"I was now almost intoxicated by my mere possession of constitutional rights."

As I read the police report, Prof. Gates was the one who insisted on continuing the interaction with the officer, in order to (continue) to complain about Prof. Gates' perception of the officer's actions. When the officer asked Prof. Gates to step outside, if he was so enamored of his constitutional rights, he should have said: "Officer, are you satisfied that this is MY house?" When the officer said yes, then the proper response is: "Good. Now get off my property and leave me alone."

That's still being an asshole about what still seems to me to be entirely reasonable initial investigatory steps, but it's entirely within his rights. But the officer invited Prof. Gates to continue the conversation, which GATES wanted to have, outside (leaving aside the issue of the officer's motive for making the request), and Prof. Gates chose to follow him in order to continue to berate him.

So then the officer's got a tough choice to make. If he just leaves while Prof. Gates is still talking, wouldn't that also get him in trouble? Refusing to listen to the complaints being made by a citizen? I don't recall off the top of my head that Prof. Gates claims to have ever told the officer clearly to leave his property and leave him alone.

Probably, instead of threatening to arrest him for disorderly conduct, the officer could have said: "Prof. Gates, you seem to me to be behaving irrationally. If you wish to continue this conversation in a calmer fashion, I'm happy to stay and speak with you, but otherwise I'm going to walk away and leave you." Perhaps he could add "before you do something stupid and I'm forced to arrest you." But frankly at that point, if Prof. Gates was in fact making as big a spectacle as the multiple officers at the scene claim, I'd start to be legitimately worried that there was something wrong with the man. Maybe the quicker-thinking thing to do would have been to call the paramedics for a medical check.

But NONE of that would have made Prof. Gates happy at that moment. Without the arrest, of course, none of us would have ever heard of this, because the arrest is the "hook" for the story, but Prof. Gates himself would have remained just as irate. His primary complaint of racism has not been aimed at the arrest but on the alleged "profiling" ... and that happened (well, didn't happen, to my view) well before the arrest.

Hitchens is correct that you don't have to be polite in defending your right. And if the cops showed up at his house for no reason, or were rude to him from the get-go, I'd be on Prof. Gates' side in all this. But if you want any sympathy from me for your "plight," don't start off being an asshole to the cops before they give you some reason for it.

Had Prof. Gates shown the officer his ID calmly and civilly when the officer first requested it, confirmed for the officer that there weren't actually any burglars in the house holding him hostage, and THEN the officer began to harass him, then I'd say Hitchens would be right on the money. But when a cop gets a report of a possible burglary, shows up at your house and asks for verification that you are in fact the owner, well then I think we all have some common-sense duty to cooperate, if only because the officer is doing exactly what we would want him to do if the guy claiming to be the owner of the house WASN'T.

Why was it so difficult for Prof. Gates to simply say: "Officer, here's my ID with this address on it. This is my house, and I've had a long day, so I want you to leave now so I can rest."

Hitchens is right, that the arrest wasn't necessary.

But from the accounts I've seen, the officer wasn't acting thuggish or oversensitive either, he was being very calm with Gates and warned him several times. The arrest was also made after Gates had followed the officer outside, who was leaving the scene, to yell at him, and the officer told him twice if he didn't stop causing a disturbance, he'd have to do an arrest. The other officers support his arrest; which indicates he was just following protocol.

Maybe the protocol needs to change, that when people are yelling at cops but are no threat they shouldn't be charged, but to make this cop out to be a bad guy I think would be wrong, when he felt he was just doing his job.

Hitchens seems to have a major problem with police officers. I have no idea what his first encounter was actually like, because he didn't describe it in detail, but he left the impression he doesn't understand police officers don't always have the time to chat with people (and are human, not necessarily warped misfits, so don't handle all situations correctly). I know some officers can act like assholes, I'm not arguing with that, but most people successfully avoid unpleasant encounters with cops by having some understanding of the officers jobs.

At the end of his commentary, Hitchens says the right thing for Gates to have done was to challenge the officer on his rights and not the color of his skin. The officer was ready to leave, and if he was left to leave there would have been nothing to challenge him on at all, his rights or his skin color...