"Nor would stepping outside have changed Gates's rights. Had he wanted to cuff the professor for B & E, Sgt. Crowley could have done so anywhere in Cambridge."

On the other hand, since it's clear you can't really be charged for breaking and entering into your own home, it's my understanding, be it due to MA's castle law or whatever, that Gates stepping outside greatly facilitated his being charged with "disturbing the peace."

"Finally, dropping charges doesn't mean Crowley was wrong. People get taken into custody all the time without being prosecuted. Sometimes, they just need a 'time out.'"

Uh, citizens are arrested when they committed a crime. Not when it is deemed by a member of law-enforcement, cranky or otherwise, that they "need a time-out." Arguing as such is, frankly, just bizarre, and gets us into the "preemptive detention" discussion over in Mr. Greenwald's corner of the site.

"A final political point: As Joan Walsh points out, making every issue a racial issue only helps the Republican right."

If the shoe fits. Hard to see how this isn't a racial issue...unless Cambridge cops have been arresting a lot of white professors in their own homes lately. These episodes don't operate in a vacuum, Gene -- History, both American and Cantabridgian, comes into play.

I've done some dancing on recent graves in my time -- Jesse Helms comes to mind. But, really, some of you need to lose the chip and gain some sense of perspective. Hughes was a talented writer and filmmaker who made a string of personal films that touched a lot of people. He's not some Faustian minion of Satan, as one poster tried to put it, and he's not responsible for Ronald Reagan and/or yuppies. Grow up.

In any case, I'd recommend reading this post, by his old pen pal, to get a better sense of the man -- http://wellknowwhenwegetthere.blogspot.com/2009/08/sincerely-john-hughes.html -- Hellspawn, he isn't.

After the long primary of 2008, I am not what you'd call a fan of Sec. Clinton. That being said, her response here was entirely appropriate. The question as posed was demeaning, offensive, and stupid, and she responded with as much composure as it deserved. Let's move on.

It's quite good and a definite must-see, and if there's any justice in this world it'll make thrice the money of crap like GI Joe and Transformers 2. But "Moon," imho, remains the best sci-fi film of 2009.

When it comes to these sorts of things, I'm of the Hunter S. Thompson school (http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/graffiti/crook.htm) -- Only speaking good of the dead is in itself a betrayal of the deceased. If you despised them in life, you might as well stay true to that feeling as they shuffle off. (As the philosopher Walter Sobchak put it in The Big Lebowski -- "The man in the black pajamas. Worthy f**king adversary.")

When it came to say, Helms or Falwell, I basically agreed with the Clarence Darrow line: "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." For Novak, it's more just a shrug. He's been on his way out for years, this was just the last step.

But I'm not going to start pretending, now that the man ha breathed his last, that he was suddenly a great guy. Far from it.

The analogy used to start off the piece isn't that much kinder to these folks than simply calling them idiot racists.

Regardless, I agree with the many commenters that the kindler, gentler approach probably isn't going to get us anywhere. As my old boss was wont to say, don't waste your time wrestling with a pig -- you just get dirty and the pig loves it.

Meaning that the Barney Frank approach - there's no point in coddling morons at this delicate hour -- is, imho, the way to go.

He's always been a political blogger, and a thoroughly lousy one at that.

True, he spends most of his posts sucking up to people in power and parsing the day's news to find that exact comfortable midpoint where the CW resides...but that doesn't make him an establishment journalist. He's more just an admiring flunky of the powers-that-be.

Thing is, he's not even the worst blogger over at the Atlantic -- that would be the former Jane Galt, Megan McArdle. But he, and the much overpraised former Atlantic resident, Yglesias, are pretty darned terrible, in basically the same ways.

He's always been a political blogger, and a thoroughly lousy one at that. Has he ever held an actual journalism position?

True, he spends most of his posts sucking up to people in power and parsing the day's news to find that exact comfortable midpoint where the CW resides...but that doesn't make him an establishment journalist. He's more just an admiring flunky of the powers-that-be.

Mind you, I'm not making the distinction to defend establishment journalists, almost all of whom deserve the heaps of scorn they get 'round here. But I do think it's important to point out.

The thing is, he's not even the worst blogger over at the Atlantic -- that would be the former Jane Galt, Megan McArdle. But he, and the much overpraised former Atlantic resident, Yglesias, are pretty darned terrible, in basically the same ways.