speaking his mind to a policeman who had already identified him as whohe was.The professor appeared elderly and disabled .  There appears to be an upswing in police violence  and confrontation with the public. This attitude could lead to a very precarious situation  for policeman working  in the public venue.

- davidlheber

July 27, 2009 at 2:29pm

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Undisputed facts: elderly black college professor arrested just outside of his house for speaking his mind to a policeman who had already identified him as whohe was.The professor appeared elderly and disabled .  There appears to be an upswing in police violence  and confrontation with the public. This attitude could lead to a very precarious situation  for policeman working  in the public venue.

- davidlheber

July 27, 2009 at 2:29pm

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andro:

George,

Incoherence is not the same thing as irony.

george:

It's only incoherent if you don't know what I think it means. It becomes ironic when you think I know what you think it means but doesn't. Ask Roid how that works.  ; o )

gw

- iambiguous

July 27, 2009 at 3:11pm

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Gates is  58.  I'm biased myself, like the president (but for different reasons), but that is not "elderly" for pete's sake!

- ironyroad

July 27, 2009 at 3:15pm

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I agree with Davidlhefer. I suspect the problem was not as much racial as just the police attitude that they are totally in command and must be obeyed regardless. Mr. Crowley could probably claim that he would have treated a white Mr. Gates the same way in the same circumstances, which would not have turned into a national incident. So basically Mr. Obama statement was correct--the police department behaved stupidly: Unless the intent was to create a national racist incident.

I find the comments regarding Mr. Gates being a little hot interesting. How many of us after returning from a long  trip, probably very tired, finding ourselves locked out of our house, and then be confronted by the police demanding to know why we are there would have smiled, bowed, and said come right in officer and have a drink?

- tpinter

July 27, 2009 at 9:48pm

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Left, Michael Crowley: Still a poster-boy after all these years. As the dew dries to crusted smegma on the Obama rose, we need to find better metaphors for the Obamallationist media that's looking for a way to rinse the acrid taste out of their morning

- Anonymous

July 28, 2009 at 4:01am

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Fiasco in Iraq? What are you talking about? Are you still living in 2006? Now, after the presidential election you can admit the success in Iraq even if this sheds a positive light on George Bush.

- E10952

July 28, 2009 at 5:55pm

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