Both Henry Louis Gates and Sergeant Crowley should get some credit for demonstrating their tenacity at the White House this evening. While President Obama and Vice President Biden ditched their jackets, Gates and Crowley wore them despite the heat and humidity that afflict Washington in the summer. Relaxing in shirt sleeves was supposed to convey the attitude that the meeting was really no big deal, just a few folks, as Obama put it, enjoying a brew at the end of a hard working day.
Of course it was anything but. Most people don't show up in dark suits, as did Gates and Crowley, just to have a beer late at night. Everyone had something to gain from the meeting -- Crowley got to demonstrate he's not some racist ogre, Gates that he can demonstrate some forbearance toward his erstwhile tormentor, Obama that he's not prejudging either party, and Biden... well, what did Biden have to prove? That he could let someone else get in a word edgewise during the confabulation?
For all the oddity of the meeting, there was something touching about the skill with which Obama, after beginning so poorly, managed to unite the formerly bickering parties. George W. Bush wouldn't have invited such adversaries to the White House, let alone been able to crack open a brew or any other alcoholic drink. For all the potshots at Obama as some Ivy League elitist, he wasn't serving Chardonnay, but the common man's drink, while engaging in his favorite, and most popular, role of conciliator.
Whether turning the White House into a beer garden can convert other adversaries into friends is an open question. Alcohol has always been a good presidential lubricant. Richard Nixon used to sail up and down the Potomac in the presidential yacht Sequoia with his chums enjoying a few stiff drinks. Maybe Obama should invite the heads of North and South Korea to his backyard or the presidents of Russia and Georgia to make nice in his backyard, while he pops open a few cold ones.
Perhaps the Gates-Crowley powwow hasn't just opened a new chapter in discussions about race, but also in world history.
President Barack Obama was absolutely correct when he stood by his assertion that police did not need to arrest Gates after he had proved it was his own home.
Obama said in an interview with ABC television that he has "extraordinary respect" for the challenges and hardships that law enforcement officers face every day in their line of work. But at the same time he said he didn't think the arrest was necessary.
GATES HAD PROVEN THAT HE WAS IN HIS OWN HOME.
THERE WAS NO NEED TO ARREST HIM.
President Obama said "cooler heads should have prevailed" in the incident. But he did not retract his initial statement that he thought police had "acted stupidly".
i agree with President Obama. Bottomline: Crowley caused this entire problem.
Once Gates had proven that he was in his own home, Crowley should have exited.
This is not rocket science. We all know what was going on here.
Crowley "acted stupidly" .
It seems that Obama picked up the baton exactly as it laid, picked it up without loss of time or yardage.
Surely the police, remembering how Daley's military-type handling of the Democratic Convention was brutal, over-responsive and singularly deleterious to our common national history, can see the irony of Obama coming from Chicago and holding no obvious politically-empowered resentment. Surely the police, for once in their long history of bad press, can choose to make some good press for themselves, and endeavor with sincerity to mend rather than burn.
A call to the Blue . . . nobody is yelling "Off the Pigs" these days. Do your job, walk with pride, protect and defend, and work hard to erase the racism that you must admit exists in too many corridors of your halls.
See:
http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/07/31/beer-summit-hangover/
President Obama comes out of this looking very naieve and comical- not Presidential at all
Your kidding. Right?
What can you expect? Obama can do NO WRONG.
What's next? Tequilla shot summit?
If Obama made gold fall out of the sky - you would be complaining that it's hitting you on the head!
We get it that you hate Obama, but you stressing out on his every move is going to backfire on you by taking a toll on your personal health. As I learned during the Bush years - sometimes you just have to let all it go.