Cambridge police release Gates arrest recording

The Boston Herald posted the audio at its website today. Didn't add much to story, in this man's opinion, though Sgt. James Crowley sounded professional throughout and little of Professor Gates's alleged unhinged rant could be heard.

A theory making the rounds -- was the question about Gates at Obama's July 22 press conference planted with a sympathetic reporter (Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times) to divert attention from Senate Majority leader Harry Reid announcing the next day -- as Obama surely knew was coming -- that the Senate would not vote on health reform before the August recess?

What better way to rile up liberals than with a timely opportunity for self-righteous indignation about racial profiling?

Report: Obama calls Cambridge cop who arrested Gates

A sign that Obama knows he shouldn't have waded full bore into the controversy after first acknowledging he wasn't sure on specifics. Reporting today from The Hill --

... Obama said the five-minute conversation confirmed that (Sgt. James) Crowley is a good man and that the sergeant and the professor are "two decent people," though he still believes that Crowley and Gates both overreacted. The president further said that he contributed to the "ratcheting up" of the story.

Obama said it was "unfortunate" that his word choice "maligned" the police department and Crowley.

"And I could have calibrated my words differently." ...

Read the full story here.

Cop who arrested Gates teaches racial profiling class

More great coverage from the Boston Herald --

Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley, the cop at the center of a firestorm over the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., has taught a racial profiling class at the Lowell Police Academy for five years. ...

Granted, the police academy isn't Harvard and, hence, one is more likely to encounter a robust exchange of ideas there. On how every arrest of a person of color isn't the result of racial profiling, for example.

This story just keeps getting better.