[VRM]

SP01715,
Gates was not acting disorderly in a public place - he was on his own property - similar cases in MA have already been decided this way and the charge against him would have been thrown out.

The officer is required to show his id when asked - not tell him that it will be on the arrest report. This is MA state law, and may not be the same in your state.

Gates provided his own ID before being arrested, though he is not required to do so under MA state law. If he did not show his ID establishing that it was his house then the cop would have had every right to arrest him for suspicion of B&E, and then once Gates was detained he would have legally had to produce ID.

Gates was returning home after a long flight - Logan is not exactly the place to put a smile on faces. I'm sure Gates was tired and probably a little PO'ed (Logan can do that - trust me!). Gates was already not at his best when the cop started questioning him - but that is not an excuse.

Gates making the assumption that the cop was targeting him because he is black is racist. There certainly are racist cops in Boston such as the idiot who just got suspended for sending emails calling Gates a 'banana-eating jungle-monkey', but assuming all of them are racist because of the actions of some is just exacerbating the problem.

A witness says that Gates was yelling, but was not making any threatening physical moves. This was not a case of race, though, this was a case of Crawley reaching the end of his patience at being yelled at for no reason. It did not matter what colour Gates was - Crawley had had enough. Crawley should have walked away after Gates identity was established, though the whole thing could have been avoided if Gates had not been a jackass.

CdC, I'm not sure what Hirohito has to do with any of this, but I think it is safe to say that you could probably not identify either of the Japanese signers without looking it up (I only know one off the top of my head, and I'm a history nut). I'm also pretty sure that most people in this country, yourself included, don't have a clue who signed as the US representative. It wasn't MacArthur.
The fact that Obama could even identify Hirohito as even a possible signatory is probably better than 90% of the people in the US could do.

This is a non-issue and indicates nothing except that Obama is not a history teacher. We have bigger problems than this.

Steve