Word Calibration

We keep saying that Obama, being as inexperienced as he is, will inevitably stumble clumsily over a learning curve, and with the Gates arrest we’ve finally seen it happen. Whoopsie daisies, dude. Since the opposition has been determined to call everything he does novice-y since before January, I’ve most disregarded the John McCain-esque “you just don’t say that” stuff I keep hearing. But this time, is anyone really going to deny he made a mistake? If you can make a compelling case, let’s hear it, but with a few day’s thought I’m pretty sure we all agree that he just put gasoline on a flame. His PR people must have been banging their heads against desks all week. I read a statement from him where he claimed that he should have “calibrated” his words differently. Huh? How exactly does one “calibrate” the word “stupidly”? Is there any tone of voice that takes the bite out of that one?

And look, I’m not here to tell you that what happened to Gates was the best police work in the world, but at the very least we all have to concede that no one’s ever going to know for sure what took place. It was one of those messy incidents that everyone projects all over: some people look at it and say “there go those crazy liberals,” some jump to “damn racist cops.” Everyone is so freaking sure, which is how you can be certain that no one really knows. Reactionaries on both sides sound off like the end of days, and then the whole thing melts off and rots in our subconscious. I’m getting exhausted just thinking about how Glenn Beck and Al Sharpton plan to run this thing into the ground. Here we go again, Dear Reader.

And all of that is without the leader of the free world blowing off some steam in front of everybody. I suppose his refusal to properly apologize in the aftermath could signal one of two things: maybe he’s stubborn, or maybe the comment was a deliberate play. Perhaps there was some kind of voter base he was performing for, and he fancies himself crazy as a fox. He’s not. If you want to appear to have a hard line on racial profiling without any substantial legislation, you need a Rodney King-style screw-up with witnesses and irrefutable evidence. You need to kick a downed dog, and kick it hard; some may say you’re overdoing it, but that’s the point. This is not Rodney King. This is an ugly little fiasco, it has no snickering, Disney-style villains to crusade against. Stable that white horse, man, ride in for a different damsel. I’m sure there will another one, there’s little denying that unfair racial profiling still occurs in this country. It’s not nice, and we don’t protect it anymore, but it happens.

With that being said, I have serious doubts about Gates’ version. If you look at the two stories as narratives, his just…doesn’t feel right. It would very credible if we were talking about a cop lashing out and striking him, doing something in anger that he could later deny. But hauling the dude into the police station, where there are other cops and attorneys? Why would this supposed white devil do that? What’s the endgame? Just because you say that it’s “racist” doesn’t necessarily mean it shouldn’t somehow make sense. Even a KKK member would usually only commit hate crimes they had some plan for getting away with. How does the cop benefit from dragging this situation into the light by taking you in? Or is your position that an officer of the law—who has taught seminars on racial equality for years, by the way—got so blindingly full of racist fury that he just had to arrest a black man? Although I’m exaggerating the argument, I do so because I find neither scenario plausible. And while I concede that the officer’s version casts its villain as a little over the top as well, I at least can understand why. This man is learned expert on black history, he knows about the discrimination our society has effected on his people for hundreds of years, and he’s being interrogated for breaking into his own house. On a bad day, that could send me over the edge, too. So Gates got angry, maybe refused to show ID on principle, and the officer on the scene overreacted to “contempt of cop.” That I can believe, especially since it sits squarely between the conflicting accounts. But like I said before: I can’t really know, and neither can anyone else. If Akira Kurosawa’s “Rashomon” left me with one important message, it’s that the truth eludes people not because we always lie on purpose, but because we perceive so differently.

So now Obama wants to sit the two down for a beer. Uh, sure, whatever you say, man. Personally, I think he should out-and-out apologize. He overreacted, it happens, but freaking fess up to it. I can’t stand when authority figures refuse to own up where they clearly should. It’s so pretentious, your position does not preclude you from honesty. All he’s done is “regret” how his words “were taken,” which is a crass way of saying, “I’m sorry you can’t handle it.” And again, I don’t fathom any other way to take the phrase “acted stupidly.” Are you going to look me in the eyes and tell me we all just misunderstood what “stupid” means? Maybe he’s felt like there have been too many apologies coming out of his administration lately, and I’m sorry to hear that, but bite the bullet. I have a lot of respect for our law enforcement, and I find it objectionable for our President to talk about them that way.

Say you’re sorry.