A Strong Pinch-Hitter

From his time guest-blogging at Andrew Sullivan for the past couple of weeks, I think Conor Friedersdorf is my kind of conservative. It's not that I agree with him all the time, but his tone is almost always reasonable: He defends colleagues on the other side of the aisle, praises NPR programming, wonders if the 2012 Republican candidate might be willing to apply some conservative insights, asks seemingly genuine open-minded questions about health care reform, and has a rare, worthwhile perspective on the Henry Louis Gates fiasco:

Wrongly arrest a black men who happens to be a Harvard professor, release him without filing charges, and the national press corps asks the president to comment. Wrongly imprison for years on end a black man who happens to be working class and without celebrity, and the national press corps continues to utterly ignore a criminal justice system that routinely convicts innocent people.

(By the way, has anyone thought to call it Gatesgate yet?)

A reader disagrees with Friedersdorf's analysis of the Gates situation, and while I see her point, I think his overall take is more convincing. I'm not even sure their takes have to be mutually exclusive.