IN THE MAIL: From J.D. Johannes, Baghdad Happens.

AN ARTERY OF OPIUM, A VEIN OF TALIBAN: Michael Yon posts another dispatch from Afghanistan. His email: “There’s a proper fight going on out here.” Plus, a Billy Idol look-alike.

TUNKU VARADARAJAN: The Professor, the Cop, and the President. “This episode, for all its sordidness, confirms the greatness of America. Where else could a humble cop–a Lilliput of a sergeant–stand up so publicly to a president? And not just stand up but invite himself over for a beer with the president? What theater it has been, what entertainment. And yes, a teachable moment–for Professor Gates, and for President Barack Obama. Sgt. Crowley may believe that he had nothing to learn, but I’m certain he has grasped a small truth or two as well.”

UPDATE: Radley Balko: It’s not about race, but about police abuses of power. “The power to forcibly detain a citizen is an extraordinary one. It’s taken far too lightly, and is too often abused. And that abuse certainly occurs against black people, but not only against black people. American cops seem to have increasingly little tolerance for people who talk back, even merely to inquire about their rights. . . . If there’s a teachable moment to extract from Gates’ arrest, it’s that arrest powers should be limited to actual crimes. Instead, the emerging lesson seems to be that you should capitulate to police, all the time, right or wrong. That’s unfortunate, because there are plenty of instances where you shouldn’t. . . . Police officers deserve the same courtesy we afford anyone else we encounter in public life—basic respect and civility. If they’re investigating a crime, they deserve cooperation as required by law, and beyond that only to the extent to which the person with whom they’re speaking is comfortable. Verbally disrespecting a cop may well be rude, but in a free society we can’t allow it to become a crime, any more than we can criminalize criticism of the president, a senator, or the city council.”

More from Tom Maguire.

MICHAEL BARONE: Stumbling Governors Signal Trouble For Dems.

HEATHER MACDONALD: Inside the Jail Inferno. Excerpt: “The spread of quality-of-life policing, which targets low-level offenses like aggressive panhandling, public urination, and littering, has brought a more mentally unstable, troubled population into jails—one that mental hospitals would have treated before the deinstitutionalization movement of the 1960s and ’70s shuttered most state mental hospitals. In fact, jails have become society’s primary mental institutions, though few have the funding or expertise to carry out that role properly.”

OUT TODAY: Michelle Malkin’s Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies. As timely as today’s headlines, I think it’ll do well . . . .

“IMPEACH OBAMA” STICKERS spark shopping-mall protest.

THINGS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED THIS WEEKEND:

Planet-killing climate-changers brag.

Chris Dodd snubs lobbyists, but not their cash.

ACORN holds pro-Obamacare rally, Tea Party breaks out. Similar event here. Also, how to ruin a professional agitation group’s day.

Energy-wasting bureaucrats at the Department of Energy.

Robert Byrd is down on cap-and-trade. But can he withstand the giant-puppet assault?

News reports on the Richmond and Asheville tea parties.

Latest polling not looking good for Obama. Plus the CBO rains on the Obamacare parade again.

And, finally, this. Preacher: InstaPundit needs more sex. I respond with this post.

AUSTIN BAY: Will the next press be capitalist? “The common ‘government’ news media model is China’s Xinhua or a ‘semi-official’ actor like Egypt’s Al-Ahram. The monarch’s purse, whether in the form of direct government control, governmental bullying, or even hobbyist billionaire with a George Soros-like ideological incline, always has strings.”

ANDREW BREITBART: The President’s Accidental Gift on Race. “Americans, especially nonblacks, are deeply fearful that the dynamic is predicated on an un-American premise: presumed guilt. Innocence, under the extra-constitutional reign of political correctness, liberalism’s brand of soft Shariah law, must be proved ex post facto. Think not? Ask the Duke lacrosse team, which had 88 of the school’s professors sign a petition that presumed their guilt before their side of the story was known. Even though the white athletes were exonerated and the liberal district attorney who pushed the case was dethroned, disbarred and disgraced, the professoriate that assigned guilt to its own students still refuses to apologize.”

ARS GRATIA ARTIST. And don’t try to correct my Latin until you follow the link . . . .

POLITICAL WIRE: Deval Patrick Faces Re-Election Trouble.

POLITICO: Nancy Pelosi on being unpopular: ‘I don’t care’.

STAMP PRICES TO JUMP TO 50 CENTS? “The more they raise the price of stamps, the lower their volume. This union driven worker model is too pricey for a declining market.” Could be.

MICKEY KAUS: BLOW THREE TO ORSZAGISM: “David Broder–who as Lucianne notes will surely be one of the first the Juiceboxers send to the ice floe–notices that what Orszag’s base-closing style Medicare cost-cutting panel is designed to get around is … the ordinary practice of representative democracy.”

Stupid representative democracy. Too messy. We need some sort of principle based on having one clear leader — call it, oh, I dunno, the “leader principle” — to make sure things get done.

TENNESSEE’S “CRACK TAX” HELD TO violate Tennessee Constitution.

THE “First Duffer?”

PROTESTS AND the “media ricochet.”

PETER SUDERMAN: Buy Now, Pay Later: “Listen to liberal advocates of health-care reform and you’ll hear two constant refrains: We must expand coverage to everyone, and we must control costs. Democrats tend to sell this as a package deal, a sort of political version of the Billie Mays pitch—but that’s not all! And while they’ve put forth a number of plans that would expand coverage by varying degrees, the tacked-on bonus—as is the case with most info-mercials—is essentially a scam: Claims that the Democrats’ current proposals will rein in health-care spending are sketchy at best. . . . The fact is, health-care costs are rising across the developed world, even in the most widely praised systems.”