Class Act Versus Self-Involved

As my pal Ms. Bookworm points out, some pictures really are worth a thousand swords:

On July 31, right after Beergate, the White House posted official photos of the event. {...}

You see what I see: the cop who was flung into unwanted prominence because an esteemed professor and the American president accused him of stupidity and racism, carefully helps that same professor, who has a mild physical impairment, down the stairs. The president strides on, utterly oblivious to his friend’s needs.

Nor was Ms. Bookworm the only one who caught this.Thomas Lifeson over at American Thinker saw the same thing here:

Sergeant Crowley, the sole class act in this trio, helps the handicapped Professor Gates down the stairs, while Barack Obama, heedless of the infirmities of his friend and fellow victim of self-defined racial profiling, strides ahead on his own. So who is compassionate? And who is so self-involved and arrogant that he is oblivious?

In my own dealings with the wealthy and powerful, I have always found that the way to quickly capture the moral essence of a person is to watch how they treat those who are less powerful. Do they understand that the others are also human beings with feelings? Especially when they think nobody is looking.

Very true, in my experience.And most women will tell you that a man who smiles sweetly at his date and than barks orders at the waiter like he was a prison warden talking to a lifer makes less than a stellar impression. The same thing's true in reverse with a woman who is honeyed charm with the man she's with and than acts like a picuyune, nasty, complaining you-know-what with the 'little people' she's not trying to impress.

Ms. Bookworm goes on to discuss what each of the three parties involved emerged from out of beergate...read the rest here