Tuesday, Dec. 08, 2009
Beer Summit
How do you defuse a national controversy involving a prominent black professor accusing a white cop of racial profiling in an elite college town? How 'bout kicking back and popping open a cold one? That was apparently the thinking behind Barack Obama's invitation to Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sergeant James Crowley after the President told reporters that the Cambridge, Mass., police force had "acted stupidly" when they arrested Gates for disorderly conduct at his home. The beer summit, which took place on July 30 in the White House Rose Garden, went as smoothly as one could expect, what with a gaggle of clicking photographers lurking in the distance.