President of the Diaspora

So, what I want to know is, how is our current president expected to "[tamp] down the emotions of the case" as Peter Baker and Helene Cooper report in today's New York Times?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/us/politics/25gates.html

"The case" being the arrest of the "belligerent" Dr. Gates on his own front porch in Cambridge, MA. Everyone is taking sides and placing bets. I'm in. Post-racial America has gone up in smoke and down in the ashes of illusion. History has risen up to greet us once again. The systemic nature of race, class, law and 'order' is staring us down head on, like an oncoming train. How will we transform ourselves in time to avoid the crash and burn? Stay tuned and fasten your seat belts because the ride promises to get even bumpier, as if that were possible. I'm keeping my eyes wide open and my pen poised to sift through the rhetoric and the behavior.