What are friends for?!

[LiberalMuslim]

What are friends for if not to stand up for you, even at their own expense?!
Looking back now at the whole episode of the Gates/Cambridge Police Thingy, I concluded that the President had a natural reflex of a good friend. And that is to be as supportive as you can be.
No matter where you stand on who was wronged in all of this, you have to admit it was admirable of the president to sacrifice some of his popularity for this. And I have to say that I'm pleased Gates appreciates the cost of that support

Gates said:
"I told the president that my principal regret was that all of the attention paid to his deeply supportive remarks during his press conference had distracted attention from his health care initiative,"

[firedupdem]

1. delete

[FrenchieCat]

2. He'll be more popular than ever once everyone thinks about it.....

Because what they will realize that being arrested in your own fucking house is like,
totally stupid. :rofl:

[LiberalMuslim]

3. He gets points with me...

no matter how this thing turns out!

[MercutioATC]

4. And if Gates had been arrested "in his own fucking house", you might have a point.

[LiberalMuslim]

5. He was on his front porch!

But that's not really the point of this diary...

[MercutioATC]

6. Correct. OUTSIDE of his house and in view (and hearing) of the public.

There's a distinct difference.

[FrenchieCat]

7. Yeah, Crowley invited him there so he could make an arrest.....

didn't say he wasn't tricky.

Viewpoint: The Stupidity of the Gates Arrest (O'Donnell in Time)
There is no crime described in Crowley's official version of the way Gates behaved. Crowley says explicitly that he arrested Gates for yelling. Nothing else, not a single threatening movement, just yelling. On the steps of his own home. Yelling is not a crime. Yelling does not meet the definition of disorderly conduct in Massachusetts. Not a single shouted word or action that Crowley has attributed to Gates amounts to disorderly conduct. That is why the charges had to be dropped. (Read TIME's report: "Gates' Disorderly Conduct: The Police's Judgment Call")

In classically phony police talk, Crowley refers to " continued tumultuous behavior." When cops write that way, you know they have nothing. What is tumultuous behavior? Here's what it isn't: he brandished a knife in a threatening manner, he punched and kicked, he clenched his fist in a threatening manner, he threw a wrench or, in the Gates house, maybe a book. If the subject does any of those things, cops always write it out with precision. When they've got nothing, they use phrases that mean nothing. Phrases like tumultuous behavior.

Unless you confess to a crime,or threaten to commit a crime, there is nothing you can say to a cop that makes it legal for him to arrest you. You can tell him he is stupid, you can tell him he is ugly, you can call him racist, you can say anything you might feel like saying about his mother. He has taken an oath to listen to all of that and ignore it. That is the real teachable moment here — cops are paid to be professionals, but even the best of them are human and can make stupid mistakes.

We have an uncomfortable choice with Sergeant Crowley. Either he doesn't know what disorderly conduct is or Crowley simply decided to show Gates who's boss the only way he knew how at the time — by whipping out his handcuffs and abusing his power to arrest. Police make the latter choice in this country every day, knowing that the charges are going to have to be dropped. (See TIME's 10 Questions for Henry Louis Gates Jr.)
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1912778,00.html?artId=1912778?contType=article?chn=us

[MercutioATC]

9. Just a clarification: Police use language like that because that's the wording in the statute.

As somebody who has typed thousands of incident reports, police almost always use very specific terms...and those terms exist in the wording of either statute or case law.

[Raineyb]

11. Don't you get tired of making excuse after excuse for this fuckwitted cop?

I certainly get tired of seeing it.

[MercutioATC]

14. Oh, but then I'd be deprived of your insightful commentary...

Don't like it?

Don't read it.

[bridgit]

13. Correct, the phrases used are designed if not meant to lift emotional responses to them...

out of the mix so they often read like stereo instructions or Ikea assembly charts. I like O'Donnell just fine but he seems to be writing script here cause my sense is that he does know better,

"In classically phony police talk, Crowley refers to " continued tumultuous behavior." When cops write that way, you know they have nothing. What is tumultuous behavior? Here's what it isn't: he brandished a knife in a threatening manner, he punched and kicked, he clenched his fist in a threatening manner, he threw a wrench or, in the Gates house, maybe a book. If the subject does any of those things, cops always write it out with precision. When they've got nothing, they use phrases that mean nothing. Phrases like tumultuous behavior."

O'Donnell asks what tumultuous behavior is giving us then, actually, a short list of conduct that it isn't; he has, nevertheless, opted out of indicating what it is -- O'Donnell -- a guy that sits next to Pat Buchanan on a routine basis knows not what tumultuous behavior is? Fine, if that's the case then soup *is* on:

[RC]

8. .

[rvablue]

10. Disagree. The President didn't "sacrifice some of his popularity for this."

The type who would be outraged by his remarks would be a type that wouldn't have voted for him anyway.

I think anyone who was thoughtful enough to have voted for the President and who might not like how he worded his answer at the press conference are pleased with his later clarification and his generous and conciliatory gesture of inviting both parties to the White House for a handshake and a beer.

[grantcart]

12. A President who has academics who are friends, a revolutinary idea

BTW welcome to DU