You could not ask for a more perfect illustration of the thesis of my latest book, "Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault on America," than the black president of the United States attacking a powerless white cop for arresting a black Harvard professor — in a city with a black mayor and a state with a black governor — as the professor vacations in Martha's Vineyard.
In modern America, the alleged "victim" is always really the aggressor, and the alleged "aggressor" is always the true victim.
President Barack Obama planted the question during a health care press conference, hoping he could satisfy the Chicago Sun-Times, which has been accusing him of not being black enough. He somehow imagined that the rest of the country might not notice the president of the United States gratuitously attacking a cop in a case of alleged "racial profiling."
Oops.
Suddenly, with the glare of the national spotlight being turned on a small local story, it became clear that there was no "racial profiling" involved — other than by the black Harvard professor, who lorded his credentials and connections over a white working-class cop.
We wouldn't have known about this case at all if the professor, Henry Louis Gates Jr., hadn't blast e-mailed the universe that he was harassed by racist cops. Gates thought it would be a feather in his cap, not realizing there are huge areas of the country where people don't think it's heroic to browbeat cops checking on you after you break into your own house, such as 99 percent of the country outside of Cambridge.
Contrary to liberals' ardent desire, Sgt. James Crowley was not on tape saying, "I know it's his house, but let's stick it to this uppity negro." (Curiously, the tape of Gates' call demanding to talk to the chief of police to "report" Crowley has been withheld. Some watchdog group has got to demand that tape.)
But what if Crowley hadn't been a model policeman who taught diversity classes and once famously gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a black athlete?
What if the 911 caller had identified the suspected burglars as black, which it turns out she did not?
What if Crowley hadn't been fully supported by other cops at the scene, one Hispanic and one black? (Liberals will say cops stick together, but I say liberals stick together.)
What if, at some point in his life, Crowley had been accused — falsely or not — of racism?
His life would be ruined.
Desperate to blame the cop, despite the facts, some liberals have begun making up their own facts. Radio talker Opio Sokoni claimed Crowley told Gates to "shut up" and "I'm going to win, you're going to jail." Even Gates doesn't claim the cop said that.
On MSNBC's "Hardball," Chris Matthews said that Gates did not say, "I'll speak with your mama outside," as stated in the police report.
"He didn't say this," Matthews asserted as fact. This invented fact allowed Matthews to accuse the cop of engaging in "projection" and to conjure Crowley's psychological state, saying, this is "what a white guy thought a black guy would say."
Eugene Robinson endorsed Matthews' invented fact, saying: "I cannot imagine in this universe Skip Gates saying, 'I'll speak with your mama outside.'" As proof, Robinson explained that Gates "rolls with kings and queens and Nobel Prize winners." (I'm not "projecting" what I think a black man would say; he really said that.)
And then they both had a laugh about the cop applying racist stereotypes to such an esteemed figure as Professor Gates, who apparently would NEVER use the phrase "your mama."
First, unlike these aesthetes, I don't consider "your mama" such an implausible expression for someone to use.
Second, Sgt. Crowley wrote his police report, including the "your mama" line, long before he, or anyone else, could have imagined the arrest was going to become nationwide, front-page news.
Third, there's a video of Gates using the N-word all over the Internet, and in that short, three-minute video, Gates uses the phrase "your mama."
The only contrary evidence is that Gates recently denied that he told the cop he'd "speak with your mama outside." He also desperately wants to drop the subject.
The left's last-ditch attempt to defend a powerful black man's attack on a powerless white man is to say the arrest was improper. In Time magazine, Lawrence O'Donnell factually announced, "Yelling does not meet the definition of disorderly conduct in Massachusetts."
You can argue the facts in court, but there's no question that the police report described the misdemeanor offense of "disorderly conduct" under Massachusetts law, which includes engaging in "tumultuous behavior" in "any neighborhood," thereby causing public "inconvenience, annoyance or alarm."
As everyone who's read the police report knows, Gates is described as going on an extended tirade against the officer, calling him a racist, saying the officer didn't know who he was messing with, acting irrationally, following the officer outside to continue haranguing him, and engaging in "tumultuous behavior" in and outside his house, drawing a small crowd of alarmed onlookers and police.
Suppose a cop didn't arrest a guy who was ranting and raving — in his own home — and, an hour later, the hothead assaults someone. Policeman: I was as surprised as anyone that he shot his girlfriend! Every liberal in the country would demand the cop's head.
And by the way, try screaming at a judge that he's a racist and see what happens. Why should police officers deserve less protection than judges? They're in more danger.
The disorderly conduct charge was not dropped because it wasn't a good arrest. It was dropped, according to Gates' own lawyer, because of Gates' connections.
Before liberals declare that this a case of racial profiling and move on, how about liberals produce one provable example of racial profiling that isn't a hoax?
