MSM Diary: When Ratings Don't Come Your Way, Try Starting A Race War (the Henry Lewis Gates story) pt 5

Let’s add up some “knowns”:

1) Gates is a Harvard professor of humanities, making a career of Afrocentrism.
2) He is a self-described adherent of identity politics.
3) He has produced several PBS series on various African American subjects, including one that aired in February of this year and another soon to air.
4) Barry’s push for socialized health care will not come before the legislature before the August recess, and when the congressmen return from it, they will be very leary of passing it as he wants it due to fear of upsetting their re-election chances in 2010.
5) Barry is friends with Gates, and shares his attitude about the dominant race in America.
6) Barry needs sympathy from America to stem his declining poll approval numbers, and to possibly rescue his UHC dreams after August.

Knowing all of this, it seems very possible that Barry’s venture into what should have stayed a local (non)issue concerning the Cambridge police’s arrest of a disorderly professor Gates, was nothing more than a cunning ploy to distract attention from his failed UHC bill and further attempt to both racially divide this country and garner sympathy for him as a “black man in America where the black man is still a victim.”

It also seems very possible that Gates purposely inflated the situation with officer Crowley, knowing that the attention he manufactured from it would help sell his books, dvd’s and future projects.

And perhaps unrelated is the fact that CNN aired its much-hyped “Black In America” series for the last two nights. The massive promotions and lead-in to the shows were dramatically sensationalized by featuring the breaking news of the Gates case. The reporting on the Gates case by CNN has been decidedly one-sided, and after two days officer Crowley’s side was finally aired, but has been treated as if it is too-little-too-late and completely unconvincing. The interview with Soledad O’Brien today was particularly telling of a CNN perspective.

If you have the curiosity and patience for it, I have actually chronicled the CNN segments featuring this Gates case for the last three days on my new channel at Youtube. You can survey them at your leisure here.