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Now that the world’s elected leaders are about to descend on the Global Warmingist Conclave in Copenhagen, true believers enjoy renewed hopes that something can be done to save the planet. If so, the elected leaders will have achieved something beyond the reach of the more than 492,674 leading authorities on Climate Change already present. And not a moment too soon.

As a direct result of the impassioned speeches, furious debates and tens of millions of pages of reports circulated and discussed, carbon dioxide has gone from 383 parts per million (ppm) to more than 497, just in the two weeks the Conclave has run. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, carbon dioxide is one of the most toxic poisons on earth. This manmade pollutant is so lethal that life itself is dependent upon it.

Now that the world’s elected leaders have arrived to take charge, we can be confident that the carbon dioxide crisis will be solved. However, the world still faces enormous threats. Not least among other known sources of global warming is cigarette smoke. Though smoking has been around ever since the first Big Tobacco executive forced the first eight-year-old to light up, the problem has grown dramatically worse due to laws banning indoor smoke. Because smokers are now relegated to the open air, their smoke goes directly into the atmosphere without first being filtered by HVAC systems and the lungs of hapless bartenders and waitresses.

Methane is also a threat to the world’s survival. Though constituting only 1745 parts per billion (ppb), its Global Warming Potential (GWP) is 25 times greater than carbon dioxide. Add to this that methane’s percentage of the earth’s atmosphere has increased 149% since 1750, compared to an increase of only 38% for carbon dioxide, and it is clear that methane is a growing menace.

Thirty-seven percent of yearly methane emissions come from livestock, including a shocking 16% from cows alone. For this reason, and for this reason only, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is encouraging people to stop eating meat. No doubt it is a noble and sacred cause, but it really doesn’t address the issue. Even if people stop eating meat, or even especially if people stop eating meat, the livestock will still exist. Cows and sheep will continue to belch and fart and heat up the earth. One solution would be to slaughter all livestock, which would result in a short-lived buyer’s market for leather jackets and wool sweaters, but the problem with this is the carcasses would decay, releasing carbon into the atmosphere.

The only solution to this crisis is to load the earth’s livestock onto rocket ships, and send them into space. Of course, the carbon signature of each rocket launch is huge, in some cases, depending on the size of the rocket, exceeding even the carbon footprint of the jet-setting Al Gore and Bill McKibben combined.

However, this is where the green technology revolution can come into play. By devoting Stimulus dollars to solar research, it will be possible to develop solar powered rocket engines. Then we can rid the earth of methane-spewing scourges in an earth-friendly manner. As an added benefit, by launching one Global Warming Denier, cigarette smoker and Tea Bagger for each animal, not only can we eliminate stumbling blocks to genuine reform, but the human population will be greatly reduced. This, too will benefit the earth, allowing us to adopt a more sustainable lifestyle. After all, as McKibben likes to say, “Not everyone can move to Middlebury.”

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Last weekend I attended a funeral. It was my second in a month, both times to mourn someone who had gone too soon. Afterwards, at the wake, I saw a former friend. We used to enjoy time spent in each other’s company, and would spend it with our spouses at the symphony, or cooking gourmet dinners for each other. Good food, good wine, and good conversation, though whenever we drifted near politics his wife would cry, “Stop!”

Obviously, she knew him better than I did, because once my essays began appearing in print, including on these pages, he told me, coldly, that unless I recanted my views, he wanted nothing further to do with me.

There it was, a friendship lying in tatters on the floor between us. Worse than the loss of a friend, I thought, was the realization that our friendship had been a lie. I have plenty of friends with whom I differ politically. With some of them I enjoy long, often spirited debates on the issues. The arguments are based on mutual respect born of friendship. With others, we realize the shoals of dispute might breach the hull of our craft, so we avoid it. There is so much more to life than politics.

Though I had promised myself I never would, as his was the transgression, so must reconciliation come from him, I approached my former friend at the wake. I told him this business of seeing friends pass too soon was growing old fast. “Is there any way we can forget the past and enjoy each other’s company again?”

“I hope so,” he replied, but stifled the hug of reconciliation I offered with the qualifying inquiry, “Have you changed your views?”

I asked him if it was possible to leave politics aside, and just appreciate the things we had in common. His reply was essentially, “If you don’t like my  President, I can’t be your friend.”

Much has been made of the partisanship which has divided our nation. A curious concern as partisanship has been the essence of our political history. The free and frank exchange of competing outlooks is what makes this nation so strong. Rather than partisanship, it is incivility, as epitomized by my former friend, that has caused such a painful societal rift.

Whether it is a Congressman calling the President a liar or the Speaker of the House describing those who disagree with her view of health care as “un-American,” it is the recourse to invective that wounds, that tears the fabric of human interaction. We as Americans have so much more in common than in opposition, but somewhere along the line the idea of conciliation  mutated into the concept of capitulation.

As we enter into the holiday season, it would do us well to remember the words from the Christmas Story, “Peace on earth, good will toward men.” Those words should apply to everyone, to men and women, to believers and unbelievers, to Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, even to Spartans and Wolverines. Life is too short to hold grudges and inflate differences. Life is meant to be celebrated, not to be ripped apart through mutual disdain.

The following is an actual transcript of a fictional cable news program which should probably be censored, just on general principle.

HARDCASE: Good evening. I’m Chris Hardcase, and you’re watching Curveball. Tonight’s show is a big one. This is probably the most important week in the brief tenure of President Obama (Hardcase’s leg begins twitching uncontrollably). The Health Care Reform Bill was introduced on the Senate floor yesterday. Tonight the President will deliver a major address at West Point, where sources say he will announce a surge in troops to Afghanistan. Plus controversy continues to swirl around Michaele and Tareq Salahi, the couple who allegedly crashed a White House dinner. So, we have a lot on our plate tonight, which is why we are devoting the entire hour to Tiger Woods. Why did he crash? Where was he going? What club did Elin use? Can we blame Bush for this? Joining me in the studio tonight to examine this issue are–(Holding his hand to his earpiece). Wait, there’s breaking news. We now switch live to Kim Collagen, reporting from the Treasury Building. Kim?

COLLAGEN: Chris, I’m standing in front of the US Treasury Building–

HARDCASE: The Treasury Building? What is it?

COLLAGEN: It’s that big square building behind me. The one with the columns?

HARDCASE: Uh, yes, go ahead, Kim.

COLLAGEN: Chris, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has just announced that he has solved the problem with the deficit.

HARDCASE: Well, that’s fantastic, Kim. So we have a balanced budget now? What did Geithner do, pay his back taxes?

COLLAGEN: Not exactly, Chris. Apparently Treasury has redefined the problem. From now on, instead of talking about deficits, which, according to my sources, arise when expenses exceed revenues, they are going to refer to a disbursement surplus. Geithner says that surplus sounds a lot better than deficit, which should reassure the investment community, as well as the Chinese.

HARDCASE: That’s brilliant. How did he come up with that idea?

COLLAGEN: We understand that the idea didn’t actually come from the Treasury. According to sources, Jane Neapolitan over at Homeland Security gave them the idea when she started referring to terrorist acts as man-caused disasters. Geithner says that sort of rhetorical prestidigitation opened up a world of opportunity.

HARDCASE: Kim, do you actually know what rhetorical prestidigitation means?

COLLAGEN: Uh, no, Chris, I don’t. I just read whatever crosses my TelePrompter. Did I pronounce it okay?

HARDCASE: Yes, you did fine, Kim. But now, back to the issues. With me in the studio tonight are Johnny Shankman, a golf analyst for, uh, NBC, or is it CBS? We also have Athena Wingwin, from Nike, one of Tiger’s biggest sponsors, and Tom Hooker from the National Association of Retailers. Let’s start with Johnny. Why did Tiger crash? Where was he going? What club did Elin use? Can we blame Bush for this?

SHANKMAN: Those are good questions, Chris. Look, any way you slice this, it doesn’t look good for Tiger. I mean, up to this point, his image was pristine. He could get trapped by the bogey man of bad publicity. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say Tiger was definitely the driver of the car. But that doesn’t mean we can’t iron out the problem. A fair way for him to deal with this would be  to simply say, “Gimme a break.” This bad publicity could be the thin end of the wedge.

HARDCASE: Thin end of the wedge? I don’t get it.

SHANKMAN: Well, it’s obvious. This is the first chip in his armor. I mean, up until now Tiger was a clean as an Eagle Scout. This is not the time to be puttering around with excuses. Okay, I understand he’s not feeling up to par, but he needs to get out front on this.

HARDCASE: Good analysis, Johnny. Athena, anything to add?

WINGWIN: Well, Chris, we at Nike are 100% behind Tiger. We are confident that this will blow over. But I do agree with Johnny that whatever stance Tiger takes, he should address it honestly. The last thing we want is for him to lie. Plus, there’s still a lot we don’t understand.

HARDCASE: How so?

WINGWIN: Well, initial reports said he was unconscious. Isn’t it possible he had a stroke?

HOOKER: A stroke? That’s ridiculous, Athena. How can you say he had a stroke? There’s a very simple, and logical explanation for this.

HARDCASE: A simple explanation, Tom? You mean it really is Bush’s fault?

HOOKER: I’m afraid not, Chris. If you look at the timing of the accident, everything comes clear. When did the accident occur? 2:25 a.m., on the day after Thanksgiving. It’s obvious. I think he was trying to get to Best Buy before it opened. He wanted to get a crack at one of those $300 flat screen TVs.

HARDCASE: Well, we’re out of time. But join us tomorrow when Al Gore and Vann Jones join us to discuss Climategate: Is It Just a Lot of Hot Air?
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Reports are circulating that President Barack Obama (D-Chi) has decided to approve the deployment of an additional 34,000 troops in Afghanistan. Though on the face of it this is a refreshing show of strength and character by the Nobel Peace Prize winner, I would like to be the first to announce that the surge is not working. In fact, I will go so far as to declare it is a failure.

You may recall that this was the uniform response of the loyal opposition to the troop surge in Iraq. Everyone from Nancy Pelosi to Harry Reid was quick to call that surge a failure, before the troops were even in place. Our current Secretary of State went so far as to call Gen. David Petraeus a liar when he gave a detailed briefing of how the surge was working.

So even though the first troops aren’t scheduled to arrive in country before next March, it isn’t too early to call it a failure. The timing is instructive. Eight months after Gen. Stanley McChrystal stated the urgent need for quick action, the first troops will begin to arrive. The deployment is scheduled to take nine months.

However, beginning in June, well before the bulk of the troops are in place, the administration will explore “off ramps,” studying benchmarks which will determine whether to halt deployments, adopt a more limited strategy, or “begin looking very quickly at exiting.” In other words, at the same stage of deployment which led Obama himself to declare the Iraqi surge a failure, he and his advisors will try to determine whether the Afghan surge is successful.

This is actually a brilliant strategy. It will mollify the antiwar left, revitalizing the base in time for the 2010 elections. It will enable Obama to appear tough, willing to make the tough decisions. It will show him to have a realistic view of the world, and of the use of American power. It will also allow him to finesse the hawkish words he employed back when he was using  Afghanistan as a Bush-battering cudgel. He will be able to take ownership of the war, and end it.

By next June, having reviewed the situation on the ground and finding it still flawed, he can strike a statesmanlike pose and announce “Despite the deployment of additional troops, the situation in Afghanistan has continued to deteriorate. I cannot in good faith continue to risk the lives of the men and women of the Armed Forces in pursuit of a failed policy.”

It will be especially gratifying for him to add, “There was a time when this strategy could have succeeded. That time was 2003. Our failure to do the right thing then means that doing it now is the wrong thing. Therefore I am ordering the immediate withdrawal of all US forces from Afghanistan.”

He might, for good measure, consider quoting that great statesman John Kerry, “How can you ask a soldier to be the last man to die for a mistake?”

For all those reasons, I am happy to get out in front on this one. Again, the surge isn’t working.

Leonard Pitts Jr. is a reliably leftist columnist with an outsized ego.  He is so full of himself that he makes Barack Obama seem humble, or even self-effacing by comparison. Not only is Pitts always right, but he possesses the gift of divination. He can explain what his critics really mean, and what they are actually thinking when they disagree with him.

Take, for example, his column endorsing the decision to try self-confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a New York City courtroom. This decision, ostensibly made by Attorney General Eric Holder, was met with widespread scorn and disbelief. Pitts wrote that critics cited “questions of security, fears of acquittal (and) other obfuscatory concerns.”

Obfuscatory concerns? By this Pitts implies that there are no legitimate reasons to oppose this arbitrary sop to the far left and latest attempt to appease those who would destroy us. Indeed, Pitts asserts, if the critics “would be honest with themselves, they’d admit” that the real reason for their opposition is the desire to see Mohammad denied the rights guaranteed Americans by the US Constitution. They have a visceral, irrational need to see him punished.

“But you have to wonder,” Pitts writes. “Are our emotional needs the most important consideration here? It’s worth remembering that even the . . . leaders of the Nazi regime found themselves facing not summary execution, but a trial before a military tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany.”

This is a standard leftist trope to justify trying Mohammad et al. in New York, that even the Nazis received a trial. Pitts is the first to admit that the trial they received was under the auspices of a military tribunal. It is the height of absurdity to rely on this argument, because it was precisely that, a military tribunal, that Mohammad was facing when the Boy King ascended to the throne. There was no talk of a summary execution. Pitts came up with that one all by himself. Perhaps because, given his gift of divination, he knew what the judge, jury and attorneys weren’t willing to admit to themselves.

There was a military tribunal underway. Mohammad had admitted his guilt and asked to be executed. Obama put a stop to this, and all other military tribunals, presumably because, having commenced under the previous administration, they could not be fair. But Obama offers a curious view of what is fair. He has stated that Mohammad will be found guilty, and will be executed. Holder has no doubt that Mohammad will be convicted. On what basis? Because, he explained, he informed his prosecutors that “Failure is not an option.” Furthermore, the Administration has assured us that even if Mohammad is acquitted, he will remain in custody

Holding a trial in which conviction is a foregone conclusion has not historically been a defining characteristic of the American criminal justice system. Rather, it has much more in common with the show trials mounted under Stalin. While the quality of his writing is laughable enough, the soundness of Pitts’ conclusion is even more worthy of derision: “We need this trial more than Mohammad does. For all its risks–and they are real–it offers a prize worth risking for: the promise of feeling like Americans again.”

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An observer less given to post-partisan politics might call the $849 billion Senate health care bill, introduced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid yesterday, a colossal fraud perpetrated upon the American people. He might call it a disgraceful display of contempt for the American people, even a slap in the face. He might describe the estimates that the bill would cut federal deficits by $127 billion over the next decade an example of criminal sleight-of-hand, a manifestation of the sort of fiscal legerdemain which recently landed Bernie Madoff in jail.

He might do that. However, I have long been a firm supporter of the hope and change which impelled Barack Obama (D-Chi.) to the White House. I celebrate the President’s commitment to bringing people together, and finding a happy middle ground. I certainly agree that once we agree on the problems, it will be easy to come up with the solutions. Which is why I am ecstatic that the latest version of health care overhaul will cut the deficit by $36 billion more than the Baucus bill promised.

That more churlish observer, having already pointed out that the Baucus bill numbers were a sham, based as they were on ten years’ worth of revenue covering seven years’ worth of expenditures, will no doubt call Reid’s version, calling for just six years’ worth of expenditures covered by the same ten years’ worth of revenues, an even more egregious offense to common sense and fiscal probity.

But I, willing to unclench my fist at the first sight of a hand extended in friendship, view this latest bill as a good start. It may not be perfect, but, as Rahm Emanuel and his boss both like to say, we should never allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. Rather than dwell on the negatives, rather than keep harping on the fact that every version of health care reform seems designed to increase the cost and reduce the effectiveness of health care for 80% of the population to ensure that the remaining 20% can continue receiving the same shoddy health care they do today, let’s look at the potential benefits.

If pushing the onset of expenditures further into the future increases the amount by which the deficit is reduced, then it is possible to eliminate the deficit. What if we don’t start implementing the expensive parts of the bill for a full ten years, or even twenty? Why, the deficit will be a thing of the past.

In fact, we might even have a surplus. If so, we can use part of the surplus to fund another stimulus bill. Given the success of the first one, in which more than 640,000 jobs were either created or saved, at the cost of a paltry $176,000 per job, then think how much more effective a second stimulus bill will be. Why, the last one was so successful that the innovative folks over at recovery.org are already having to make up places to put all the new jobs. (Incidentally, ACORN has announced a new voter registration drive in Arizona’s 15th Congressional District).

With the next stimulus bill, funded by the remarkably cost-effective health care bill, the Obama Administration might have to start creating jobs in other countries, or even out in space. Guess now we know why NASA was so intent on finding water on the moon.

During yesterday’s Memorial Service for the thirteen soldiers murdered by a homegrown, US Government Issue Islamist terrorist, Army Chief of Staff George Casey gave further proof of why he is President Barack Obama’s idea of the perfect General. Casey had previously displayed his skills as a linguistic contortionist by repeatedly and publicly downplaying Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s Muslim faith. “We are a diverse army,” Casey crooned. “This terrible event would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity became a casualty.”

Actually, this terrible event became an even greater tragedy when the Army leadership’s sense of justice became a casualty of diversity. In today’s pluralistic America, there is no harm in having a military whose makeup reflects the diversity of the nation it exists to defend. Yet there are limits to how representative the military should strive to be.

There are Americans who wish to sublimate their nation’s interests to those of the United Nations, who long for the day when the concept of American Exceptionalism is relegated to the “ash heap of history.” Yet it would be a disservice to the nation for the armed services to include a representative percentage of them in their ranks. Having one of those Americans as their Commander in Chief is more than sufficient.

During his Ft. Hood address, Gen. Casey referred to the thirteen who “laid down their lives for their country.” This was an outrage. It was an insult to the victims; it was tantamount to dancing on their graves. They didn’t “lay down their lives.” They were murdered. They were shot in the back by an outspokenly anti-American officer. Worse, they were stabbed in the back by an officer class who chose to ignore Hasan’s progressively more radical behavior because they didn’t want to tarnish their self-image of a kinder, gentler, more inclusive, more Muslim-friendly establishment.
    
Perhaps it is time for the Armed Forces to place diversity on the back burner. Perhaps it is time for the top brass to place a higher emphasis on the security of the nation, and the safety of their employees, than on winning gold stars from diversity counselors.

Perhaps it is time to take a good, long look at the motives behind Muslims’ enlistment. If a recruit identifies more strongly with his coreligionists than he does his country or his service, then he should be regarded as unfit to serve. There is something repellent, insidious, and inherently evil about a religion whose followers, as they grow more “devout,” become more likely to commit wanton, indiscriminate murder.

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When I do watch television, "Monk" and "House" are two shows I enjoy. In "House," Bertie Wooster plays a doctor who manages to unearth rare diseases in every patient who catches a cold. He and his team of intrepid researchers manage, over the course of just one hour, to subject their hapless patient to MRI’s, Cat Scans, brain surgery, catheterization and amputation before concluding, moments before the poor sod expires, that the guy has a cold. The show usually ends with Dr. House telling him to "take two aspirin and call me in the morning," while fending off hugs from the grateful family and ignoring admiring gazes from his star-struck acolytes.

"Monk," on the other hand, is a joyous affirmation of my tendency to want things to be just so. Despite his obsessive compulsion disorder, Monk manages to solve crimes that no one even knows were committed. He does this in the face of countless dangers, usually managing to find himself immersed in slime, bugs or total chaos.

Both shows offer decent entertainment, however implausible their premise. They both stand in direct contrast to that perversity known as "Reality TV," in which ordinary people subject themselves to public humiliation for the sake of a brush with celebrity.

With certain people this brush with celebrity engenders a desire to replicate the sensation of having people look them and recognize them on the street. This compulsive search for attention is reminiscent of the disorder known as Munchausen Syndrome, in which sufferers repeatedly return to the hospital citing phantom maladies. A related disease, called Munchausen By Proxy involves parents, usually mothers, who bring their children to the hospital, complaining of imagined or even real illnesses and injuries.

The Reality TV disorder, which we shall call the Monk-House Syndrome, requires otherwise merely embarrassing people to repeatedly subject themselves to public humiliation in order to return to their erstwhile status as laughingstocks. Richard Heene is the latest victim of Monk-House syndrome. A former participant on "Wife Swap" and longing to return to the limelight, he is alleged to have concocted a hoax involving a homemade hot air balloon, a missing child, hundreds of would-be rescuers and the attention of millions (so one hears) of television viewers. That the linchpin of this stunt involved his six-year-old son, Falcon, who was supposedly on the balloon, means that Heene has introduced a new Reality TV related disorder to the world of abnormal psychology, called Monk-House By Proxy.

The upside of this disorder is that Heene’s desperate need for attention will probably land him in jail. The recourse taken by a rational society to the scourge of Monk-House syndrome would be to ban Reality TV from the air waves. Short of that, however, I propose a solution. This involves instituting a new Reality TV show for all those whose first bout of public self-abasement wasn’t sufficient.

Each former Bachelor, Bachelorette, Great Racer, Wife Swapper, or Nanny Abuser who wants a little bit more, should be invited to appear on an exciting new Reality TV show called "Survivor: Waziristan." This collection of zany contestants will be dropped off in the wilds of northwest Pakistan, to compete for a million dollar prize.

The new show will have some similarities to the already televised abomination called "Survivor." For example, there will be competing tribes. Unlike "Survivor," however, the contestants won’t be split into two tribes, they will all be in the same tribe, competing against the tribes already occupying the rugged landscape. While contestants will be removed from the show each week, their number won’t be limited to one, and they won’t be "voted off the island." Rather, avid viewers can watch the losers get beheaded on Al Jazeera. Should help the network during Sweeps Week.

At the end of the series, the lone survivor, having managed to remain hidden beneath a pile of moldy sheep skins in the back of a musty cave, will be airlifted out in the company of a squad of Special Forces, to receive his check. If the show works as designed, having spent the last six months doing everything in his power to avoid being noticed, he should be cured of Monk-House Syndrome, and the public will never have to look at him again.

Fresh off his surprising win on the hit new show, "International Idol," President Barack Obama (D-Chi) announced a plan to provide a one-time $250 payment to Social Security beneficiaries. This gift, which will also be paid to Supplemental Security Income recipients, veterans, railroad retirees and government retirees, is slated to cost $13 billion. The President gave no indication of how he would pay for this act of largesse, though White House officials said it would not harm the solvency of the Social Security fund. "How could it?" asked one administration official who requested that his name not be used as he was not authorized to tell the truth. "The fund’s already bankrupt, so what’s another $13 billion?"

The payment will replace the annual cost of living adjustment (COLA), which is designed to insulate Social Security beneficiaries from the ravages of inflation. This year marks the first time since COLA was enacted in 1975 that an adjustment hasn’t been granted. Because the Consumer Price Index actually declined last year, there was no statutory justification for increasing benefits. However, since by law benefits cannot be reduced, in theory at least, receiving the same benefits should constitute an increase in disposable income.

This happy turn of events is not sufficient for the President. "Even as we seek to bring about recovery, we must act on behalf of those hardest hit by this recession," he declared. Strange, one would have thought the 10% of the workforce who have lost their jobs would have been hit harder that those on a fixed income during a deflationary period. But then again, one has not won the Nobel Prize for Economics. Nor has The One, yet, though this act of benevolent legerdemain may well secure him next year’s award.

Still, one who has garnered not a single Nobel Prize, not even the Peace Prize, which one understands they’re just handing out like candy on Halloween, suspects benevolence may not be the prime motivating factor in this "gift." It is entirely possible that, as the Administration proceeds in its efforts to foist an unwanted "health care reform" on the American people, it is not unaware of the fact that, aside from various tin foil hat brigades, also known as fiscal conservatives, senior citizens constitute the bloc most uniformly opposed to the President’s objectives.

Thus, in the style of the stereotypical Chicago Ward Heeler, Obama has come up with a plan to buy senior citizens’ support. While there is no word yet on how effective this ploy might be with individual seniors, lobbyist groups such as Alliance for Retired Americans have already endorsed it.

Still, one wonders how to determine the current market value of an old woman’s vote. Is it just $250? Or will she want more? Hmm, this may require some research. Perhaps if one can assemble a well-researched, well-reasoned abstract on the subject by year end, one might be able to wrest next year’s Nobel Economics Prize away from the International Idol.

Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates was arrested for "loud and tumultuous behavior in a public place" the other day. When asked about the incident during his prime time press conference last night, President Barack Obama said, "I don’t know all the facts," but stated that the Cambridge police "acted stupidly." Calling someone’s actions stupid without knowing all the facts is an exquisitely apt example of the timeworn adage, "The pot calling the kettle black."

The facts as we know them are this: Upon returning home from a trip to China, Gates found his front door jammed. He went around to the back, opened that door with his key, and tried to assist his cab driver in forcing the front door open. Apparently the driver tried to force it open with his shoulder. Lucia Whalen, who witnessed the incident from her office at "Harvard Magazine" next door, called the police. Sgt. James Crowley was dispatched to the scene. He informed Gates that he was investigating an attempted break in. Gates responded, "Why, because I’m a black man in America?"

 

Gates refused initially to provide identification, apparently feeling it unnecessary to have to prove who he was. Crowley later said he was "surprised and confused" by Gates’ reaction. No doubt he thought Gates would be grateful that the police were looking out for him. But he had picked the wrong man to expect to act reasonably. Gates, confronted with a white police officer, immediately began viewing this as a racial confrontation.

Not just any racial confrontation, but one involving a good deal of disrespect. "You don’t know who you’re messing with," he shouted. Crowley, who was at that time in the house, (Gates claimed he forced his way in), was unable to report to the station over his radio because Gates was shouting so loudly. He stepped outside, and asked Gates to step outside, too. Gates refused at first, but then came outside, continuing to shout at the officer. "You don’t know who I am, you’ll be sorry for messing with me."

Crowley was trying to deal with an angry man who was screaming at him and threatening him. He warned Gates twice that he was becoming disorderly, and eventually arrested him. National Public Radio’s "Morning Edition," in reporting Obama’s press conference remarks, described the underlying incident as Gates being arrested in his home for breaking and entering "even after he had shown his id." Obviously, that’s not the way it happened.

In addition to calling the Cambridge police stupid, Obama also made references to racial profiling. One has to wonder, what about this incident could possibly fall under that category? Does the President honestly think the witness would have ignored the incident if it were a white man trying to break down a door? Should the police have ignored the call once they learned it was a black man trying to break down the door? This was, to put it in the best possible light, unfortunate rhetoric from the nation’s President. If nothing else, it was further proof that he should never, ever speak without a Teleprompter.

We can give Gates the benefit of the doubt for his behavior. Having just flown all the way from China, he was no doubt exhausted, and so not in the best of moods. Returning home and finding his door jammed shut would only have exacerbated his frustration. He was justified in being upset. Especially since this was housing provided by Harvard University, where he was supposed to be regarded as a prominent member of the faculty. Frustrated, angry, indignant, and tired, it is easy to understand why he got so upset when he was then accused of breaking into his own home.

Basically, Gates threw a temper tantrum. It’s completely understandable, under the circumstances. Perhaps Crowley could have been more understanding, though, like the President, he didn’t have all the facts. No doubt he responded a bit more aggressively than his report suggested. A lot of cops don’t like it when people get in their faces. A lot of cops don’t like it when civilians start making threats at them.

Maybe there was a lot of stupid behavior going around. Another example might be the fact that the question was asked at all. Was it necessary to ask the President’s opinion on the matter? Would the question have been asked if the Professor in question had been white? Or, to look at it from another angle, if George Bush were still in the White House when Gates was arrested, would any reporter have asked him for his opinion?

Obviously, Obama is right, we still have a lot of work to do on the subject of race, but from this vantage point, it’s not good citizen neighbors reporting suspicious incidents, or the police who respond to the reports as their job requires who have the most work to do. It’s reporters and self-inflated Black Studies Professors who view every incident solely through the prism of race, and Presidents who instinctively take the side of African Americans over the police who arrested them.