Chairing the 12-member panel – which is filled with experts from the fields of "law enforcement, diversity, community relations, and conflict resolution," according to the Cambridge PD press release – is Chuck Wexler, executive director of the D.C.-based Police Executive Research Forum. Other members: Charles Ramsey, the former D.C. police chief, Terrance Gainer, the U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms; and Aaron David Miller, a public policy fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center who has advised six secretaries of state on the conflict in the Middle East, which should help, except that that conflict is still going strong.

"I'm just hoping to make sense of this thing," Wexler tells the Washington Post. "This is one of those cases where everyone has an opinion about it. It's almost like some kind of Rorschach test. People see it and they read into it what they want."

It's all well and good to have a committee meet and noodle around big uncomfortable things. But the panel is going to have to get down lower and dirtier than the press release suggests it will if it's going to come up with anything useful.

Consider the phrasing of one of the questions the panel will take up: "How does the Cambridge Police Department take this event and use it as an opportunity to modify its operational procedures: obtain a better appreciation of the complexities associated with policing in a very complex social setting: gaining a much deeper appreciation of interactive social skills, and so on?"

A better appreciation of the complexities associated with policing in a very complex social setting? You mean, white policing on black "suspects"? Racial profiling? Is that what that means?

While we're on the topic of elevating abusive cops above world leaders, I've got two more candidates for future beer summits–and one of 'em's local!

In Mobile, Alabama, cops tazed and pepper-sprayed a deaf man with a mental age of 10 because he spent too much time in a dollar store bathroom:

Love...says he was not feeling well and was in the bathroom for about a half-hour before the police "throw poison under the door." Soon they broke into the bathroom, he recalled in an account he wrote for his family, and "the police get the tazz three strings in my stomach, chest and hand and hit my head." Later, he says, "I saw police laugh at me."

According to Jacob Sullum at Reason, the cops arrested Love even after they learned he wasn't the average vagrant.

And according to HuffPo's Arthur Delaney, D.C. cops recently pulled a Gates-like stunt on U Street:

[Tuma] told the Huffington Post that in a loud sing-song voice, he then chanted, "I hate the police, I hate the police."

One officer reacted strongly to Tuma's song. "Hey! Hey! Who do you think you're talking to?" Tuma recalled the officer shouting as he strode across an intersection to where Tuma was standing. "Who do you think you are to think you can talk to a police officer like that?" the police officer said, according to Luke Platzer, 30, one of Tuma's companions.

Tuma said he responded, "It is not illegal to say I hate the police. It's not illegal to express my opinion walking down the street."

According to Tuma and Platzer, the officer pushed Tuma against an electric utility box, continuing to ask who he thought he was and to say he couldn't talk to police like that.

Tuma was arrested for disorderly conduct.

In fact, all three men–Gates, Love, Tuma–we’re charged with disorderly conduct. How many of them are going to sip beers in the garden behind the White House? The mentally disabled deaf man? He wouldn't have much to say. The loud-mouth gay guy? He had it coming. And Gates? Well duh! He’s already famous!

And a little side note to Warren Goldstein at HuffPo, who frames white privilege by talking about how he almost house-sat the wrong house but wasn't arrested when a patrol car showed up because he is white: You were spared arrest, Mr. Goldstein, not just because of your skin color, but also because you were polite. Authority demands respect, and when you give it, authority rewards you by not arresting your ass on bullshit charges.

More beer summits!

In essence, Gates was arrested for saying that he felt violated and oppressed on his own property. And President Barack Obama was right: The Cambridge police did "act stupidly." The arresting officer, Sergeant Jim Crowley, claims “there was a lot of yelling, there was references to my mother,” and yet neither charge would hold up even as a ticketable offense.

But for the record, finding yourself in handcuffs after arguing with a police officer isn't something that just happens to blacks and Latinos. Cops everywhere are always on the lookout for opportunities to assert their authority, and, as in Gates' case, they'll gladly misinterpret public safety laws in order to show a civilian who's the boss.

Need another example of the universality of angry cops asserting their authority for no good reason? Last night, libertarian activistis J.D. Talley and Pete Eyre were turned away at the Canadian border after being detained for over four hours. The two are touring the U.S. and Canada as part of the Motorhome Diaries; basically, happy hours, talks, and meet-ups with other libertarians. Pretty harmless, right?

"[The mobile home was] searched by both state agents and the K-9 patrol. The MHD Guys were filming as the neared the check point, but the video was deleted and they were informed if they continued to film, record, or take pictures they would be arrested. A box of literature from the Alliance of the Libertarian Left was taken, and a copy of Crispin Sartwell’s “Against the State” was left out on the counter....

Their laptops are now in the possession of the state agents...

One agent has accused them of ’spreading misinformation.’

The guys have been told that the state agents are looking for “Pornography or Heinous Propaganda.” When asked for a definition of “Heinous Propaganda” or the applicable statute they were told it was available online, but they don’t have computers or Internet access.

Update 3: Computers returned, State Agents still in possession of box of ALL Literature.

The Canadian border patrol cited an incident in Jones County, Mississippi as the reason for denying Eyre and Talley entrance. We wrote about the same incident many Freedom Fridays back. To refresh your memory: Talley, Eyre, and an additional friend–all of them white–were pulled over by a Mississippi law enforcement officer. When the Motorhome Diaries crew asked why they had been pulled over and then refused to identify themselves until the officer answered them, the officer placed all three men under arrest, charged them with violating bogus public safety laws, and impounded their vehicle. They were held overnight and lost a lot of money in incarceration fees to the Jones County Sheriff's Office.

In short, the color problem–which is real–is subsumed by the much, much larger cop problem, which affects everyone, even if it affects minorities disproportionately more so. We shouldn't turn a blind eye to the petty cases and we shouldn't lose sight of this once Gates has won his lawsuit.

"I weigh 150 lbs and I'm 5' 7''. I'm going to give flack to a big white guy with a gun. I might wolf later, but I won't wolf then."

Strikes me that a little editing may be in order here: Sounds as if the second sentence in that quote needs a question mark. But priceless stuff, regardless of punctuation issues.

Anyhow, Gates is using the incident, which he quite reasonably connects with racism, to fire up some research. "I hope to make a documentary about racial profiling for PBS...[The idea] had never crossed my mind but it has now."

How did Washington Post get the first interview with Gates? Not quite sure on this end, but the self-disclosure in the Post story provides perhaps a hint:

What follows is Gates's first public account of his arrest. He spoke to The Post in an hour-long phone interview while resting on Martha's Vineyard. Gates is a founder of the Root.com, (www.theroot.com), a Web site owned by The Washington Post Co.