As Dem pundits go, I normally find Kirsten Powers among the more reasonable. But on this afternoon's Fox News Watch, Powers propounded an incendiary theory of the Gates/Crowley incident: that the sergeant "lured" and "tricked" Gates into coming outside so he could arrest him.
Panelist Jim Pinkerton had just made the point that it was only the conservative media, by focusing attention on the matter, that saved Sgt. Crowley from a "miserable life in Cambridge" at the hands of Prof. Gates, Harvard, the NAACP et. al, when Powers jumped in . . .
KIRSTEN POWERS: It was an absolute abuse of power. He was in his house, and he's being rude to a cop. And so he lures him outside so he can then arrest him for domestic disturbance. I mean, that is an abuse of power . . . Arresting a man in his own home and tricking him into—a man with a cane.
As I understand the situation and police procedure, all that Sgt. Crowley knew was that there were two potential suspects in the house. Rather than entering the house and subjecting himself to a potential ambush, Sgt. Crowley asked the unknown person, who turned out to be Prof. Gates, to come outside. Would Kirsten have gone charging in?
Note: as an example of the reasonableness that Powers normally displays, just before this exchange she made an eminently sensible observation. Discussing the way in which the 911 caller was widely considered to have been vindicated of accusations of racism when it turned out she didn't identify the possible suspects as African-American, Powers observed: "what if she had? This is what I thought was so strange about it. He is an African-American, so what would be wrong with reporting that you saw an African-American?" Too true, mate.
