The presser was straight out of Bonfire of the Vanities, beginning with an exceedingly strange two-minute-plus introduction from Whalen's attorney Wendy Murphy, who cautioned the assembled press to "leave her alone" before praising her as the "one person whose actions have been exemplary" and implicitly criticizing Barack Obama for failing to invite her to tomorrow's sit-down between Gates and Sgt. James Crowley. "I don't know, maybe it's a guy thing," Murphy sneered. "She doesn't like beer anyway." Then she nominated Whalen, the woman she wants to be left alone, to head a proposed blue-ribbon panel to examine the issue of racial profiling in Cambridge. Murphy is enjoying her 15 minutes.

The Cambridge Police Department has released the 911 call that led to the arrest of Henry Louis Gates. The caller didn't say the men were black, and she said they could have just been having trouble with their keys.

Since Barack Obama weighed in on the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, we thought it was worthwhile to do a close reading of the law and the arrest report to see just how stupid the Cambridge Police Department was.