Gates-gate

Unlike the president I have waited till I have at least 70 percent of the information (see the Colie Powell doctrine for when to act) before I go running my pen off about the imbroglio twixt the Harvard Professor and the Cantabridgian cop.

If you saw Jim Crowley’s interview on the tube, you saw a very in control, articulate and I would say thoughtful guy who explained the situation to my satisfaction. It sounded very much like he did his job the way it was supposed to be done and that the ballyhooed brouhaha had nothing to do with race between the white officer and the black teacher. Until, “Skip,” tired from a long journey, and cranky for any number of reasons that are none of our business, decided to do what we think he has not done before, threw a nutty because he thinks a person of his stature should not have to deal with uniformed police unless he really needs them, as we all surely will at some point.

There were too many witnesses for Crowley to have said anything that should have made Gates respond with, “Why, because I am a black man in my own (ugly-yellow) house?” And there is no report of Crowley saying anything stronger that, “Please step out onto the porch, sir.” Crowley says that he did give his name and badge number when asked but claims the Harvard Professor was so noisy that he never heard it or didn’t really care. There was no reason whatsoever to arrest the guy once the pertinent facts to the 911 call had been satisfied.

So what happened? I know something about having that big blue light show up in your rear view mirror like it was a super-bowl plasma TV on LSD. Very sobering. I see a cop and I stand up a little straighter, start searching my pockets for gum. I could be going the other way and see the blue lights of an extra duty black & white just sitting behind a utility truck but I slow RTF down. So I ask myself, why would Skippy be so imprudent as to mouth off to the point where he is lead away from his own house in cuffs when we already know what went down? He done messed up.

And now none of the clever commentators have the sand to tell it like it most likely is. Instead of saying the guy screwed up, they are trying to hide behind the “larger conversation that Americans needs to have about race relations.” Being so old school, I believe that we cannot have that conversation enough, but what we are talking about here is Skip’s fragile ego or even more likely, his handling this whole thing so stupidly. I think he should man up and apologize to the nation for trying to use race in the most inappropriate way that only someone of his stature could pull off in the first place.

I look at Skip and I don’t see color (except that hideous house hue). I see a Yalie, Oxford, Harvardy, Cambridge, Martha’s Vineyard, the President-calls-me-Skip, kind of elitist, who having a little jet lag and possibly the teeniest bit hung-over from free drinks in first class, doing what any of us might do and tried to pull rank on the man in blue responding to a nuttin’ burger call. This is so not about race in the typical sense. It is about this pint sized-putz of a prof having a bad day. Basta.

Now, can we please get back to serious stuff like Sarah Palin’s nail polish color?

Some of you may have noticed that the Smoking Jacket has been off line for a well deserved vacation. Honest, I was not in jail. If any of you actually missed TSJ, it is my sincere wish that you get a life.