When a Little 'Profiling' Might Be a Good Thing

It must be great to be a Harvard professor with a bad attitude and be friend of the President. You might get a cool job in Washington D.C. You can also pop off to a cop and then expect the most powerful community organizer in the world to get your back at his next press conference. If you happen to be an African-American Harvard professor with a bad attitude, you can also scream racism and no one left of John McCain will doubt you’re wrong.

I also wonder what kind of lawyers they’re churning out at Harvard when their most well-know alumnus starts a statement with. “I don’t know all the facts.” and then doesn’t immediately follow that with, “So I have no comment.” Instead, he goes on for two or three paragraphs giving the facts as he was told them by his friend, the Harvard professor with a bad attitude, and then reaches a conclusion that the police acted “stupidly.”

What he meant when he said “stupidly” was that the arrest of the friend of the most powerful community organizer in the world was racially motivated. President Obama believes in one of the great myths of progressivism: The police are always wrong and always racist. Many of our progressive friends believe that any time a member of a minority is stopped they must be innocent victims of racial profiling.

What is racial profiling? It seems hard to make the case you’re an oppressed minority when after you mouth off to a cop and get arrested your high-powered mouthpiece gets on the blower to the governor who calls the mayor who calls the police chief — all resulting in the charges being dropped. Meanwhile, you’re on the phone to the only automobile executive with access to nuclear weapons asking him to give you a shout out at the news conference. I wish I had that kind of juice. I can’t beat a speeding ticket in my home town (where I know four of the five top guys in the police department and play golf with the county prosecutor).

I do know this, from the time I was a very young hillbilly living in rural Kentucky, my dad taught me that when you’re stopped by anyone with a badge and gun, you say, “Yes, sir.” and “No, sir.” Especially on a dark country road where there are no witnesses. You do what the cop asks and never lunge for the glove box.

Imagine the cops had acted the way President Obama and other liberals seem to think they should have, but in a slightly different situation. Let’s say you’re African-American and at home asleep with your wife and kids. Meanwhile, someone uses a crowbar to let some fresh air into your place, and this person is also African-American. A neighbor calls the cops and a white officer responds but the burglar (who’s in your house) informs the cop he lives there and that everything’s under control. The white cop says, “OK” and walks away. After you’re found dead will you wish the cops had done a little “profiling?”

After all is said and done, if I were a criminal in Cambridge I know whose house I’d break into tonight. Do you think the cops will even answer the call?

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