It's worth watching Obama's statement. I really can't begrudge him--his priority is health-care. Me, on the other hand, I'm pretty exhausted. What follows is the raw. Not much logic. Just some thoughts on how it feels.

I feel pretty stupid for going hard on this, and stupider for defending what Obama won't really defend himself. I should have left it at one post. Evidently Obama, Crowley and Gates are talking about getting a beer together. I hope they have a grand old time.

The rest of us are left with a country where, by all appearances, officers are well within their rights to arrest you for sassing them. Which is where we started. I can't explain why, but this is the sort of thing that makes you reflect on your own precarious citizenship. I mean, the end of all of this scares the hell out of me.

I was thinking earlier this week about the connection between all of this and the Senate almost passing a bill which would make it legal to carry a concealed weapon in any state, as long as your home state approves. Maybe there is no line between to the two, or maybe I just haven't connected them yet.

In his book Crabgrass Frontier, Kenneth Jackson talks about citizens accepting the responsibility for democracy. He's discussing red-lining, as I recall, and notes that it would be wrong to see government policy toward black neighborhoods as a shadowy conspiracy to destroy black communities. It's much darker than that. The government represents the people, and thus one must see red-lining, housing segregation, and housing covenants not as the machinations of bureaucrats, but as a manifestation of popular will. My reading on Reconstruction has led me the same way. Rutherford B. Hays did not so much fail, as the country made a choice--we'd rather kill Indians and expand, then protect citizens from terrorism.