Henry Louis Gates

Some of the mainstream media intelligentsia following the Fort Hood, Texas massacre have cautioned people to reserve judgment about the suspect Major Nidal Malik Hasan and have bypassed many key details in order to live up to what could be construed as a politically correct standard. CNN's Lou Dobbs isn't one of them. Dobbs, on his Nov. 10 radio program, didn't reserve judgment and criticized…

Exactly one week after the highly-publicized arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates stirred a national discussion on race relations, legendary singer-songwriter Bob Dylan was detained by police officers in a "low-income, predominantly minority neighborhood" in Long Branch, New Jersey.Makes one wonder why it took so long for this to get reported, and if news outlets that were convinced…

In Frank Rich's Sunday column for the New York Times, "Small Beer, Big Hangover," Rich drained the last dregs out of the White House beer summit, involving the president, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, and Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley, but not before using it to launch his grand unified field theory of the re-emergence of racism among conservatives in the wake of Obama's victory. …

As Dem pundits go, I normally find Kirsten Powers among the more reasonable.  But on this afternoon's Fox News Watch, Powers propounded an incendiary theory of the Gates/Crowley incident: that the sergeant "lured" and "tricked" Gates into coming outside so he could arrest him.Panelist Jim Pinkerton had just made the point that it was only the conservative media, by focusing attention on the…

Were you, like me, surprised to see that Biden turned up at the beer fest? I hadn't picked up any prior indication he was going to be there.  To the contrary, check out what Pres. Obama said just before the event:A short time earlier from the Oval Office, Obama had done what his aides had been doing for days: lowering expectations."I noticed this has been called the 'Beer Summit.' It's a clever…

Perhaps it is time to recall William Shatner to the Tonight Show in order to read aloud, accompanied by bongos,  leftwing novelist Gore Vidal's incoherent screed about the Henry Louis Gates arrest. Even Grampa Abe ranting aloud while spinning around on the church floor in "The Simpsons Movie" made more sense than Vidal. Perhaps it could be explained by one too many Ketel Ones but here is his…

Long before Obama and the Sotomayor confirmation process elevated "empathy" to supreme importance, it held an honored place in the pantheon of liberal values.That being the case, why is it liberals appear incapable of empathizing with those who don't share their politics? Recent example: Princeton political science professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell appearing on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show July 23…

After NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams fawned Tuesday over President Obama planning to have a beer with Sergeant Crowley and Professor Gates, on Wednesday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith similarly declared: "...it’s being called the ‘beer summit.’ Tomorrow’s meeting between the President, the professor, and the policeman. We’re going to tell you what’s on tap."Smith, along with co-…

Extending the auspices of NBC News to provide some damage control help to President Obama's damage control-inspired meeting at the White House with Henry Louis Gates and the police sergeant who arrested him -- so Obama can repair the mess he made in taking sides and insulting the police -- Brian Williams on Tuesday night didn't mention any gaffe by Obama and instead innocuously described how the…

Appearing on Tuesday’s CBS Early Show, Reverend Jesse Jackson continued to promote the idea that Harvard Professor Henry Gates was a victim of racial profiling, despite new evidence to the contrary: "This issue of Dr. Gates being a victim of excessive force and bad judgment is a much bigger subject...This one case could open up the issue of the pervasiveness of race profiling."Co-host Harry Smith…

The ethically-challenged "ethicist" of the New York Times Magazine, Randy Cohen, who writes The Ethicist column has inserted himself into the Henry Louis Gates situation by urging the Harvard professor to sue in order to "pursue social justice." To see where Mr. Ethicist is coming from, let us start off with his laughable money quote in his current column on the subject of lawsuits:Gates should…

It's not often I'm positively surprised by anything aired on CNN, but the interview Don Lemon did with members of the Cambridge Police Department Saturday is nothing less than breathtaking.  While most media members have shamefully taken the side of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates in the matter of his arrest by Sgt. James Crowley on July 16, Lemon took the time to meet with the officer's co-…

"This president who travels the world apologizing for his country couldn't quite apologize for himself."So said Brit Hume on the most recent installment of "Fox News Sunday" as the panel discussed Barack Obama's handling of the Henry Louis Gates affair.Adding insult to injury, there was virtual unanimity that the President erred in this matter, and erred badly (video embedded below the fold with…

A video circa 1996 has just surfaced of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates speaking in front of a group about racism and affirmative action.In it, he defamed Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as well as former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.Present on stage with the Professor was Princeton's Cornel West.As you watch the video, ask yourself whether Gates's statements thirteen years ago,…