Skip Gates, please sit down  —  You are suffering from what I call the “Ivy League Effect” … Henry Louis Gates Jr. at his home in Cambridge, Mass., in 2008.  —  The Ivy League is not real life.  College in general is not real life, and the Ivy League is a more fantastic version of college.

Gates Arrest  —  Case Heats Up As Police Organizations Criticize Obama For Jumping into the Controversy  —  The police sergeant who arrested Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. last week in his own home may be considering a defamation lawsuit against Gates who has implied his arrest was racially motivated.

Obama walks back police criticism  —  President Obama made a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room Friday in an attempt to tamp down the escalating controversy over his comments on the Monday arrest of Harvard Prof. Henry Louis Gates by the Cambridge, Mass., Police Department.

Obama regrets ‘distraction’ of comment ‘obsession’  —  President Obama regrets the distraction that his comments about a police incident in Cambridge, Mass., caused, according to a White House spokesman.  —  White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Friday that if the president knew …

House healthcare talks break down in anger  —  House healthcare negotiations dissolved in acrimony on Friday, with Blue Dog Democrats saying they were “lied” to by their Democratic leaders.  —  The seven Blue Dogs on the Energy and Commerce Committee stormed out of a Friday meeting …

Health care talks fall apart  —  The negotiations between House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and seven conservative Democrats on his panel fell apart Friday afternoon after the chairman told reporters he could move the bill to the floor without a committee vote.