This was kind of amusing (via the comments):
About a third of Americans think the best job for Palin is homemaker (32 percent), while nearly one in five see her as a television talk show host (17 percent). Vice president of the United States comes in third (14 percent), followed closely by college professor (10 percent), with president coming last (6 percent).
Republicans think the best job for Palin is vice president (27 percent), followed by homemaker (18 percent), talk show host (14 percent), president (12 percent) and professor (7 percent).
Cat Lady
Professor of what?
Zifnab
Today, for you to learn better, presenting the modern state of America, our troops, get out your notebooks and turn to page, our eighty third President, the most important part of our Constitution, will be a three part lecture. Also.
Hunter Gathers
@Cat Lady: Professor Of Ignorant American Studies.
David
I think she missed her calling as a professional wrestler.
Grapplin’ Granny.
someguy
OT, but truly enjoyable.
Waaaah. Waaah. Waaaah. Stop being mean to me. I am not a racist. Waaaah.
How these people can keep denying it is beyond me. The one thing you have to respect about Southerner wingers – perhaps the only thing you can respect about them – is at least the racist ones tend to have the courage to be open about their bigotry. Up North, people hide it, and act all embarrassed when they get caught out and expect you to believe their bogus excuses for their behavior.
Rommie
I think you can add Conan O’Brien and The Shat to the list of people, like Tina Fey, who have a reliable gig as long as SP hangs around the public stage.
I’d love to hear, as others have suggested, other readings from the likes of Morgan Freeman or James Earl Jones. I hope people *do* pay SP to give speeches, so the well of unintentional comedy stays full.
Comrade Jake
Sarah Palin, Professor of Also.
Napoleon
@someguy:
Huh? Did you listen to the tape? Not only is there nothing in the tape that could remotely be interpreted as reflecting badly on her motives, particularly as to race, but it shows her to be very measured and exact in what she reported, right down to that it may not actually be a break in.
Comrade Jake
I thought the First Dude was supposed to be the homemaker in the Palin family, no?
afalker
Wow. Really?
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me…
Demo Woman
The Homemaker category was insulting but that’s exactly what I would have answered. She needs to just go away.
It’s amusing imaging Sarah as a professor. Maybe WVU has an opening and she can bond with John.
Morbo
Homemaker, they say? Poor kids…
KCinDC
Yeah, someguy, the woman has been trashed all over the blogosphere for things she never said. Also, people have attacked her for not recognizing her “neighbor” Gates, but she’s not a neighbor (not to mention that few people in cities know all their neighbors). I think she’s got a legitimate complaint.
Da Bomb
She will could be the Professor of International Relations with Russia.
It will count as dual credit for Geography as well, because she can have the class in her backyard.
evolutionary
POW
Professor of Winkology
Demo Woman
@someguy: The police report stated that she said two black men. Imagine that, an inaccurate police report. The tape pretty much cleared her. She even mentioned that they had suitcases so could live there.
Zifnab
@someguy:
Hardly. Come down to Texas and ask around for the racists. Any upstanding rich white person will tell you that he/she isn’t bigoted, it’s just that all those uppity negroes hate them for their success.
Likewise, no one down here has a problem with gay people. They’re just offended by those gays who insist on attacking our good Christian way of life. Southerners have been under attack by the extremist authoritarian north dating back to the North’s attack on Fort Sumner on the eve of the civil war. All these allegations of racism are just an excuse used by the federal government to take our property.
Punchy
OT:
In the “uh huh, suuuuuuure you’re not” catagory:
From CNN….too lazy to link
Zifnab
@Punchy: Why is it so hard to just call Gates a pencil necked prick or a loud-mouthed asshole? Either one of those could have easily been circulated in an email without playing the race card.
Crashman06
So, according to the Republicans, its either President or homemaker. Nice to see what a woman’s options in the GOP are.
TheFountainHead
You heard it here first: Sarah Palin will become Bill Kristol’s protege and will be writing Op Ed columns for the NYTs before the 2016 elections. Assuming the world hasn’t asploded by then.
someguy
@ napoleon,
That’s my point. She and the other woman see some non-whites going into a house and they assume it’s a break-in. She may have used measured language, and that a lot of bigots are afraid to speak otherwise is a triumph for civil rights I guess, but she was still motivated by the basic belief that a couple minority men going into a house was something you need to call the cops about. The article doesn’t bother questioning her racist assumptions, or the racist assumptions of the mythical old lady she says asked her to call 9/11.
It’s like the wingers arguing that because Crowley taught classes against racial profiling means he’s not a bigot. It means no such thing. You have to judge him on his actions. Maybe he’s cleverer than most at hiding it or pretending to be progressive, but his actions say otherwise.
jibeaux
@Demo Woman:
I didn’t even understand how it would be racist even if she had said two black men. If you’re reporting something that seems suspicious, it isn’t racist to provide a description of the people involved.
Da Bomb
@Zifnab: Dpends on where you live in Texas. In H-Town not so bad, in fact we have the second bigggest mecca for gaydom. Which is pretty cool. Anything east of H-town aka known as the armpit, East Texas not so cool. West Texans have been driven crazy by the limestone and dirt representing desert. North Texas via Abilene and Lubbock can honestly be given away to Oklahoma. We don’t need them. Austin isn’t bad. Dallas has moments, but the second you drive out of Dallas there are parts of klan country that exist, i.e. Carrollton and Caddo Mills. Plano is just filled those rich white folks that you talk about.
El Paso and San Antonio are filled with a bunch of non-English speaking “not real americans”. /Snark
Ash Can
Zifnab @ #2 nails it. There’s no fucking way Palin would last as a college professor. Even if she were hired by some religious scam outfit with no standards or credentials, operating out of some church basement in the Ozarks, her students would be storming the administrator’s office within days to be transferred out of her class because they wouldn’t be able to understand WTF she was saying even if she was just giving them directions to the john.
jibeaux
@someguy:
Dude, the driver was ramming the door with his shoulder. Gates had locked himself out and was looking for a non-traditional-unlock-the-door-with-the-key way in. You really shouldn’t be terribly surprised if someone witnessing that who doesn’t know who you are reports it. It would be a different story if she called the cops to report that a black man was opening the door of a house with a door key and entering. Ta-Nehisi was one of the first to get Gates’ back on this, but was completely and unambiguously of the opinion that the woman who called the cops did absolutely nothing wrong.
Napoleon
@someguy:
Your full of shit. Anyone with half a brain that saw somebody forcing open a door would call it in. She did nothing wrong and there is no evidence that it was the least bit racially motivated. I would have done the exact same thing regardless of whether the person doing it was black or white.
schrodinger's cat
One thing I have never understood about Palin, why is she so angry?
Pablo
If Instapundit is a perfesser, Palin is more than qualified
MikeJ
It gets her on TV.
PeakVT
Looks like the crazification factor is more or less steady (14+10+6).
flukebucket
It will count as dual credit for Geography as well, because she can have the class in her backyard.
yeah. And she can see her back yard from her house!
jenniebee
She’s a Professor of Things in General. She’ll develop a Philosophy of Clothes, and her magnum opus will be scribbled on little scraps of paper and kept loose in a paper bag.
Zifnab
@Da Bomb:
I would have pegged Austin and Dallas at higher than Houston.
Even then, I mean we have a high black and latino population too. I’m not suggesting the blacks and latinos are bigoted against blacks and latinos. But drive down to Sugar Land or out to Katy or up into Humble, and I guarantee you’ll find a hotbed of racism under the surface.
Ash
Another OT: Sullivan says Rahm is worse than Karl Rove.
Seriously.
valdivia
totally OT and not to get back to all thing Sullivan. But he really just went off his Obama is a good president kick. now we live in a Bush-Obama police state and Rahm is worse than Karl Rove. Ahem.
valdivia
LOL–Ash you and I had the exact same reaction.
Comrade Darkness
@jibeaux: Gates let himself in the back door, with his key. The front door was jammed by nature, humidity, that kind of shit. Since Gates had someone there with two good hips, he asked that man for help opening the front door, which I’m gonna guess, but it’s only a guess, had been unlocked from the inside.
bikedate
I loved this comment on a blog post pushing the birfer cause, “Michael, I appreciate all your efforts, but you are wrong in going after this issue. It will only marginalize your voice. Stay focused on things that matter, like getting Sarah Palin involved in the Tea Party movement. Don’t sacrifice your credibility for hits on your blog.”
Yeah, that way credibility lies…
http://tinyurl.com/luc7ye
Morbo
@evolutionary:
How dare you! Don’t you know Track is in the army, and it demeans our men and women in uniform to use that acronym an ANY way to demean her, Sarah Palin. It’s YOUR fault if Track is ever captured in combat. For the sake of our troops, STOP making stuff up. Also.
geg6
@jibeaux:
Actually, jbeaux, Gates had his key but the door’s lock was jammed. Gates actually went to the back door and got in that way and he and the driver tried to un-jam the front door, which they evidently did.
But you’re right on the essentials. An old lady expressed concerns to the woman who called 911 and gave a very detailed and measured report of her observations which absolutely show no evidence of being racially motivated or even sure that a crime was taking place.
Comrade Darkness
Instructive that independents and democrats are more likely to say her best job is homemaker (given that the overall number is higher than the republican one). All I can figure it the liberals and the libertarians figure if she’s going to be irresponsible and idiotic enough to preach abstinence rather than birth control at her sexually active kids, then she damn well better stay at home and raise her grandkids too.
Xenos
@schrodinger’s cat:
jibeaux
@geg6:
Okay, the door was stuck instead of locked out, but the “old lady” is 40.
NY Times, I need the dummy buttons to do html:
“On Monday, the Cambridge police released the tape of Ms. Whalen’s 911 call in which she told the dispatcher she had “no idea” if two men — who turned out to be Professor Gates and his driver — were breaking into the house, repeatedly mentioning that they might live there. She said that the two men pushed a door in with their shoulders, and that she was unsure “if they live there and just had a hard time with their key.”
Xenos
@Morbo: Anybody else here find it funny that Track signed up for a Stryker Brigade? No tanks or other tracked vehicles for him.
Michael #2
This whole thing of “Let’s take political figures and give them cushy jobs as ‘professors’ [wink wink]” really REALLY offends me. WTF is Palin supposed to be a professor of — what _possible_ knowledge does she have of anything, other than incomprehensible verbal diarrhea??
I worked for a DAMN long time to get my PhD, and getting a full time job in the academy is really freaking hard, especially in the current economic climate. ANY “institution” that hires Palin for ANYTHING – even more than TTech – deserves to be swallowed up by the gaping maw of an underworld demon. That 10% of the people who think she could be a professor are fucking retarded.
GSM this makes me furious.
Da Bomb
@Zifnab: Yeah, but Austin is no nowhere as diverse as H-Town. The only part that is really diverse is UT. Humble is very racially mixed.I actually call it reverse genetrification. I could buy Conroe being that way, but Humble not so much these days. There was an article a couple of years back that my best friend who is gay, mentioned that Houston is like the second most concetrated area for gays. Houston gets bad rap for some reason. We also have like the second or third largest Viet-Town in the nation too.
I was born and raised in H-Town. My neighbors were always a different race, until my parents moved to South Park. Sugarland is a complete outier. They are just crazy. It surronded by areas that are completely ethnic, like Missouri City, and Pearland.
TR
I love that more Republicans think she’d be better as VP than as president.
“She’s qualified! … To a point.”
cleek
indeed.
joes527
@Cat Lady: Isn’t she the nation’s (world’s?) foremost expert on energy policy? I seem to remember someone telling me that.
Da Bomb
@Zifnab: Also it really depends on what part of Katy you are talking about, like closer to Cinco Ranch, yeah I know there is some craziness there. But there are other parts of Katy, not so bad.
lamh31
Ya know what this cop is really starting to piss me off. Put aside the race issue, and it’s obvious that this asshole arrested Professor Gates for “contempt of cop”. He should justifiably be in trouble for that alone. Now he gets an invite from the Prez to the WH, which is no small thing, for him and his family along with Professor Gates, and who does he decide to bring along?
Union brass, lawyer to accompany Sgt. Crowley to White House
Gates is already a friend of Obama’s, so here’s hoping he brings along his lawyer Ogletree who is also a friend of the Prez, and let’s see how Crowley & his crew handles a united front.
Asshole. I can see the lawyer, but WTF is the point of the Union Brass being there.
Tom65
OT, but what the hell is up with Sullivan this week? First the Birther bullshit, now he’s shocked – SHOCKED I TELL YOU – that ambassadorships go to big donors:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/07/ambassadorships-for-sale.html
PeakVT
OT: Schwarzenegger reaches crazification levels.
It’s hard to believe, but Palin was not so bad of a governor when compared to Ahnuld.
Tokyokie
I won’t knock Hooton for its ethnic diversity. I will, however, knock it for being 90 degrees with 90 percent humidity 90 percent of the time and having some of the most gawdawful traffic in the country.
jenniebee
@jibeaux: Actually, there was nothing wrong with the key – Gates used it to let himself in the back door (an unusual form of “break in”). The front door had swelled and stuck in the jamb. Still, the basic point, that the person who called it in didn’t do anything wrong, is correct. Right up until her pity party for the press the other day.
Maybe being called a traitor for eight years has inured me to it, but it seems to me that there’s an awful lot of sobbing going on these days on the right about how it’s just awful the way that Palin/Crowley/some random 911 caller was criticized. Oh, how they’ve suffered! Oh, how they’ve burned! Somebody they don’t know said something mean, the horrors! Gates allegedly said “yo mama” to Crowley, what choice did Crowley have but to avenge his mother’s honor, so foully besmirched, by any means necessary, up to and including co-opting the apparatus of the state, to punish the vile offender? It is fortunate that Gates restrained himself from telling a “yo mama so fat” joke; the only reasonable response then would have been for Crowley to pump Gates full of lead, stand over Gates’ bloody corpse, and ask “who’s fat now, bitch?”
Posted this link in another thread, h/t Berube – Cops put paramedic crew in chokeholds. The cop pulled over an ambulance, was told that there was a patient inside, but detained and roughed up the crew for contempt of cop.
RSA
Wait one goddamn minute:
This suggests that the average American is even stupider than the average Republican. Uh-oh.
I have to wonder whether “college professor” was just spontaneously offered, though. It seems a serious non sequitur. I mean, speaking as a college professor, it’s well known that the goal is to get to know more and more about less and less until you know everything about nothing at all. In fact, given our position, we’ve already reached that goal. But Palin is the complete opposite–she knows nothing at all about everything!
jibeaux
@jenniebee:
Well, if I had made a call like that, just trying to be a responsible citizen reporting something that might or might not be on the up and up, and I got called a winger and a racist and bigot from coast to coast, well, I admit I wouldn’t have a pity party, I’d have a “fuck all yall and yo mamas too” party. She’s been unfairly maligned, people jumped to the conclusion that the police report was accurate and her version wasn’t, until the tape was released, and she has a right to be pissed about it.
Da Bomb
@Tokyokie: I can’t debate with you about that. The humidity is awful. And the traffic is bad, but I have to say that the traffic in LA is even worst.
Evinfuilt
I love between Houston and Galveston. It is incredibly racially diverse, there’s a lot you can complain about in Houston but a lack of diversity and gay community can’t be on that list. My small neighborhood has no major ethnic population, I don’t know any other gay/lesbian couples outside of my own, but we’re not looked at too oddly walking the neighborhood (I think it has more to do with actually being outside when its 100 degrees and stupidly humid.)
I really should have moved to Montrose or the Heights, but besides being a large gay community, its also very expensive (and lacks some of the racial diversity of the burbs.)
Demo Woman
It took Sarah several schools and several years to graduate from college. Why would FOX even put a category for College Professor?
Evinfuilt
ack, I live… why oh why is edit gone :( I don’t love Houston… far from it, the pollution and lack of transit options, along with the weather is just killer. I only survive because the food is awesome.
Da Bomb
@Tokyokie: Mainly in Summer. We love the other three seasons, when we get them. But from May to like August, it sucks!
valdivia
oh wow, now Obama is worse than Bush. According to the title of a Sulli post. WTF????
jwb
@RSA
joes527
@jenniebee:
So, someone who by your own judgement has done nothing wrong, but gets pilloried in certain quarters, and called a racist, and then tries to correct the record … THAT is over the line?
Sounds like the blogger equivalent to “contempt of cop.” She may not have done anything wrong to start with, but if she doesn’t just suck up the abuse that she gets on the intertubes we are going to invite her outside and rip her a new one for her disorderly conduct.
Cool.
Comrade Darkness
@joes527: That was right before she publicly confused all U.S. energy, with all crude oil production, with all liquids (crude equivalents) production. Inflating Alaska’s importance by a factor of 8 (claiming 20% when they actually supply 2.4% of total u.s. consumed energy). All talk of her energy brilliance ceased instantly. I was impressed by how quickly everyone, even the pundits got that message. Their fax list was disciplined for once.
jibeaux
Plus there’s a huge difference between Palin, Crowley, and a 911 caller. Palin is, voluntarily and repeatedly, a public figure. Crowley is not, and presumably will fade back into the woodwork after his 15 minutes, but he did something very dumb and arrogant. Unlike Sarah Palin, he had no idea anything he did was capable of causing a national shitstorm and that wasn’t his intention, but he’s not an innocent party in all this and he deserves the attention. And damn, he got a beer with the President for his troubles, so…damn.
The woman who called 911 isn’t a public figure, and she didn’t do anything wrong, and in fact she did something responsible. And for her troubles she took heat for things people believed which were simply wrong.
someguy
@ Joes 527
screw her. She doesn’t want the attention, she shouldn’t make the phone call. People should stay out of other people’s business, and that includes the lace curtain mafia.
joes527
@Comrade Darkness: Well, the guy telling me that she was an expert WAS pretty old. He may have been confused.
canuckistani
To show thier contempt for pointy-headed egghead professors, of course – Sarah would kick all of their asses.
The Moar You Know
@someguy: If anyone of any race or gender is putting their shoulder into one of my neighbor’s doors, I call the cops, no exceptions. I would hope they’d do the same for me.
Save your anger for the power-tripping cop, not the neighbor, she did exactly the right thing.
ChrisB
Just think, Palin as a professor having to publish or perish. As Rommie said @6, steady work for Fey and Shatner at least until she gets tenure. And how ridiculous would that be?
Oh, and I’m with Napoleon and jibeaux that the lady who called in about Gates did nothing wrong.
jibeaux
@someguy:
No snitchin’, huh?
I lived in a charming but sketchy older neighborhood for years. People knowing their neighbors, who lives there and who doesn’t, and looking out for suspicious activity is how you PREVENT CRIME. You stay inside with your doors closed and never know anyone or walk the streets and just mind your own damn business, and guess what — the lot next door is going to become where junkies come to shoot up and pass out because they know no one is going to hassle them, or where people break into a house and steal everything in it into a moving truck in broad daylight, because nobody knows who lives there. These are real examples. Criminals gravitate towards exactly the kinds of places where residents mind their own business.
Comrade Darkness
Here are the details about the question:
13. What do you think is the best job for Sarah Palin now that she has resigned as governor of Alaska?
SCALE: 1. President of the United States 2. Vice-President of the United States 3. Television Talk Show Host 4. College Professor 5. Homemaker 6. (Other) 7. (Don’t know)
Talk show College Home-
President VP host Professor maker Othr (DK)
21-22 Jul 09 6% 14 17 10 32 13 8
Democrats 2% 4 21 12 45 10 6
Republicans 12% 27 14 7 18 12 10
Independents 4% 11 15 8 34 21 8
I call forced choice on some % of respondents on this. The only way to know would have been swap “waitress” or “garbage collector” in for “college professor” on half the polls. Order effects would tend to push people to answer that as well. The last option is more likely to be selected, but if you thought, well, that’s sexist, you would only remember the option right before that, and just say that. Other may look reasonable, but some percent won’t ever say that either.
Free answer is the only way to do this kind of thing. Otherwise it’s a pile of bias on question selection and order effects. Lots of great analysis were done on the “family values” exit poll back in the Clinton era. Similar problem of forced choice and split vote.
joes527
@someguy:
Cool philosophy.
chopper
@Napoleon:
exactly. you listen to the call and it sounds less like ‘OMG two dudes are breaking into this house’ and more like ‘two guys are shouldering the door, it probably isn’t a break-in but you might want to check it out.’
not exactly a situation the police needed to be pushy about.
LD50
I would say that reflects a desire to keep SP in a position where she can harm the smallest possible number of people.
Demo Woman
@jenniebee:
Wow.
Dusty
God knows I’m no Sarah Palin fan, but “Homemaker”‘s a pretty obnoxious option to have for a woman who’s worked in some fashion or another for most of her adult life. I don’t like to call sexist, but, damn. Palin’s never been a full-time mom, AFAIK, I don’t see why anybody would think she would become one now that she’s seen the bright lights. Why not “Senator” or “Activist”? Hell, “Entrepreneur” would be a more likely scenario than “Homemaker.”
mingo
chopper
@jenniebee:
jesus, that’s all kinds of messed up.
mingo
blockquote fail, dammit.
someguy
jibeaux – how is a small, very nearly elderly professor letting himself in the back door with a key suspicious?
It’s wonderful if your neighbors look out for you but they have the responsibility to make accurate observations of what is going on. The whiner didn’t do that. She invited police misconduct by making up a breaking and entering where none existed, probably due to her racist assumption that a minority having trouble getting into a house was breaking in. If she was actually in one of these mythical tight knit neighborhoods that you postulate and actually knew her neighbors, then she’d recognize Gates and wouldn’t make the call. For his part, Gates is lucky as hell a bunch of trigger happy cops didn’t come bursting in with guns drawn looking for an excuse to shoot, a la Dunphy. Radley Balko talks about these mistaken tips a lot, and all the disasters that result, and how the cops inevitably escape accountability. Seriously. I don’t need you doing me the favor of inviting a bunch of obnoxious cops into my house for a little visit and a search of the premises.
Ash Can
@Comrade Darkness: The idea of Palin as a waitress makes me laugh out loud. She’d fuck up all her orders, blame the cook, make the other waitstaff take her orders to her tables, then bitch at her customers for not tipping her. (This would go on for 20 minutes, a half hour tops, then the manager would fire her ass and throw her bodily out the back door. Also.)
Punchy
I, for one, would love to have Palin as a college prof. I would write all my papers in crayon and litter my answers in “youbetcha!s” and such. Good times. Also.
joes527
Why wasn’t that-person-who-stands-in-front-of-the-blue-screen-and-points-out-the-weather-to-the-tee-vee-viewers on the list? All that requires is “perky” and “can read a script.” “Character” is a plus in that job. Seems the perfect fit.
Demo Woman
This is on the front page of TPM
Good old Texas racism, I’d say.
Demo Woman
@Punchy: Would you take notes of her lectures?
Dusty
@ someguy
You need to actually find out the facts of the case before you spout off. Whalen didn’t call about Gates going in the back door; she called about Gates and his driver trying to force their way into the jammed front door. She didn’t get a good look at them and wasn’t sure about their race, she said one might have been Hispanic, so she didn’t make “racist assumptions.” She mentioned the suitcases and said she thought the individuals might live there. She said she wasn’t sure there was even anything suspicious going on and that she wouldn’t have even noticed if someone else hadn’t drawn her attention to it.
Whalen assumed the cops could do their jobs and check up on a mildly suspicious report without blowing it up into a national incident. Gates himself didn’t think she did anything wrong.
GambitRF
It wouldn’t really surprise me if a bunch of people who voted homemaker on the Republican side are actually her supporters and still want her to run for president on the grounds that “President is just like being a homemaker, only your home is the whole country!!” That sounds like something a Palin supporter would say.
geg6
@jibeaux:
The old lady was not the person that made the call. The woman who made the call, Lucia Whateverhernameis, was a woman who worked in the area who was on her way to lunch and to whom an elderly woman expressed concern about a possible break in at Gates’ house, directed her attention to it, and asked her to call 911.
Regardless, as I said above, Lucia Whateverhernameis said nothing in any way objectionable and we agree on that point.
gwangung
Could you do us all the service of commenting on what the woman actually saw and did, and not on what you think she saw and did? Thank you.
jibeaux
@someguy:
Dude. Read. This. Again.
“On Monday, the Cambridge police released the tape of Ms. Whalen’s 911 call in which she told the dispatcher she had “no idea” if two men—who turned out to be Professor Gates and his driver—were breaking into the house, repeatedly mentioning that they might live there. She said that the two men pushed a door in with their shoulders, and that she was unsure “if they live there and just had a hard time with their key.”
The Moar You Know
Be sure to tell all your neighbors that. They’ll be more than happy to comply.
Actually, that’s not true. If you lived in my neighborhood and asked me to not call the cops regardless of who was coming and going at your house, I’d simply assume you were running a drug-dealing operation, not inviting me over for the parties, and call the cops on you 24/7.
jenniebee
@joes527:
She may not have done anything wrong to start with, but if she doesn’t just suck up the abuse that she gets on the intertubes we are going to invite her outside and rip her a new one for her disorderly conduct.
Yeah, pretty much. Unless I missed something, nobody knew her name until she gave it, nobody was personally attacking her, she volunteered her identity when she had her press conference. She wasn’t losing anything tangible before she had her press conference, but some people were linking (or not linking) to a page where other people said…
Seriously, this is sounding like the premise to Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back – some random people we don’t know are saying shit about characters based on us over the “internet” – we have to put a stop to that!
joes527
@jenniebee: I guess that this requirement that we all submit to the chattering masses in the blogosphere without complaint is an internet tradition that I ma not familiar with.
Brachiator
Wow. Both the Democrats and Republicans are stunningly conventional in their assessments of Palin. Despite her tenure as mayor and her short run as governor, both sides see her more as a homemaker than a political figure?
I note that the Republicans are delusional in seeing Palin as a VP.
The professor thing is also weird, but I understand this. Both pop culture and wingnut conventional wisdom discount intellectual life, and see college as all posturing and party time. So Palin as some kind of visiting professor (Moose Studies) is not entirely implausible.
On the other hand, I could totally see her on TV, not as a talkshow host, but hosting some kind of survival/outdoor living show, or as kind of buckskin Martha Stewart.
lamh31
Looks like Miss Whalen wants her chance to meet the Prez like Gates and Crowley got.
Whatever the case, who cares what people on the internet is saying about Miss Whalen, until her press conference, I don’t even believe that the MSM was even covering any slights about her. By giving her press conference, she just put herself in the middle of the news, not the internets, not the Prez, SHE DID!
lamh31
Update on Palin Radio Show: Clear Channels Reportedly Passes
cleek
both sides see her more as a homemaker than a political figure?
it’s the only thing she does, and enjoys talking about, at which she seems to be even reasonably competent.
Dusty
@ jenniebee
Her name was in the police report, so that was made public before she had her press conference.
Brick Oven Bill
“The criticism at first was painful for me and difficult; I was frankly afraid to say anything,” she said. “People called me racist and said I caused all the turmoil that followed, and some even said threatening things that made me fear for my safety. I knew the truth, but I didn’t speak up right away because I did not want to add to the controversy.”
“When I was called racist and I was a target of scorn and ridicule because of the things I never said, the criticism hurt me as a person.”
Guess Whalen’s profession.
That’s right.
She is a Harvard Alumni magazine worker. If Whalen never gets over her guilt, and spirals out of control over this personal crisis of hers, I nominate Sarah Palin to be the new editor of the Harvard Alumni magazine.
Chinn Romney
It’s been covered once but bears repeating – someguy check your facts, you obviously have not done that. I know the subtitle of this site mentions uninformed opinion, but I’m pretty sure Cole had tongue-in-cheek when he came up with that.
gwangung
Hm, I would say you did miss something.
A) Her name was not redacted in the intial release of Crowly’sreport.
B) I’ve seen commenters and posters on other blogs (inaccurately) criticizing her and assuming she did the same behavior as Crowley.
joes527
@lamh31: Radio wouldn’t be good for Palin. It is too hard to send starbursts shooting around the room when your audience can’t see you winking at them.
iwantcssfile
@lamh31:
Whalen (and everyone’s) beef ought to be with the Cambridge PD, who allowed the police report made public without redacting her name first. A lovely disincentive for citizens to report suspicious activity! More great policing…
Given her name was made public, and she’s a private citizen, I can see why all the public ‘debate’ about her motives was upsetting. Add to that what was probably lots of unwanted calls for ‘comment’ from every ‘media’ outlet under the sun. Personally, I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of a press conference, but one’s decision making skills sometimes suffer under the spotlight.
joes527
@lamh31:
Oh that is a frightening thought. If she did get a talk radio gig, she would dry up 20 minutes into her first day. They’d have to get Danny Bonaduce in as a co-host just to carry her through the first week.
Svensker
@someguy:
screw her. She doesn’t want the attention, she shouldn’t make the phone call. People should stay out of other people’s business, and that includes the lace curtain mafia.
Jeez. Remind not to live in your neighborhood.
Brick Oven Bill
Here is Harvard’s Alumni magazine, as produced by Lucia Whalen and friends. It sucks. Lead story: Architecture for Everyone: Attracting More Minority Students to Architecture.
Other stories:
To Educate Children, A Unicycle Ride
Tale of Hamptons Town and a Troubled Filmmaker
Sijo: Korea’s Answer to Haiku?
Proposed Palin Edition lead:
The Making of a Male Bitch: How Professor Gates got picked on as a kid. Why girls paid no attention to him.
schrodinger's cat
What do people imagine she could be a professor of? I have my doubts whether she could survive freshman physics, for example.
Molly
@Da Bomb: “Dpends on where you live in Texas. ”
I’m Houston born and bred. Been all over the world, but love my home base. Also have a place in my heart for San Antonio, love the people, love the river. Nothing like the Hill Country full of wildflowers in the spring. Galveston is Home #2, spent my summers there.
Houston, though, surprises people. Like you said, big gay community, very diverse community, world-class art museums and theatre and orchestra. It gets hellishly hot, our public transportation is an afterthought, but for the most part, Houston is as urban as it gets.
kay
@Svensker:
I feel a little sorry for her. She’s not as sophisticated as Crowley and his union in PR, or Gates, for that matter. She’s responding to local and personal comments, nationally. It’s just a mistake. It isn’t going to translate.
geg6
@Svensker:
Seriously. And now I’m worrying that may be the case.
As a single woman living alone, I am happy at the thought that my neighbors keep an eye out for me. It’s one of the reasons I live where I live.
Gus
Professor of poetry I’m guessing after watching the Shatner thing.
flukebucket
@RSA: Man that is some good shit.
harlana pepper
@schrodinger’s cat: Um, I’m thinking English and Composition might be a tad challenging for her as well.
kay
@Gus:
I can’t stand Palin, but I think the poll is unfair. Did “professor” come from the pollsters? What about “homemaker”? No one said “commercial fisherman” ? What are the choices about?
harlana pepper
I’m thinking Baby Factory
Molly
@Zifnab: “down to Sugar Land or out to Katy or up into Humble, and I guarantee you’ll find a hotbed of racism under the surface.”
Katy and Humble, absolutely. Sugar Land…the part of Sugar Land I’m in, Obama won the presidential vote handily. I know you’re from here too, but I think it really depends on where you are in the city now. A lot of the whote flight has moved on to Katy.
Husband and I have a game when we go to Katy (we live on the edge of Sugar Land and Katy), spot the non-white person. Can take a while. Whereas on my side of the fence, it’s incredibly diverse. It’s amazing to me how one road can divide a community by race.
john b
OT: it seems sully has shifted to full-on anti-obama. i assume it has to do with slowness of reform on multiple fronts. but it seems like he’s seeking out every way of saying that obama has not lived up to the hype and thus he is terrible:
the question mark means he can post it without seeming like an idiot
kay
@john b:
If you read his link Obama is worse than Bush because he’s “taking over” health care and the auto industry, and Bush never did that.
Of course, health care is moving through a democratically elected Congressional process, because that’s what legislation does in this country, but no matter. It’s an abuse of executive power.
He’s gotta get his three branches straight. I’m not sure conservatives can use the “power grab” comparison when the elected Congress drafts and passes a law, and that’s what we’re doing here.
Brachiator
@jenniebee:
This woman did not do anything to invite any abuse, anonymous or directed, from the InterTubes or anywhere else.
And this woman’s name was part of the public record related to the Gates’ case.
Also, some people were making the totally incorrect assumption that she had made racial remarks herself. And it is clear from some of the remarks in posts here that people are still pushing outright lies and distortions about her.
To say that she didn’t lose anything tangible is debatable, and somewhat irrelevant. The notion that she should just STFU and hide in a corner while cowards make up stuff about her is not right.
Then again, this has been a bad week for mob mentality in the culture and on the InterTubes. For example, you have craven fools and the paparazzi deciding that ESPN sideline reporter can be stalked for public consumption because some piece of scum violated her privacy, and now you all kinds of craziness erupting as an after-effect of the Gates case.
Molly
@someguy: “She doesn’t want the attention, she shouldn’t make the phone call. People should stay out of other people’s business, and that includes the lace curtain mafia.”
If one of your neighbors thought someone was breaking into your house, you wouldn’t want them to call the police?
Dusty
And, in all fairness, it’s not just random blog commenters making shit up about her. The police report itself seems to be a misrepresentation. I don’t see why she can’t try to set the record straight when everybody else is giving their side of the story.
harlana pepper
@Zifnab: Fort Sum*t*er, and the Confederates fired first on the Union occupied fort.
lamh31
choke on the irony of this for a minute:
Chris Wallace, Don Imus: Lou Dobbs Acting Like “Grassy Knoll Nut”
Damn now Lou Dobbs really is getting it from both sides. How soon before he calls Wallace or “his friend” Don Imus “tea-baggers”
john b
sully responds to a dissent of the day:
huh? architectonic? is that good or bad? i guess it means it will become a fixture like social security? i’ve never seen this word before. anyway. this is more of his blather about the collapse of empire. of course that wasn’t what he was talking about before.
asiangrrlMN
I am so bored with the Palin topic except for the brilliant Shatner interpretations that I am going to blithely ignore the post and comment on the fracas over the woman who reported the incident. Her name was in the report. If you saw her press conference, you heard her say that she was getting death threats. If you heard the 911 call, she was very meticulous about what she saw.
I am also a single woman who lives alone. I am not familiar with all my neighbors, so if I was trying to push open my front door, I would want one of them to call the cops. I don’t think this woman did anything wrong at all, up to and including the press conference. “Don’t snitch” is a terrible message.
P.S. Sully can bite me. He jumped the shark a long time ago with me, but now, he’s completely dead to me.
P.P.S. Like he fucking cares.
Comrade Dread
Because she’s probably some Fox editor’s idea of a hot older professor, kind of akin to the librarian fantasy.
I mean, if I were 20 again, not married, she had a six pack of beer, didn’t say a word, and I could scrub the last 18 months from my mind I can kind of see it.
MikeJ
What asiangrrlmn said. Except I’m not a single woman. Or even multiple women. But I agree with her. And stuff. Also.
Nutella
I hope that the differences between the 911 tape and the police report of it will shut up the people who have been insisting that police reports are 100% true and complete 100% of the time.
BruceK
: You might want to get your snark detector looked at by a mechanic. No shame, though; overexposure to Palin and the rest of the wingularity tends to mess up the calibration on those things.
lamh31
Okay, before ya’ll flame this title, read the article. Pretty decent effort by Jeff Goldberg
White Cops Are Always Right
Napoleon
@asiangrrlMN:
It is just mind boggling that someone would not want their neighbors to call the police if they saw something out of place going on at their house. I have lived in my place for 12 years and most of my neighbors predate me moving there. I can tell you what everyone drives, and what cars of friends and relatives that visit them, or even their kids boyfriend drive. I assume they could say the same about me. Even though I can see the edge of the local police station from my front yard the only way someone breaking into my house gets caught is going to be if one of the neighbors calls them and tells them something strange is going on at my place.
jenniebee
@joes527: I didn’t say that she shouldn’t complain or shouldn’t issue a statement to the press setting the record straight – which the 911 tape did very well. And I didn’t say that she should “suck it up” – I don’t think she should care about it enough to have to suck it up at all. It’d be different if her identity had been released, but it (at least to my knowledge) wasn’t until she released it.
Look, you want to see some harsh shit on the internet where real life consequences (and not just of the people-I-don’t-know-who-don’t-know-me-don’t-like-me variety), the politics sites have nothing on what trolls dish out on, believe it or not, foster parenting blogs. Some of these foster and adoptive parents, they’re taking care of kids who have been so messed up, they see altruism and affection from adults as existential threats and they respond to those “threats” with physical violence. These are kids who, because of past sexual abuse, masturbate in public and can be triggered into emotional breakdowns by things as random as certain denominations of currency, because when they lived at “home”, Daddy always gave them a crisp new twenty if they did it right and didn’t cry. Kids who, if you take your eye off of them for a split second, will sexually and/or physically assault other children or, if no other children are around, the pets.
These adoptive and foster parents are blogging as a support network and an information exchange on resources and techniques to help their kids. And they get trolled by angry bio parents who have websites devoted to claims that it was somebody else’s meth and the state totally stole their kids for the money, and by guys like this who helpfully inform the adoptive mother of a child with Reactive Attachment Disorder, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Cerebral Palsy, that her daughter’s behaviors could all be cured with a dish of Fudge Ripple. He then posts her picture on his site and threatens to report her to child protective services for the crime of blogging about how it was really peaceful around the house for a few days when the child was in respite care.
(For those who don’t know, foster kids can’t spend the night at a friend’s house unless the friend’s parents are also licensed foster parents. When a kid does go to stay with other foster parents for a night or a weekend, that’s called “respite” and for a kid with RAD, it’s as much a respite for the kid as for the parents. The last time these kids depended on somebody else it almost killed them; now they’re being tempted all the time to depend on this new mom and dad, and it’s an outrageously stressful situation for them. Occasionally staying in a safe place but with people they don’t feel tempted to trust or love puts them back in a comfort zone and can really help to de-escalate their behaviors.)
Sorry for the digression. The point is, people are going to say awful things on the ‘nets. That’s just the way it is. Thinking that you could stop the /b/tardedness of the tubes by crying on national TV isn’t going to do anything besides feed the beast.
LD50
This mighta been better split into separate threads, one for Gates & one for Palin the Homemaker…
Mike in NC
Roller derby diva on cable TV, maybe?
LD50
Lots of cops seem to be using Gates to vent about how much they hate civilians in general, and black ones in particular:
Needless to say, he swears he’s not racist.
(http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/07/30/cop-apologizes-for-jungle-monkey-e-mail/)
Dusty
Her press conference was on the 29th. I found an article on the Boston Herald website that featured her name as early as the 21st, five days after the incident. That’s probably not even the first mention of her name; that’s just an article I found quickly. She didn’t release her identity; it was part of the public record.
Bootlegger
Sarah Palin’s speech coach
Demo Woman
Palin Poll
Waitress
Public Speaking
Hunter
Oil Field Worker
other
If I would vote for public speaking.
LD50
Jeez, check out the websites Mister Fudge Ripple links to. A real charmer.
Yes, that is clearly a person who knows Jack Fucking Shit about raising foster children, as well as a classic belligerent rightwing shithead.
calling all toasters
I think most of those who picked “professor” see her as a successor to Professor Irwin Corey.
Comrade Dread
Which is generally the type of story you read about on blogs that track civil liberties abuses.
I don’t think it is an understatement to say that there are a lot of cops who take this war on crime and war on drugs rhetoric to view the citizens they are supposed to serve and protect as the enemy and view any attempt at non-compliance as resistance to be crushed, be it via a clubbing, pepper spray, taser, or bullets.
joes527
@jenniebee:
@jenniebee:
No, you didn’t say she shouldn’t do it. You simply stated that when she did it she crossed some line from “not doing anything wrong” to ???
Her press conference might have been ill advised. I dunno. That’s really her call. Others in this thread have pointed out that her name WAS released and she was getting death threats before the press conference, but I don’t buy the whole “she was anonymous” line anyway.
If I did something anonymously, and it was being characterized as an evil act, It would totally feel like an attack on me, even if I was the only one who knew it. I would be absolutely justified in defending my actions, even if that meant I was blowing my own cover. It might be smart or dumb for me to speak out, but it wouldn’t be wrong.
Maus
“OT, but truly enjoyable.
Waaaah. Waaah. Waaaah. Stop being mean to me. I am not a racist. Waaaah.
How these people can keep denying it is beyond me. The one thing you have to respect about Southerner wingers – perhaps the only thing you can respect about them – is at least the racist ones tend to have the courage to be open about their bigotry. Up North, people hide it, and act all embarrassed when they get caught out and expect you to believe their bogus excuses for their behavior.”
Christ, of all the things involved in that case, I don’t see anything wrong with her calling 911 after some other neighbor told her something was going on and that she should.
Comrade Darkness
@LD50: Protect and Serve In. Your. Face.
KRK
Sarah Palin as college professor reminds me of this classic K-Lo “idea” from this time last year:
KRK
Well, my blockquote fail does accurately represent most K-Lo ideas, but this is what I was going for:
A totally crazy Saturday-morning thought: Wouldn’t George W. Bush make an awesome high-school government teacher? Wouldn’t it be something if his post-presidential life would up being that kind of post-service service? How’s that for a model? Who needs Harvard visiting chairs and high-end lectures? How about Crawford High? (Or wherever?) Reach out and touch the young before they are jaded, or break them of the cynicism pop culture and possibly their parents have passed down to them. Whatever you think of President Bush, he’s a likable guy in love with his country with some history and experience to share.
jenniebee
@Brachiator:
To say that she didn’t lose anything tangible is debatable, and somewhat irrelevant. The notion that she should just STFU and hide in a corner while cowards make up stuff about her is not right.
If her name wasn’t redacted from the report then that changes things, as I said before. As do the death threats – I was unaware of those, and she should obviously have taken steps to address them, although I doubt that her press conference was an effective part of that. I’m glad the actual 911 call tapes and transcripts have been released, I think they show her to have been acting in good faith.
I just don’t get this idea that it’s so reasonable it’s almost compulsory to react (not just react this way or that, but to give trolls/bullies/what have you the satisfaction of seeing you react at all) when people who don’t know you say mean things about you – I thought that getting over that idea was something you were supposed to do in middle school.
Catsy
@cleek:
Objection: assumes facts not in evidence.
Catsy
Hmm, I miss the auto-preview and ability to edit, but I have to say the comments are no longer routinely fucking up basic HTML ever since the advanced editor went away.
A preview button of any sort would be nice, but I count this a net gain.
jenniebee
@joes527:
No, you didn’t say she shouldn’t do it. You simply stated that when she did it she crossed some line from “not doing anything wrong” to ???
I expressed that badly. She certainly didn’t do anything morally, ethically, or legally wrong by having that press conference. But I don’t think she gained anything by it, either. And I don’t think that it added to her dignity.
Brachiator
@lamh31:
What a bunch of dreck. Are black, Asian or Latino cops always wrong?
jenniebee – I didn’t say that she shouldn’t complain or shouldn’t issue a statement to the press setting the record straight – which the 911 tape did very well.
But it didn’t.
But you’re not her.
So are you saying that angry trolling bio parents is just the way it is, so foster parents and foster kids should just suck it up?
So this woman is just a sap because she doesn’t know all the Internet traditions? I don’t know. This is not much better than saying that Gates should have just sucked it up and meekly submitted to the cop that came to his house.
ironranger
@Comrade Dread:
Did you read Barrett’s whole, long rant on myfoxboston? Incredible. He was foaming at the mouth about a lot of stuff, just rambling. He’s got a bunch of anger issues. Pretty scary to see what is going on in this police officer’s head.
Cyrus
@RSA, @jwb:
You both are misreading too much into it. I’d much rather have her working as a college professor than as president, vice-president pundit. That’s not because I think she’d be a good professor, it’s just because I think she’d do less damage there. Surely you agree?
Cyrus
Hmmm. I meant to say “president, vice-president or pundit”, but it’s not letting me edit my previous comment. Oh well.
Anthony Carbone
I comment ’cause I need to see this site correctly.
LD50
@ironranger: Link?
Reportedly, the chief of his department wants him fired. It sounds like a good idea to me.
Comrade Dread
@ironranger
Yeah, I read it over at Sulli’s while looking at some of his more questionable posts.
And I’ve read plenty of examples elsewhere of this mindset. It’s just another version of the mentality whereby police can shoot your dog for barking at them (the latest example I saw being a 12 lb. dachshund, for Pete’s sake), or procure a no-knock SWAT raid warrant on the word of an informant with no further investigation, barge into a house at 3 in the morning, and hold you at gunpoint (or shoot you if you in your sleep delirium think you’re house is being invaded by criminals and arm yourself) and walk away with nary an apology if they happened to get the wrong address, it’s considered perfectly defensible and acceptable.
And in a way, they must be right. Americans seem perfectly content to live with this kind of conduct.
jenniebee
@Brachiator:
jenniebee – I didn’t say that she shouldn’t complain or shouldn’t issue a statement to the press setting the record straight – which the 911 tape did very well.
But it didn’t.
Oh, I dunno about that. I think the absence of the word “black” on the tape and the presence of the words “I think one of them might have been hispanic” pretty much wraps up the case against the claim that she called because the men trying to open the door were black.
And I didn’t say that she should “suck it up” – I don’t think she should care about it enough to have to suck it up at all.
But you’re not her.
Granted. But is your point that she deserves pity because some people said mean things about her, or should we pity her because she lacks perspective about it?
So are you saying that angry trolling bio parents is just the way it is, so foster parents and foster kids should just suck it up?
The kids don’t have to know about it, thankfully. The foster parents sometimes react, and sometimes react badly – and Torina really snapped there (and, you’ll note, apologized to the triumphant ass for having done so) – but if they were the sort of people who habitually ceded control of their emotions and actions to anonymous trolls, they’d be horrible foster parents. They’d be such easy targets for their kids, whom they really care about, if any random stranger with an ISP could get under their skin.
That doesn’t mean that Mr. Fudge Ripple isn’t an ass or that the people who said that she was a racist weren’t wrong or that sending death threats isn’t criminal. It also doesn’t mean that Gates wasn’t behaving arrogantly or that Letterman’s joke wasn’t a low blow. It just means that there are cases where discretion really is the better part of valor.
So this woman is just a sap because she doesn’t know all the Internet traditions? I don’t know. This is not much better than saying that Gates should have just sucked it up and meekly submitted to the cop that came to his house.
It’s the exact opposite of that. Above all else, Gates was in his home with a policeman at his door, and thus did not have the option to walk away; everybody else we’re talking about here did or does. Who knows what really happened to prompt Gates to become angry – the police report paints a cartoonish picture of a man with a chip on his shoulder, asking “is this because I’m black?” before Righteous Guardian of the People Crowley can get a word in edgewise, and given that and the number of factual errors that have proven to be in it, I’m not inclined to take it at face value. Gates’ reaction at the time may or may not have been wise (my inclination at this point is to believe that Gates’ first and foremost act of “hostility” was to ask for Crowley’s badge number), but Gates hasn’t been asking the nation to vindicate him for it; his position, as I understand it, has been limited to saying that his behavior, even if it was exactly what Crowley described it to be, did not justify Crowley’s reaction. And he’s right. Crowley didn’t suddenly stop being responsible for his own actions because somebody yelled at him, but that’s what he’s been going on every forum he possibly can to say.
LD50
And as long as most middle class white Americans never experience such behavior, it’ll presumably stay acceptable.
2th&nayle
@Da Bomb: You obviously haven’t been to East Plano in a while.
malta
cookie monster
joes527
@jenniebee:
Perhaps his point was that folks who insist on criticizing her, despite the fact that she did nothing to warrant criticism, are opening themselves up to being criticised.
None of us gain anything by airing our foolishness here in blogsville, and it certainly doesn’t add to anyone’s dignity, but somehow it is OK for us to waste a morning posting pointless drivel to a pissant blog. But if a woman who dialled 911 and acted responsibly decides to speak for herself, then suddenly THAT seems to merit comment and even derision.
Far be it from me to say you can’t look down on her, or even criticize her. Your rights in that area are a long standing internet tradition.
As are my rights to tell you that you are wrong.
Dusty
I don’t see how calling one press conference to tell your side of the story when you find yourself smack dab in the middle of a national firestorm for just trying to be a good citizen means that you lack perspective. If Lucia Whalen tries to go all Joe the Plumber and milk her 15 minutes for the next three years, then she lacks perspective.
But, yes, I personally think she deserves some pity for getting slagged on when she didn’t do anything wrong. She may not have the thickest hide in the world, but she didn’t put herself out to be a public figure; she just called 9-1-1.
HRA
Ms. Whalen most likely would not have announced herself as the caller to 911 in the Gates/Crowley incident. No doubt the stupidity of revealing her name by the police has caused her a lot of grief. If it had happened to me, I would have sent a written statement to the local media only. Anything more just adds fuel to the controversy.
I, too, hope we can be done with Palin in the media forever.
BOB, the real articles you cite from the Harvard Review are normal for any college paper.
2th&nayle
@Da Bomb: “Sugarland is a complete outier. They are just crazy.”
Isn’t Sugarland the area that brought us that shining example of liberalism and moral rectitude, Tom Delay?
Ye Cats
After listening to her resignation speech followed by Will the Shat’s superb re-interpretation, professor of beat poetry springs to mind. As long as she has a teaching assistant who plays the bongos.
Brachiator
@jenniebee:
As with the birther madness, facts don’t matter here. There are people, and not just pundits, looking for any opportunity to up the racial ante on the Gates case. The people who were posting crap about this woman — and sending her death threats — were insane to begin with. Why would they let facts get in the way?
And then we have Glen Beck accusing Obama of being a racist (this is also getting played up bigtime in the British press) and Michelle Malkin making strange claims against both the Obamas. And the Massachussets cop making racist and demeaning comments about Gates.
None of this is slowed down in the least by facts.
How does pity enter into it in any way? Why do you make such a big thing about propriety, about proper behavior in the face of rude comments, about what and what does not represents dignified behavior?
Here’s my take. The woman not only tried to be a good neighbor, but also tried to relay information about what was happening in as descriptive a manner as possible, without making unfounded conclusions about what was going on, even noting that there were suitcases on the porch.
Not only so far so good, but damn admirable. This immediately blows apart simplistic notions that a lot of people are mired in race (she didn’t assume anything about the men entering the house and refused to jump to conclusions).
The dispatcher (and maybe this can’t be helped) is a weak link, trying to distill complexity into a crime in progress call, discounting the suitcases, for example, even though backpacks or duffel bags are obviously better for carrying loot, and suitcases (a detail not passed on to the cops, as I recall) is more suggestive of somebody coming home than it is somebody doing a break-in.
Because, in my view, everything this woman did or tried to do was admirable, I think she should be celebrated. I find any knocks against her to be perverse.
This woman recognizes that misperceptions about her actions have become part of the public discourse. Meanwhile, you have people, from cops to pundits, busily trying to conflate this into a simplistic black (inherently wrong and paranoid) vs white (inherently noble and the only real Americans) issue. Even Andrew Sullivan is busily pushing a link to an absolutely obnoxious article, “White Cops Are Always Right.”
Neither of these things are true. Again, common sense has gone out the window. Gates returned from a long trip from China only to find that he couldn’t get into his house. He finally and obviously uncomfortably gets into his house only to find that the cops have now shown up. Gates didn’t know that a concerned neighbor had been trying to watch out for him by initiating a phone call about his innocent behavior.
Take out race. Take out “town/gown” relations (professors vs the working class). Take out everything else. If it were me, I might be exasperated at this insane unfolding of events and be at the end of my rope, and not inclined to be nice or to want to sit and have a beer with someone just because he is a cop when all I wanted to do was to get into my goddam house.
By the way, this doesn’t make the cop a simple villain either. He didn’t know what Gates had been through. But as a professional, it was his responsibility to prevent the situation from escalating.
No reason to re-visit Letterman except to say that I have no problem with anything that he said.
Profiles in Courage. I think that Obama owes the woman a phone call, at least. And she doesn’t owe anyone else a damn thing, and certainly not any any requirement that she shrink into the woodwork. Or be discreet.
I’m happy to see her face. I’m glad to know a little about her. And I am very happy to have heard her phone call and to be able to put it into a better perspective. She can cry all she wants to.
The country is worse off when people accept being told to pipe down, shut up, behave properly, don’t ask don’t tell, post it anonymously online, be discreet, support the troops but keep flagged draped coffins in the background, always obey the cops, watch Fox news, wait for further instructions.
We’ve been asked to be the change we want in the world. As a very wise man, Van Morrison, once sang out,
It’s too late to stop now.
ominira
@jenniebee:
Unfortunately, her name wasn’t properly redacted in the police report – I’d heard her name and the fact that she worked for Harvard Magazine within an hour of the report being released. There were many bloggers and blog commenters attacking her, from the Chronicle of Higher Education to Above the Law. The transcript of her 911 call shows her to be a thoughtful person who had to be prodded by the dispatcher before she would even discuss the race of the suspects, and I’m upset she got caught up in all this for helping out an old lady without a cell phone.
henqiguai
@RSA:
Apropos of nothing, I find I need a new cookie here at home…
Nylund
If you mean what subject? The answer is obviously, “All of them.”
Anne Laurie
I’m assuming the “professor” category was Faux News push-polling as part of their ongoing war against the Reality-Based Community(tm). Murdoch’s minions want everyone to believe (like them!) that Smrt Pipple are just pointy-headed nitpickers who look down on Faux News viewers as ignernt belligerent maroons. If the push-poll victims chose ‘professor’, Faux says it verifies their canonization of Palin as a wise and knowlegeable role model. If the push-poll victims didn’t choose professor, Faux says it proves that acquiring facts and basing one’s decisions on them isn’t important to Real Heartland Americans(tm).
Someguy, the internet tuff d00d. You’re a putz. Whalen got “outed” by the negligence of the CPD (big surprise, that) and was threatened in real life by shoot-from-the-lip dipwads like you. She took the opportunity offered by the local media to present her side of the story — and, I will give the Boston tv news networks this credit, they did play the original 911 tape on the air. It was clear from that tape that Whalen behaved like a good Harvard-Square liberal, trying to be a good neighbor (placating a nervous elderly resident, alerting the relevant law-enforcement agency in a neighborhood that had seen multiple break-ins during the past few weeks) while being scrupulously fair about the circumstances (saying that she saw suitcases ‘so they could just be coming back from a trip’; and when asked whether the men were white, black, or hispanic, saying that one man (the Moroccan driver) ‘was kind of dark-skinned, he might be hispanic’ but she couldn’t see the other one (Gates) well enough to judge). Whether she should’ve held a press conference is a judgement call — although scheduling it did get the media off her doorstep for a few days, which she seems to consider a win — but going all “screw her” after the fact, especially when you can’t be arsed to get the simplest facts right before posting, makes you, Someguy, a putz. If the universe had better comedy scripters, one of your
friendsacquaintances would break into your house, take a dump on your rug, and tape your ensuing rants to the local police & the uncaring internet universe about how violated you felt.jenniebee
@Brachiator:
As with the birther madness, facts don’t matter here. There are people, and not just pundits, looking for any opportunity to up the racial ante on the Gates case. The people who were posting crap about this woman—and sending her death threats—were insane to begin with. Why would they let facts get in the way?
If they won’t let the facts get in the way, why would they let her presser get in the way? Those crazies don’t care what she has to say; she evidently does care what they say. You seem to think that she should care what they say, even though you also think that they’re vile crazy people who don’t care about the facts.
Here’s my take. The woman not only tried to be a good neighbor, but also tried to relay information about what was happening in as descriptive a manner as possible, without making unfounded conclusions about what was going on, even noting that there were suitcases on the porch…. in my view, everything this woman did or tried to do was admirable, I think she should be celebrated.
I agree. In case I haven’t been clear, I don’t think that her call was racially motivated or anything other than an attempt to help the homeowner.
Neither of these things are true.
They’re both matters of opinion, not fact. What I’m saying is that it doesn’t matter whether Gates was or was not arrogant or Letterman’s joke hit close to home or even whether some crazies on whatever forum – certainly not Glenn Beck or Freeper for this – thought that Whalen was racially profiling; Crowley, Palin and Whalen could all ask themselves if it’s really the end of the world for there to be somebody out there who doesn’t like them, conclude that it isn’t (because really, it isn’t) and decide to walk away and whistle.
But culturally, we’ve got this idea that every slight has to be escalated, so not only are we talking about Whalen “responding” to her critics – because what else could she do? she has to respond – even though her critics don’t give a damn whether she responds or not – you’ve got whole themes of commentary on blogs and on programs like Hardball opining that “Gates said ‘yo mama’ you can’t expect Crowley to let that stand!” and the argument, if there is one, focuses around whether Gates said ‘yo mama’ instead of about why it should matter if he did. Honestly, we shouldn’t even be arguing about whether it should matter, we should be talking about what a stupid git anybody who thinks it matters is.
The country is worse off when people accept being told to pipe down, shut up, behave properly, don’t ask don’t tell, post it anonymously online, be discreet, support the troops but keep flagged draped coffins in the background, always obey the cops, watch Fox news, wait for further instructions.
Oh, come on, Profiles in Courage? For calling 911 to report a possible break in? That’s not exactly marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
I’m all for speaking truth to power, I’m just not convinced that /b/tards qualify as “power” or that it does any good to tell them that they really hurt your feelings this time.
jenniebee
@ominira:
Unfortunately, her name wasn’t properly redacted in the police report – I’d heard her name and the fact that she worked for Harvard Magazine within an hour of the report being released. There were many bloggers and blog commenters attacking her, from the Chronicle of Higher Education…
Ick – I can’t find anything in Chronicle of Higher Ed other than this piece by Lani Guinier that doesn’t mention Whalen, but I’m getting a lot of “subscription only” screens there, too, and I’ll take your word for it. She definitely should do whatever she can to make sure that any impression they’ve given their readers that she was profiling is corrected post haste.
ominira
@jenniebee: I’m a Chronicle subscriber; that’s how I saw those particular reader comments (mostly last week).
I think part of the problem is that it’s hard to imagine being in Whalen’s shoes (reporters camping on your doorstep, reporters harassing your mother into giving comments, anonymous, threatening phone calls, etc.). Under normal circumstances, no one would know who made the 911 phone call. I read your response to Brachiator and while I agree that not every slight needs to be escalated, I got the impression from her presser that Whalen was in part hurt by assumptions made about her that are contradicted by the facts, and in part fearful about threats received. She comes across as someone who isn’t used to/ comfortable with being in the spotlight, and who has been shaken to the core by this incident. If the presser helps to dial down the crazy even just a little bit, that’s probably a good thing.
jenniebee
@ominira: Your points are well taken, and I certainly didn’t mean to imply (reviewing comments further up the thread) that Whalen was “asking for it” by calling 911 or any other such thing. It couldn’t have been a comfortable week for Ms. Whalen, and I hope she and her lawyer will visit that discomfort on the Cambridge PD for releasing her information like that.
newbroom
Professor? Let her produce her diploma. How many schools did she quit? She seemed competent working WITH a net and hip waders…..but I s’pose looks can be deceiving.
Prospero
Well if I see you being beaten to death on the street I guess I’ll just keep on walking…
fmbJo
This is a comment to remove the WordPress database error mess. I hope.
fmbJo
This is a comment to remove the WordPress database error mess. I hope.
Snarla
Sarah Palin was born to be a televangelist.