Thought Docket

Well, it has been quite some time since I last posted. What can I say…I sort of lost steam there. But I have been observing the situation in Washington with some amusement. I think it is possible that we have seen the apogee of the Obama presidency. The latest gaffe from Obama was his remark regarding the Cambridge police in acting “stupidly” by arresting Henry Louis Gates. Here is what most of the appalled left says about this:

• How could someone be arrested in their own home?
• There was racial profiling.

In Gates’ arrest, what seems clear to me is only this: Crowley did not give Gates the benefit of the doubt; he did not cut Gates much slack, if any. Beyond that, I don’t know much of anything, other than people are arrested in their own homes all the time. Have you ever seen an episode of Cops? See Crowley’s police report here.

Now this matter of racial profiling is interesting. Frank Rich, writing in the New York Times, gives mad props to the woman making the 9-1-1 call because she was not racial profiling. This was due to the fact that she did not mention that the suspects were “black”. Huh? Is this now the definition of racial profiling? According to Wikipedia, racial profiling

is the inclusion of racial or ethnic characteristics in determining whether a person is considered likely to commit a particular type of crime or an illegal act or to behave in a “predictable” manner.

As Obama might say, let me be clear: there is no evidence of racial profiling in this incident. Not the woman, not Crowley, not nobody. Not even close. Maybe Obama can carve out some time in this learning moment and explain this to the race baiters.

The way I see it, Gates acted toward Crowley just like any other belligerent asshat does that tries to strap on the po po. Gates was nothing extraordinary to Crowley. Gates asked Crowley if he knew who he was “messing” with. Well, as a matter of fact, no. It may come as a surprise to Gates, Obama, and others, but practically nobody in the US knows who Gates is. His name is vaguely familiar to me, but I could not pick him out of a lineup. Sure, he is well known in academic circles, and I’m sure his reputation is well deserved. But the man on the street would not know him from Adam. And Crowley acted toward Gates in a manner that was foreign to Gates. Crowley was not some fawning, brown-nosing graduate student. He was not some faculty member looking to curry favor at the next tenure meeting.

To be as charitable as possible toward Gates, he acted like he was tired after his long travel back from China. Maybe he had a few drinks on board the plane. Who knows.

But what we do know is that Obama’s gut reaction places him squarely in the Rev. Wright camp. What a surprise.

A friend of mine who is, shall we say, more progressive than I am, posted a link in Facebook to a post from FireDogLake titled The Three Stooges of the Apocalypse. FireDogLake.com is a blog started by Jane Hamsher. Hamsher has connections with Hollywood, the Huffington Post, and Markos Moulitsas.

The post, preserved with original links to various stories, follows.

Cut to: interior.  A poorly lit, dingy office with framed 8 x 10 photos of second-rate comedians, burlesque performers, and the occasional evangelist line the walls. The windows are smudged and dirty.  A desk is piled high with photos, audition videos, and demo tapes.  We see

the soles of a pair of shoes on one corner of the desk. A plume of cigar smoke snakes its way to the stained ceiling. A man, barely visible behind a mound of paper, barks into the telephone.

Ralphie:

Sid! It’s me. . . . Right. It’s your crazy aunt Sheila. No, you schmuck, it’s Ralphie from Bush League Talent. . . No, no you don’t owe me any money . . . Look, just shut up and listen, okay?  I have a comedy act that is guaranteed to fill the seats of movie houses every night for the next four years. . . . Yes, right, until 2012.  Good to see you can still do math. It’s a wonder your company’s in the toilet.  Listen, it’s a trio, two guys and a gal . . . no, it’s a comedy act, no nudity . . . Yeah, well let me explain the premise, okay?  There’s these three idiots — the leader, Bobby, thinks he’s smart, but he’s just got a bigger vocabulary than the other two.  The real doofus is the other guy, Mikey, whose portrayal of a black guy circa 1983 is so frickin’ on the money that you find yourself wondering why you sold your “Thriller” album on eBay. And the babe, Sarah, plays the straight man, but she’s the real brains of the group. Anyway, the fate of the country rests with these three maroons, but they’re so incompetent that they’re always getting into some sort of trouble that ends up with them poking themselves in the eye and falling on banana peels.  Real slapstick kind of stuff.  I know that sounds like it’s been done before, but never with a babelicious woman and two brown-skinned mooks.  Trust me on this, Sid. This is going to be the biggest draw out there since Katie Harris went full frontal. . . . Sid?  Sid, you still there? . . . . Ah, shit.

[Fade out.]

I like how the left are continuing to attack Republicans, nearly 4 months after Obama’s election. It makes me think there is not much good news for them to latch on to. Certainly the stock market has taken a great big Number 2 all over Obama’s stimulus package and subsequent budget proposal. Just today, there was news of another tax cheat nominated by Obama administration (trade envoy designate Ron Kirk). Maybe it would be better if the Washington Post reported as news those instances when someone joins the Obama administration who is not a tax cheat. We have Obama basically carrying out the Bush administrations Iraq policy. We have Hilary Clinton sounding pessimism over outreach to Iran. John McCain is returning to his old cranky self, blasting Obama about breaking his vow to end earmarks. I bet McCain is sorry he ever said that we had nothing to fear from Obama. Obama is taking his sweet time in shuttering GTMO for many reasons. We’re starting to learn that we had a lot of help with interrogations, much of it from the European bed-wetters that Obama wowed in July.

I could go on and on. But here is what really caught my eye in the post above.

…a babelicious woman and two brown-skinned mooks.

Do you know what a mook is? I had to look it up. I knew it wouldn’t be good. Mook: a contemptible, incompetent person. And brown-skinned? I am so proud of this past election, and proud of John McCain and the Republican party that race was not a real issue. Good for us and good for America. Well, race was not much of an issue. For whom was race an issue?

• Race was an issue for that mook from Pennsylvania, Jack Murtha, who accused Pennsylvanians of being redneck and racist. Somehow he got re-elected.
• Race was apparently an issue for some African Americans, who wondered whether Obama was “black enough”.

Race is obviously on the mind of Attorney General Eric Holder, who has called out America as cowards when it comes to discussions on race. I bet that liberals heard Holder say this and immediately thought “good, he’s calling out conservatives”. Sorry folks, but the people that are most hung up on race are liberals, who need race to be an issue to boost their success at the polls. I won’t hold my breath waiting for liberals to denounce “brown-skinned mooks”. What better evidence is there that the Obama shooting star is already starting to [Fade out].