And, here is another short article by Dr. Sam Vaknin which also concerns the possible soon up-coming strike by the nation of Israel against Iran's nuclear facilities: -- "Attack on Iran: Rift in the Military and the Role of Commmandos."


Chess Fan

Anybody got any thoughts on this latest brou-ha-ha involving one of Obama's friends getting arrested for disorderly conduct and crying racism?

I've only heard bits and pieces of it, so I might be missing something important. But from what I gather, the police were called on a report of two people trying to break into a home. In actuality, there was no crime going on, the guy was trying to get into his own home. But he apparently copped some major attitude with the cops, which resulted in his getting arrested for disorderly conduct. He cried racism, and Obama, rather unwisely in my opinion, put his own 2¢ worth in (since the case involves a friend of his, I think he should have given it a wide berth, unless some actual wrongdoing by the Police was discovered. Showing favoritism to his friends is already one of Obama's weak points. Why add to it here for no good reason?).

Here's some of what Wiki says about it:



Assuming this is accurate, and assuming no other big factors that I'm not aware of, I'm already against Gates. If I were trying to force my way into my own place, and a cop came up, I'd know very well what it looked like, and can't imagine getting mad at the cops for stepping in. To the contrary, I'd be mad if they DIDN'T, because if they don't try to stop me from trying to get in, they won't stop a real burglar either.

According to Wiki, Gates tells it differently, but it doesn't seem all that different to me.



I don't see anything significantly different here. The first account says that Gates "initially refused" to show his ID, the second one says that he did show his ID. The two accounts don't even disagree on that point. The first account says that the cop asked Gates to step outside, the second says he did it on his own. Is that important?



And in turn, I don't think it was too bright of Obama to criticize the cops in the absence of any actual wrongdoing on their part. Is he trying to send the message to America that it's okay to cop an attitude with the cops as long as you're on your own property? Or is he only saying that it's okay if you're black, or in academia, or a personal friend of his? Whichever way he meant that, I don't think Obama's own intelligence is exactly shining through with this comment.


That's Sharpton for you. He'd be saying exactly the same thing if they had willfully refused to investigate a break-in at the home of a black professor. Nothing like covering all your bases.

As far as profiling, that seems nonsensical. From what it says, they were answering a call, and thought they were witnessing a crime in progress. "Profiling" is when there's no crime going on, but you think there might be one in the future, because somebody just looks guilty (for one reason or another).

An update to the story on MSNBC. This illustrates one of the things I dislike the most about politicians in general: The "I didn't really say what you heard me say" game:

Cop in Gates Case Teaches About Racial Profiling: White House: Obama didn't mean to call officer in Gates arrest 'stupid'

Here's the bit that annoys me:





So, when he said that the cops acted stupidly, he did NOT mean that the cops acted stupidly. You just heard it wrong. All he meant meant was that the situation was regrettable but that nobody was stupid.

Why can't politicians ever just be big enough to say "Me and my big mouth"? You know? I'd really respect any one of them who did that.




Well, that's a good reason for taking somebody's side, especially when you're the President. That's exactly the reason why he shouldn't have commented in the first place. Because he might call somebody stupid and have people mistakenly think he was calling them stupid.

Even more ironic is the situation that was photographed. At least one of the arresting officers is black.

I heard in another story that his house actually had been burglarized for real recently, which makes browbeating the cops for trying to guard the place even more idiotic. Just because a guy is a professor doesn't mean he has the brains God gave a mongoose. (As a professor yourself, you can probably tell some stories along those lines, maybe in that Outrageous thread?)

I think one lesson we've learned in all this is that this "being friends with the President" business is a two-edged sword. Up until now, I'd thought of it as an unmitigated plus, but it has a negative side too. On the positive side, it gives you some weight to throw around, but the negative part is that if you make a jerk of yourself, you might have the whole country talking about it.

You'd think that would have occurred to me with the Reverend Wright business, but it didn't because he ended up getting feted at the National Press Club and having a big fuss made over him. I think that's because Wright represented a viewpoint. An offensive and racist viewpoint perhaps, but a viewpoint nevertheless. I don't think that will be the case with Gates, and he'll end up looking like a big ivory tower jerk who likes to harass what he considers to be the lower classes.

Of course I could be wrong. Some big bombshell could drop that could change the whole picture, but right now I see him as a guy who's thrown his weight around his whole life by crying racism, but picked the wrong people to do it to this time; a black cop and a white cop who teaches classes in racial profiling.

This is only obliquely related to what we're talking about, but we were talking about Pat Garrett recently, and this bit fits in with the whole "Embarrassing Friends of the President" theme:

Pat Garrett



The two stories are only vaguely similar. After all, Gates was never appointed to anything. Still, I can't help wondering if Gates is going to be on Obama's Christmas Card list after this.

For Presidential Embarrassments, my all-time favorite is still Billy Carter.

Speaking of Carter, does anyone remember Jimmy Carter and the Killer Rabbit? That was a big joke for a day or so until it turned out that it had been caught on film and happened pretty much the way Carter described it. So soon after Monty Python and the Holy Grail, it made headlines, though. "President attacked by Rabbit!" Poor thing was probably rabid. Carter was lucky the situation ended up being merely funny, rather than serious.

Oh, that was he of "Billy Beer" fame, right?!


Chess Fan

And he supports it 100%.
Black Officer at Scholar's Home Supports Arrest

I was drawn to this bit:



I can't speak for any of the others, but the stories don't indicate that Gates himself had the slightest fear of the Police. He simply looked like a guy who thought he was a big man, throwing his weight around. Far from being afraid, he seems to have considered himself untouchable, and surprised to find that he wasn't.

Obama is finally starting to backpedal...

Obama Expresses His Regrets on Gates Incident

But in a kind of lukewarm way:



I did like this bit, though:



The bit about "I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up" is pretty good for a politician.

Gates, on the other hand seems too dumb to know when to cut his losses:

Gates: James Crowley a Rogue Policeman

I don't mean "dumb" as a vague-but-generic putdown, I mean something very specific. I think Gates is just reading from a script, as it were, that he's the kind who just cries Wolf at every bit of adversity and simply isn't intelligent or spontaneous enough to improvise something on the spot when "the book" doesn't apply. In fact, I just composed a little gamelet in Gates' honor:

1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 g6 3. exf6 Bg7 4. fxg7 Resigns

What's the explanation for this game? Well, Black stayed up all night studying the King's Indian Defense, and when White crossed him up by playing 1. e4, he was unable to adjust, and so just blindly played the moves he'd memorized. That's what Gates seems to be doing here.

I think perhaps that opening should be given an appropriate name, then entered into the CN lexicon where we can use it to indicate lack of flexibility, or something similar.