So there is a professor at a university, which I do not know, that forgot the key to his home, and had to deal with the police after an attempt to go through a window. The Professor's name is Gates, he is black, and the cops were white. He was arrested after talking shit to the police outside his him after they had ascertained his identity as the homeowner, which they did inside the home just before.

Andrew Sullivan makes an attempt at diplomacy while supporting an obvious injustice to Gates.

And Obama is right that cops like Crowley are good men in general (although I can't pass a judgment on someone I don't know). I also believe in being respectful and polite to policemen as a rule, and do not recall any moment in my life when I haven't been. But I do think it's necessary to remember that policemen are our servants, not our masters. We pay their salary - and they'd better treat us right. And I find the many comments that we should always show deference to the man with the gun and the badge and never publicly criticize cops to be alarmingly authoritarian in its implications.

He is right about the show of deference, but his assertion of a rule of respect to policemen is an almost one-eighty contridiction. Cops only deserve the treatment we afford anyone else. The fact that people believe they somehow should get more simply because they carry a badge is part of the problem. One of the things that draws men to police work is the power that comes with carrying a badge and a gun. Of course men like this are going to be corrupted to varying degrees due to this alone, not to mention everything they encounter after being on the job. When people "respectful and polite to policemen as a rule", it simply adds to this tendency.

This is just my opinion of course. I think cops for the most part are jerks, simply because the few times I have had to deal with them this is how they present themselves. It seems they are incapable of keeping their feelings out of their dealings with the public. It would be impossible to completely keep one's emotions at bay for sure, but it seems they don't even bother trying for the level that they should.